‘Datchett?’ said Biddy quickly. ‘The fortune teller? Is that who it was?’
‘Mr Datchett it was,’ said Campion grimly. ‘About the worst type imaginable – a blackmailer.’
‘Of course, our friend Thos is –’ began Marlowe softly.
Mr Campion grimaced at him. ‘What do you want to bring that up for?’ he said, and they drove on in silence.
By tacit consent no word was spoken of Biddy’s adventure. Campion seemed to wish to keep the matter as much to themselves as possible.
It was about one o’clock when they reached the dark entrance beside the police station.
‘Thank you, no.’ There was a note of complete finality in Mr Barber’s reply when they asked him to come in. ‘You will forgive me, but I feel I should like a Turkish bath.’ He hesitated, and looked at Biddy. ‘I had hoped to obtain your brother’s consent to my handling the sale of his picture,’ he said wistfully.
Biddy stared at him. Had she not been so exhausted she would have laughed. This sudden explanation of his presence in the midst of such an extraordinary adventure touched her sense of the absurd.
‘I think I can promise you that will be all right,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for all you’ve done for us.’
Mr Barber beamed. ‘I shall hold you to that promise,’ he said. ‘You have no idea of the value, the exquisite state of preservation, the –’
Campion touched his arm. ‘Not now, old boy,’ he said wearily. ‘Go to bye-byes. Nice long day tomorrow.’
Marlowe and Biddy were already climbing the stairs. Campion turned into the doorway and walked slowly after the others. He climbed leisurely, his face was lined and sweat-marked: the ordeal of the last few hours had left its mark.
When he arrived, Isopel, white and tired from her long vigil, had already got the door open.
‘You’ve done it!’ she said hysterically. ‘Oh, Biddy, thank God they’ve got you back! Where’s Giles?’ she added nervously as Campion closed the door behind him.
‘He’s all right,’ said Marlowe reassuringly. ‘Lugg will bring him round in a moment.’
‘Bring him round?’ Her eyes widened. ‘He’s hurt?’
‘Not badly.’ It was Biddy who spoke. ‘His cheek’s cut. Oh, Isopel, they were marvellous.’ She threw herself down into an armchair and covered her face with her hands. ‘Now it’s all over,’ she said, ‘I do believe I’m going to cry.’
Marlowe perched himself on the arm of her chair and put a hand on her shoulder soothingly.
‘Food,’ said Mr Campion. ‘When depressed, eat. Full story of the crime in the later editions. Isopel, have you had any food?’
The girl shook her head. ‘I – I wasn’t hungry.’
‘That makes it more difficult. Rodriguez has gone home to roost long ago. We must see what Lugg eats.’ He disappeared into the back of the flat. All this time he had studiously avoided Biddy, and it suddenly dawned upon Isobel what he had meant when he made his slightly comic exit down the lift shaft.
‘What a gastronomic failure the British Burglar is,’ he remarked, reappearing. ‘A tin of herrings, half a Dutch cheese, some patent bread for reducing the figure, and several bottles of stout. Still, better than nothing. There’s some Benedictine in that cupboard by you, Marlowe. The whisky’s there, too, and there’s a box of biscuits somewhere. Night scene in Mayfair flat – four herring addicts, addicting. Of course, a wash isn’t a bad idea,’ he went on, looking down at himself. ‘Isopel, look after Biddy in my room, and we’ll see what we can get off on the towels in the bathroom, Marlowe. Our hostess was doubtless a good mother, but as a housewife she was a menace.’
‘I’ll say you’re right,’ said Marlowe. ‘With all due deference, I guess I’ll have to burn these clothes.’
‘It was a bit like that,’ Campion agreed. ‘I’ve got a spot of gent’s natty suiting in the next room if you’d care for it.’
Giles and Lugg returned about an hour later, when they had washed and fed. The boy was bandaged pretty thoroughly, and Isopel fluttered about him in a manner which he found most gratifying.
Mr Lugg looked round the flat in disgust. ‘You ’ave bin ’avin’ a picnic, ain’t you?’ he remarked. ‘Washin’ for one thing, and eatin’ my best bit o’ cheese for another. A cheese like that lasts me thirty days without the op. Good job me an’ the young un ’ad a bit at a coffee stall, otherwise cheese rind an’ ’erring juice’d be our portion, as the Scriptures ’ave it.’
‘The time has come,’ said Campion, ignoring him, ‘when we gather round Biddy and hear the worst. Look here, old dear,’ he went on, looking at the girl, ‘I don’t want you to talk now if it’s going to knock you up any more. We’re as safe here as anywhere for the time being.’
The girl looked at him gratefully. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I’ve been telling Isopel in the next room, and I must get it off my chest to you all, or I shall think that I went mad and imagined the whole thing.’
‘Stupendous,’ said Campion. ‘Imagine we’re a Sunday paper. Spare us nothing. Not a single gruesome detail.’
They had drawn round the girl, who was lying propped up on the Chesterfield. Marlowe sat on the back of the couch, Isopel on the floor beside her, Campion straddling a chair before her, and Giles and Lugg on either side of him.
Biddy looked at them helplessly. ‘The awful part of it is,’ she said, ‘I can remember so little. I’ll tell you all I can. I went into the post office at home.’
‘That was this morning,’ said Giles. ‘Or rather, yesterday morning, now, I suppose.’
She looked at him blankly. ‘It must be longer ago than that,’ she said. ‘Why, I –’
‘Never mind,’ said Marlowe gently. ‘I guess we know what happened at Kettle’s.’
‘That’s more than I do,’ said Biddy. ‘It seems so long ago. I remember he told me he had something to show me if I would come into the inner room for a moment. I went in, of course – naturally. Then I think someone must have jumped upon me from behind, and I can’t remember anything else at all until I woke up feeling most dreadfully sick in a sort of box. I thought I was in a coffin. I was terrified. It was like all the bad dreams I’d ever had. I kicked and screamed, and they let me out. I was in a room – it must have been in that house you came to. I was feeling horribly sick, and I had a filthy taste in my mouth. I was still doped a bit, I suppose.’
Marlowe made an inarticulate sound, and she smiled up at him faintly.
‘I’m better now,’ she said. ‘And, oh, I’ll tell you something, Albert,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘they weren’t the right people. I mean, they weren’t the people who got Mr Lobbett. They were a different lot. They thought I knew where he was. That’s what they kept questioning me about. They wouldn’t believe that I didn’t know anything.’
‘Hold on a moment,’ said Giles. ‘There’s something here that’s got to be cleared up, Biddy. What made them think that you knew?’
There was an unconscious movement among the group round the girl on the couch. This question, which had been forgotten in the excitement of the past few hours, now returned to their minds with redoubled importance. Looking at Biddy it seemed impossible to connect her with any duplicity.
She frowned at them. ‘I couldn’t quite make that out,’ she said. ‘It was something about my handwriting.’
‘See here,’ said Marlowe, ‘it’s up to us to explain to Biddy all that we know. Remember, we’ve only got Knapp’s word for it, but he says he overheard a ’phone message which said that you had posted a parcel containing the suit dad was wearing when he disappeared. That’s roughly why you were kidnapped.’
Biddy shook her head. ‘I’m none the wiser,’ she said. ‘I sent no parcel. And yet Kettle could hardly mistake my handwriting – he’s seen it so often.’
‘Well, did you write anything?’ said Giles. ‘Who have you written to lately?’
Biddy remained thoughtful. ‘No one,’ she said at last. ‘I paid a few bills. Unless –
oh, Giles – it couldn’t be George? He couldn’t –’
Campion became interested immediately. ‘George couldn’t what?’ he said.
‘George couldn’t write,’ said Biddy. ‘Amongst other things. But, Albert, he couldn’t be mixed up in this. That’s fantastic.
‘Couldn’t write?’ said Marlowe. ‘That’s fantastic, if you like.’
‘But I did write something for George,’ said Biddy. ‘You see, poor old St Swithin used to write all his letters for him – make up his bills and everything. He came to me with a sticky label. I remember when it was – it was the morning after Mr Lobbett disappeared. I remember that because I was so tired. It seemed to me absurd that anyone could be thinking of ordinary things, like sending off a parcel.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Campion. ‘Do you remember the address?’
‘Yes,’ said Biddy. ‘It was sent to Mrs Pattern. That’s his daughter, the one who married the garage man and went to Canvey Island. I send her things sometimes. He told me he was sending her some roots.’
‘A funny time of year to send roots,’ said Giles.
Biddy nodded. ‘It is,’ she confessed. ‘But of course I didn’t notice it at the time. The whole thing seems crazy even now. He can’t know anything about it, Giles – we’ve known him all our lives.’
‘The old devil probably found the clothes and sent them off without saying anything. That’s about it,’ said Giles. ‘All the same, he’ll have to explain himself pretty thoroughly.’
‘Even so,’ said Marlowe, ‘wouldn’t this chap Kettle know who sent the parcel? George must have posted it himself.’
‘That doesn’t follow,’ said Giles. ‘He used to take all the letters from the Manor, and the Dower House, too, for that matter. He called for them when he passed. He’s done it for years. It’s one of his jobs.’
‘That’s about the explanation,’ said Campion. ‘Carry on, old dear. How long were they cross-questioning you?’
The fear returned to the girl’s eyes. ‘It seemed days,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how long it was really. It was that awful little man who frightened me most.’
An expression of satisfaction appeared in Marlowe’s face. ‘He’ll never do it again,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand, Biddy. Were they at you the whole time?’
‘Yes. I was tied up when they took me out of the box. I felt most desperately ill. I think I fainted.’
‘What did you tell them?’ said Campion.
‘What could I tell them? They wanted to know where Mr Lobbett was. I didn’t know. I told him we thought he had been kidnapped, and they laughed at me. They made all sorts of threats and promises. Oh, it – it was horrible.’
For a moment she seemed about to break down, but controlled herself. ‘I never understood before,’ she burst out suddenly, ‘how real it all is. St Swithin’s death left me numbed and stupid, I think. When Mr Lobbett disappeared and that absurd message arrived, and then the clothes turned up, my mind didn’t seem to register it all. But then, when they were questioning me, I suddenly grasped how desperately serious they were. Do you realize, all of you, that either their leader, whom I didn’t see, or Mr Lobbett, is bound to die? It’s a death game.’
Although this thought had come to them all at different times, Biddy’s point-blank acknowledgment of it startled them considerably.
Campion got up. ‘That’s what I’ve known all along,’ he said in a tone utterly unlike his usual flippancy.
‘They didn’t get anything out of me,’ said Biddy, ‘because I didn’t know anything. But if I had’ – she looked round at them, her brown eyes wide and honest – ‘I would have told. I was just scared stiff. I was frightened they were going to kill me or put my eyes out. You do understand me, don’t you?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Marlowe. ‘And you’re quite right, too. Campion, we can’t bring Biddy and Giles into it any longer. We –’
Giles interrupted him. ‘We’re staying. I’m speaking for Biddy, I know, but I think we understand one another.’
‘We’re staying,’ repeated the girl. ‘I insisted on being in it. I feel quite brave, now you’ve rescued me,’ she added, laughing nervously.
Mr Lugg, who had absented himself during the latter part of the conversation, now returned. ‘I got a mornin’ paper,’ he said. ‘It’s just past three. “Mystery Fire at Kensington” is our little do. Listen to this:
‘The Kensington Fire Brigades were called out last night to a mysterious outbreak which occurred at 32 Beverley Gardens, W8. Two interesting features are reported. The dense clouds of smoke which were thought to be caused by fire were produced by chemical means. The second mysterious feature is that several men were removed from the house in an unconscious condition not altogether caused by the fumes. The police are investigating the incident.
‘Couple o’ inches, that’s all we get,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘A lovely show like that – a couple o’ inches. Wait until the News o’ the World publish my life. “I was drove to it”, says famous crook.’
He threw the paper down contemptuously. Marlowe picked it up and was turning to the stop press when a picture on the back page attracted his attention. He studied it intently.
‘Good Lord!’ he said suddenly. ‘I thought that was dad.’
Campion bounded to his feet and was beside him in an instant.
‘Where?’ he said, snatching the paper with altogether uncalled-for excitement.
‘Here,’ said Marlowe, pointing over his shoulder at the photograph of a man evidently caught unexpectedly, glancing back as if at some sudden sound. The caption was not particularly enlightening:
Giant Diplodocus in Suffolk – Our special photographer, with long-distance camera, manages to catch a glimpse of archaeologists at work. Great secrecy is still being maintained by the Hon. Elwin Cluer over the remarkable discovery in his grounds at Redding Knights, near Debenham, Suffolk.
‘It’s infernally like him,’ said Giles, joining the other two.
‘Like him,’ said Mr Campion, stammering. ‘Don’t you see, my babes in the wood, the ultimately improbable and ghastly has occurred on this blessed night of all nights?’
‘It’s damnably like him,’ said Marlowe.
‘Of course it is.’ Mr Campion was shouting in his consternation. ‘It is him. I put him there.’
24 ‘Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends’
FOR SOME MOMENTS after Mr Campion’s startling announcement no one spoke.
‘You’d better explain, Albert,’ said Isopel at last.
‘I suppose I had,’ Campion agreed. ‘We shall have to get a move on pretty quickly, too. We shan’t be the only people to spot this disgusting example of newspaper nosery. This rag has a couple of million circulation. I’m desperately sorry, all of you,’ he went on hurriedly, as they sat staring at him. ‘I’ve added to the anxiety of the past day or two, but it couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, but I wanted you all to live up to your parts. I didn’t know what steps they’d take to get information from us, and I wanted to be quite sure that you were all genuinely in the dark.’
‘But he disappeared in front of us,’ said Biddy. ‘I was with you. You were talking to me.’
‘He helped,’ admitted Campion. ‘He and George really did the thing between them. A good old-fashioned put-up job, in fact. You see,’ he went on, turning to Marlowe, ‘things were getting too hot.’
‘They pinked us the first evening you got down – Datchett turned up. I didn’t recognize him, and for the moment he put the wind up me. I thought he might be the Big Bezezus himself. Then poor old St Swithin shot himself. I was in the dark over that – I am still, up to a point. It’s quite obvious now that this chap and his pals are being employed by Simister, and for a very good reason. This chap had just the outfit that the Big Noise needed. He seems to have a collection of informers all over the country – gossips, small agents, and the like. Kettle was one of them. That sort of reptile provided him with his best c
lients. They collected the evidence; Datchett collected the blackmail. Not a certificate “U” production.’
‘I don’t quite get this,’ said Marlowe. ‘Did that fortune teller try to force the old minister to double-cross us?’
‘That’s about it,’ said Campion. ‘He probably realized that Kettle would be precious little help to him, apart from spotting us in the first place, and he wanted St Swithin to give him the goods from inside.’
‘And St Swithin shot himself rather than do it?’ said Giles.
Campion hesitated. ‘I’m afraid,’ he said at last, ‘that it was a pretty substantial threat which Datchett held over him. I fancy the old boy must have been sucked dry long before this. It was obviously some sort of exposure that he feared and he had no means to buy himself off any longer.’
‘But what could he have feared?’ said Biddy. ‘It’s absurd.’
‘We can’t tell what it was, old dear’ – Campion spoke gently – ‘but what I do know is that his last thought was to help us, and he did it in a most effective and practical manner. He sent us sound advice which arrived in the rather melodramatic fashion that it did only because he was so desperately anxious that only the person who was directly concerned should understand it.’
‘That was you,’ said Giles.
Campion nodded.
‘I wasn’t any too quick on the up-take,’ he said. ‘The messages didn’t come in their right order. Yours, Biddy, “Danger”, should have come first. That was to break any illusions we may have had about Datchett as a fortune teller. Then there was Alaric Watts – one of the most interesting old men I’ve met for a long time. When in doubt, I fancy, St Swithin appealed to Alaric Watts, though he never took his principal trouble to him. And then, of course, there was the red knight. I didn’t get that until I went over to see Watts. It appears that he has a great pal next door who is an old fossil monger. In his somewhat hefty back garden the early Britons built a church, bits of which he ferrets up from time to time. While they were on one of these pot-hunting expeditions they dogged up a toenail as big as a dining table, which cheered things up all round. The press got wind of it, and old Cluer – that’s the man I’ve been talking about – barricaded himself in and made a kind of fortress. No one was allowed in or out without their G.F.S. badge.
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