Mr Campion & Others Read online

  Mr Campion was still debating his next move when Dora came in, a vision of fox-furs and smiles.

  ‘My dear!’ she said. ‘You haven’t been to see us for years and years and now you turn up when I’m due out to lunch in fifteen minutes. Where have you been?’

  ‘About,’ said Mr Campion truthfully, reflecting that it was all wrong that the people one never had time to visit were always one’s oldest and closest friends.

  They drank a cocktail together and were still reminiscing happily when Dora’s luncheon escort arrived. In the end Mr Campion showed his hostess out of her own house and was standing rather forlornly on the pavement, waving after her departing car, when he observed a familiar figure stumping dejectedly down the steps which he had so recently descended himself.

  ‘Jonathan!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Mr Jonathan Peters started violently, as if he had been caught sleep-walking, and looked up with only a faint smile on his gloomy young face.

  ‘Hallo, Campion,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see you. I’ve been kicking my heels in the breakfast-room. Hell! let’s go and have a drink.’

  In the end, after some half-hearted bickering, they went along to that home from home, the Junior Greys, and Mr Campion, who, in company with the rest of the world, considered himself to be the best listener on earth, persuaded his young acquaintance to unburden himself.

  Jonathan was a younger brother of the two Peters who had been Campion’s Cambridge companions, and in the ordinary way the ten years’ difference in their ages would have raised an insurmountable barrier between them; but at the moment Jonathan was a man with a sorrow.

  ‘It’s Gina,’ he said. ‘We’re engaged, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Mr Campion was interested. ‘What’s the row?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose it’ll be all right in the end.’ The young man sounded wistful and only partially convinced. ‘I mean, I think she’ll come round. Anyway, I hope so. What annoys me is that I’m the one with the grievance, and yet here I am dithering around as though it were all my fault.’ He frowned and shook his head over the unreasonableness of life in general and love in particular.

  ‘You were at Porky Allenbrough’s show last night, I suppose?’ Mr Campion put the question innocently and was rewarded.

  ‘Yes, we both were. I didn’t see you there. There was a tremendous crush and it might have been a really good bust if it hadn’t been for one thing and another. I’ve got a genuine grouch, you know.’ Mr Peters’ young face was very earnest, and under the influence of half a pint of excellent Chablis he came out with the full story.

  As far as Mr Campion could make out from his somewhat disjointed account the history was a simple one. Miss Gina Gray, while enjoying the London season, had yet not wished to give up all strenuous physical exercise and so had formed the habit of hunting with the Whippersfield five or six times a month. On these occasions she had been entertained by a relation of Dora Carrington’s husband who lived in the district and had very kindly stabled her horses for her. Her custom had been to run down by car early in the morning, returning to London either at night or on the following day.

  In view of all this hospitality, it had been arranged that she should go to the Priory Ball with her host and his party, while Jonathan should attend with another group of people from a different house. The arrangement between the couple had been, therefore, that, while Gina should arrive at the ball with her own crowd, Jonathan should have the privilege of driving her back before rejoining his own host and hostess.

  ‘It was a bit thick,’ he concluded resentfully. ‘Gina turned up with a crowd of people I didn’t know, including a lad whom nobody seemed to have seen before. She danced with him most of the evening and finally he drove her home himself. He left me a message to say so, the little toot. I felt fed up and I imagine I may have got pretty tight, but anyway, when I arrived at the town house this morning ready to forgive and forget like a hero, she wouldn’t even see me.’

  ‘Infuriating,’ agreed Mr Campion, his eyes thoughtful. ‘Did you find out who this interloping tick happened to be?’

  Jonathan shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I did hear his name … Robertson, or something. Apparently he’s been hunting fairly regularly this season and he came along with Gina’s lot. That’s all I know.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  Jonathan screwed up his eyes in an effort of recollection.

  ‘An ugly blighter,’ he said at last. ‘Ordinary height, I think. I don’t remember much about him except that I disliked his face.’

  It was not a very helpful description, but Mr Campion sat pondering over it for some time after the despondent Jonathan had wandered off to keep an afternoon appointment.

  Suddenly he sat up, a new expression on his lean, good-humoured face.

  ‘Rocks,’ he said under his breath. ‘Rocks Denver …’ and he made for the nearest telephone.

  It was nine o’clock that evening when Superintendent Oates came striding into his office and, flinging his hat upon the desk, turned to survey the elegant, dinner-jacketed visitor who had been patiently awaiting his arrival for the best part of half an hour.

  ‘Got him,’ he said briefly. ‘The lads shadowed him to Peachy Dale’s club in Rosebery Avenue, and then, of course, we knew we were safe. Peachy may be a rotten fence, but he’s the only man in London who would have handled those snuff-boxes, now I come to think of it. It was a lovely cop. We gave him time to get settled and then closed in on all five entrances. There he was with the stuff in a satchel. It was beautiful. I’ve never seen a man so astounded in my life.’

  He paused and a reminiscent smile floated over his sad face.

  ‘A little work of art, that’s what that arrest was, a little work of art.’

  ‘That’s fine, then,’ said his visitor, rising. ‘I think I’ll drift.’

  ‘No you don’t, my lad.’ The Superintendent was firm. ‘You don’t do conjuring tricks under my nose without an explanation. You come across.’

  Mr Campion sighed.

  ‘My dear good Enthusiast, what more can you possibly want?’ he protested. ‘You’ve got the man and you’ve got the swag. That’s enough for a conviction – and Porky’s blessing.’

  ‘Very likely, but what about my dignity?’ Oates was severe. ‘It may be enough for the Bench, but it’s not enough for me. Who do you think you are, the Home Office?’

  ‘Heaven forbid,’ said Mr Campion piously. ‘I thought you might express your ingratitude in this revolting way. Look here, if I explain, my witness doesn’t go into Court. Is that a bet?’

  The Superintendent held out his hand.

  ‘May I be struck pink,’ he said sincerely. ‘I mean it!’

  Since he knew from experience that this was an oath that Oates held peculiarly sacred, Mr Campion relented.

  ‘Give me twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and fetch her.’

  Oates groaned. ‘Another woman!’ he exploded. ‘You find ’em, don’t you? All right, I’ll wait.’

  Miss Gina Gray looked so genuinely pathetic as she came into the office clinging to Mr Campion’s arm a little over half an hour later that Oates, who had an unexpected weakness for youth and beauty, was inclined to be mollified. Campion observed the first signs of his heavily avuncular mood with relief.

  ‘It’s perfectly all right,’ he said to the girl at his side. ‘I’ve given you my word you’ll be kept clean out of it. This solemn-looking person will be struck a fine hunting pink if he attempts to make me break it. That’s written in the unchanging stars. Isn’t that so, Superintendent?’

  Oates regarded him with fishy eyes.

  ‘You go and put on your mask,’ he said. ‘Now, what is all this? What’s been going on?’

  Gina Gray required a little gentle pumping, but beneath Campion’s expert treatment she began to relax, and within ten minutes she was pouring out her story with all the energy of injured innocence behind it.

&nbs
p; ‘I met the man I knew as Tony Roberts – you say his real name is Rocks Denver – in the hunting-field,’ she said. ‘He always seemed to be out when I was, and he talked to me as people do out hunting. I didn’t know him, he wasn’t a friend, but I got used to him being about. He rode very well and he helped me out of a mess once or twice. You know that sort of acquaintance, don’t you?’

  Oates nodded and shook his head. He was smiling.

  ‘We do,’ he said. ‘And then what?’

  ‘Then nothing,’ declared Miss Gray innocently. ‘Nothing at all until last night. We were all getting ready to go to the Priory in three or four cars when he phoned me at Major Carrington’s, where I was staying, and said his car had broken down in the village and he’d got to leave it and would it be awful cheek of him to ask if one of us would give him a lift to the hall. I said of course, naturally, and when we met him trudging along, rather disconsolate in full kit, we stopped and picked him up.’

  Oates glanced at Campion triumphantly.

  ‘So that’s how he got in?’ he said. ‘Neat, eh? I see, Miss Gray. And then when you got your acquaintance to the party you didn’t like to leave him cold. Is that how it was?’

  The girl blushed and her dark eyes were very frank.

  ‘Well, he was rather out of everything and he did dance very well,’ she admitted apologetically. ‘He hadn’t talked much about himself, and it was only then I realised he didn’t live near and didn’t know everybody else. His – his manners were all right.’

  Oates laughed. ‘Oh yes, Rocky’s very presentable,’ he agreed. ‘He’s one of the lads who let his old school down, I’m afraid. Well, and then what?’

  She hesitated and turned to Campion.

  ‘I’ve been so incredibly silly,’ she murmured. It was a direct appeal, and the Superintendent was not unchivalrous.

  ‘There’s nothing new in that, Miss,’ he observed kindly. ‘We all make errors of judgement at times. You missed him for a bit, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I danced with several people and I’d half forgotten him when he turned up at my elbow with a raincoat over his arm. He took me out on the terrace and put it over my shoulders and said – oh, a lot of silly things about being there alone without a soul to speak to. He said he’d found one man he knew, but that he was wrapped up with some woman or other, and suggested that we borrowed this friend’s car and went for a run round. It was getting rather late and I was livid with Jonathan anyway, so I said all right.’

  ‘Why were you livid with Jonathan?’ Campion put the question curiously and Miss Gray met his eyes.

  ‘He got jealous as soon as we arrived and drowned his sorrows rather too soon.’

  ‘I see.’ Campion smiled as he began to understand Mr Peters’ astonishing magnanimity, which had hitherto seemed somewhat too saintly to be strictly in character.

  ‘Well then …’ Oates went back to the main story, ‘… off you went in the car. You drove around for quite a while.’

  Gina took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes,’ she said steadily. ‘We drove around for a bit, but not very far. The car wasn’t his, you see, and he had trouble with it. It started all right, but it conked out down the lane and he was fooling about with it for a long time. He got so frightfully angry that I began to feel – well, rather uncomfortable. Also I was cold. He had taken the raincoat off my shoulders and flung it in the back seat, and I remembered that it was heavy and warm, so I turned to get it. Just then he closed the bonnet and came back. He snatched the coat and swore at me, and I began to get thoroughly frightened. I tried to persuade him to take me back, but he just drove on down the lane towards the main road. It was then that we passed the three policemen on motor-cycles racing towards the Priory. That seemed to unnerve him completely and he turned off towards Major Carrington’s house, with the car limping and misfiring all the time. I didn’t know what to do. I was far too frightened to make a row, you see, because I was a guest at the Major’s, and – well, there was Jonathan and Aunt Dora to consider and – oh, you do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Campion gravely. ‘When did you take off your ring?’

  She gaped at him.

  ‘Why, at that moment,’ she said. ‘How did you know? It’s a stupid trick I have when I’m nervous. It was rather loose, and I pulled it off and started to play with it. He looked down and saw me with it and seemed to lose his head. He snatched it out of my hand and demanded to know where I’d got it, and then, when he saw it clearly by the dashboard light, he suddenly pitched it out of the window in disgust. It was so utterly unexpected that I forgot where I was and made a leap for it across him. Then – then I’m afraid the car turned over.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Oates inadequately. ‘And so there you were, so to speak.’

  She nodded gravely. ‘I was so frightened,’ she said. ‘Fortunately we were quite near the house, but my dress was spoilt and I was shaken and bruised, and I just set off across the fields and let myself in by the stable gate. He came after me, and we had a dreadful sort of row in whispers, out in the drive. He wanted me to put him up for the night, and didn’t seem to realise that I was a visitor and couldn’t dream of doing such a thing. In the end I showed him where the saddle-room was, off the stable yard. There was a stove there and some rugs and things. Then I sneaked up to my own room and went to bed. This morning I pretended that I’d had a headache and got somebody to give me a lift home. He’d gone by then, of course.’

  ‘Of course he had. Hopped on one of those country buses before the servants stirred,’ Oates put in with satisfaction. ‘He relied on you to hold your tongue for your own sake.’

  ‘There wasn’t much else he could do in the circumstances,’ observed Campion mildly. ‘Once he had the howling misfortune to pick a sick car all his original plans went to pieces. He used Miss Gray to get the stuff safely out of the house in the usual false pocket of the raincoat. Then his idea must have been to drive her a mile or two down the road and strand her, while he toddled off to Town alone. The breakdown delayed him and, once he saw the police were about, he knew the cordon would go round and that he was trapped, so he had to think out other tactics. That exercise seems to have unnerved him entirely. I can understand him wanting to get into the house. After all, it’d be a first-class hiding-place in the circumstances. Yes, well, that’s fairly clear now, I hope, Superintendent. Here’s your ring, Miss Gray.’

  As Gina put out her hand for the trinket her eyes grew puzzled.

  ‘You’re a very frightening person,’ she said. ‘How on earth did you know it was mine?’

  ‘Quite.’ Oates was frankly suspicious. ‘If you’ve never met this young lady before, I don’t see how you guessed it belonged to her.’

  Campion stood regarding the girl with genuine surprise.

  ‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘surely you know yourself? Who had this ring made for you?’

  ‘No one. It was left to me. My father’s sister died about six months ago and told me in a letter always to wear it for luck. It doesn’t seem to have brought me much.’

  For a moment Campion seemed completely bewildered. After a while, however, he laughed.

  ‘Your father’s sister? Were you named after her?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’ Miss Gray’s dark eyes were widening visibly. ‘How do you know all this? You’re frightening.’

  Campion took the ring between his thumb and forefinger and turned it slowly round, while the stones winked and glittered in the hard electric light.

  ‘It’s such a simple trick I hardly like to explain and spoil the effect,’ he said. ‘About fifty years ago it was a fairly common conceit to give young ladies rings like this. You see, I knew this was Gina Gray’s ring because it had her name on the wrapper, as it were. Look, start at the little gold star and what have you? Garnet, Indicolite – that’s an indigo variety of tourmaline, Superintendent – Nephrite, Amethyst, then another smaller gold star and Garnet again, Rose Quartz, Agate and finally Yellow Sap
phire. There you are. I thought you must know. G.I.N.A. G.R.A.Y., all done according to the best sentimental jewellery tradition. As soon as I came to consider the ring in cold blood it was obvious. Look at it, Oates. What man in his senses would put that collection of stones together if he didn’t mean something by them?’

  The Superintendent did not answer immediately. He sat turning the ring round and round with an expression of grudging astonishment on his grey face. When at last he did look up he expressed himself unexpectedly.

  ‘Fancy that,’ he said. ‘Dear me.’

  When Miss Gray had departed in a taxicab, which, on Mr Campion’s suggestion, a patient and sober Jonathan had kept ticking up outside on the Embankment during the whole of the short interview, he was more explicit.

  ‘She had her name on it,’ he said after a moment or two of purely decorative imagery. ‘She had her dear little name on it! Very smart of you, Mr Campion. Don’t let it go to your head. I don’t know if I’m quite satisfied yet. Who put you on to Rocky? Why Rocky? Why not any other of the fifty first-class jewel thieves in London?’

  Campion grinned. It was not often that the Superintendent condescended to ask straight questions and he felt justifiably gratified by the phenomenon.

  ‘You said he was a “pro”,’ he explained. ‘That was the first step. Then young Jonathan Peters told me Gina had met the fellow hunting regularly, and so, putting two and two together, I arrived at Rocky. Rocky is an anachronism in the underworld; he can ride. How many jewel thieves do you know who can ride well enough to turn up at a hunt, pay their caps, and not make an exhibition of themselves? Hunting over strange country isn’t trotting round the Row, you know.’

  Oates shook his head sadly.

  ‘You depress me,’ he said. ‘First you think of the obvious and then you go and say it, and then you’re proved right. It’s very irritating. The ring was a new one on me, though. D’you know, I wouldn’t mind giving my wife one of those. It’s a pretty idea. She’d like it. Besides,’ he added seriously, ‘it might come in useful some time. You never know.’