‘St Swithin, God bless him, knew all this, and it had probably occurred to him before that it was just the place for anyone who wanted to avoid publicity for a bit. He dared not see us again, for fear of losing his nerve. That’s why he wrote.’
‘But why did he send a chessman?’ said Marlowe.
‘If you’ll look at the paper over there,’ said Campion, ‘you’ll see. The name of the estate next door to Alaric Watts is Redding Knights. There’s a stream there where the old tin-hats used to have a wash and brush-up, I understand. That was St Swithin’s only way of telling us without writing the name, which might conceivably have been seen by anybody. That explains why I wanted you all to be as secret as an oyster about it.’
‘Good Lord, you knew the whole time!’ said Marlowe.
Giles looked at Isopel. The girl coloured faintly and met his glance.
‘I knew too,’ she said. ‘Albert told me the next morning.’
‘Toujours le Polytechnic,’ said Mr Campion hurriedly.
‘How on earth did you manage it?’ said Biddy.
‘It was the little grey books that did it,’ said Campion. ‘After half an hour’s reading my head swelled up. Within two hours I had qualified as a motor salesman, whereas before I used to sell pups. After three days –’
‘Chuck it!’ said Giles. ‘How did you do it?’
‘The ordinary Bokel Mind,’ began Mr Campion oracularly. ‘Deep, mysterious, and replete with low cunning though it is, is nothing compared to the stupendous mental machines owned by those two losses to the criminal world, George Willsmore, and ’Anry, his brother – who pips him easily in the matter of duplicity, by the way. In all my wide experience I have never come across two such Napoleons of deceit. They staged and arranged the whole affair, whilst I looked on and admired. Such technique!
‘I persuaded your father,’ he went on. ‘I pointed out that if I had a clear field and him out of danger, there was just a chance that our friends might be persuaded to show their hands. They have, up to a point, but not far enough. The old boy was very sporting, and, as I said, George and ’Anry did the rest. The remarkable disappearing act was nothing like as difficult as it looked, thank heaven! You must remember, both time and place were prearranged. ’Anry discovered the dead yew, and devised the whole scheme. George was waiting for your father inside the maze. Mr Lobbett’s tour was personally conducted by him. They toddled down that ditch which you discovered so inopportunely, Giles, only instead of going on to the road they ambled along the side of the hay field. The grass, being pretty high then, together with the depth of the dyke, hid them completely. From that they got quite easily into the mist tunnel without being observed. There’s a hut down there, isn’t there, Giles? Well, he changed there, since yokel garbage was absolutely necessary. ’Anry’s wife’s brother from Heronhoe was waiting in a rowboat just where the mist tunnel runs into the creek. It was high tide, you remember. He paddled your father down the river to a strip of coast where our good friend Alaric Watts was waiting for him in a car. There you are – quite easily done. ’Anry fixed the note on Addlepate’s collar. That was your father’s idea. I confess that, knowing the animal, I was dubious about that part of the scheme, but it worked all right.’
Giles was looking at him in undisguised horror.
‘George and ’Anry got Mr Lobbett into a boat where the mist tunnel runs into the creek?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know anyone would dare it.’
Campion eyed him curiously.
‘I don’t get you.’
Giles shrugged his shoulders.
‘It’s the most dangerous bit of “soft” on the coast,’ he said. ‘The sea’s encroaching every day, so it’s impossible to mark it. I’m always expecting that old hut to disappear.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Campion quietly. ‘I’ve underestimated those two. They’re Machiavellis. Anyhow, they got him away safely, all right. George’s one lapse occurred in that matter of the suit. He had orders to destroy it, but having a son-in-law who is a Brummel of Canvey Island, his frugal mind suggested that the clothes might come in useful for him. That’s how the rather serious misunderstanding which led to Biddy’s abduction occurred.’
‘Kettle simply untied the parcel, then?’ said Marlowe.
Campion nodded. ‘I imagine he was going through all our correspondence at the time. I chatted to George on the subject. He swore to me that he’d buried the clothes in the mud. Kettle, he insisted, must have dug them up again. That story didn’t wash, but it put me straight on to Kettle’s track; however, like an ass, I wasn’t fast enough.’
‘Sounds like a bit o’ the Decameron to me,’ said Mr Lugg unexpectedly. ‘Without the fun, as you might say.’
‘It is a bit of a mouthful,’ said Giles, ‘coming on top of everything else. What’s the next move? We’re all pretty well dead-beat, and I state here and now that the girls are out of it for the future.’
‘Quite right,’ said Campion. ‘“Over my dead body,” as Lugg would say.’
‘I’m all for that,’ said Marlowe.
The two girls were too tired to protest Biddy was already more than half asleep.
‘I suggest,’ said Mr Campion, ‘that I go down to Redding Knights straight away. I think we’ve got about four hours’ start. That’s why I haven’t been hurrying. Oh, they’re sure to get wind of that photograph,’ he went on, answering Giles’s unspoken question. ‘That’s one of those certain things. Half the crooks in London probably know there’s a reward in a certain quarter for information about the judge. I’ll set off right away, then.’
‘I’ll bring a couple o’ pennies down for yer eyes,’ said Mr Lugg, ‘And I’ll see you laid out proper.’
‘You’ll stay where you are,’ said Campion. ‘You’re going to be a ladies’ maid for a day or two. A mixture of ladies’ maid and bulldog.’ He turned to the girls. ‘You couldn’t be safer in Wormwood Scrubs.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘I’ll get my ’armonium out to-morrer. Give ’em a spot of music to cheer ’em up.’
‘Must you all go?’ Biddy looked at Campion imploringly.
Giles interrupted his reply. ‘Marlowe and I are going with Campion,’ he said stubbornly.
‘That’s so.’ The young American nodded. He went over to Biddy, and for a moment they spoke together.
‘I say, there’s one thing,’ said Giles suddenly, looking up. ‘Are you going to do all your rescue work in your giddy two-seater?’
‘Don’t insult her,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I’ve had her since she was a tricycle. Still, I hardly think she’s fit for Flying Squad work. You will now shut your eyes, and Uncle Albert will do one of his pret-ty con-jur-ing tricks, kid-dies. Lugg, I think this is just about the time to catch Brother Herbert, don’t you?’
Mr Lugg became supercilious immediately. ‘Very likely,’ he said, adding gratuitously: ‘Sittin’ up ’arf the night, excep’ on business, is my idea of a vice.’ He went to the telephone. After listening for some moments his expression changed to one of bitterest contempt, and he held the receiver some distance from his ear. ‘Mr Rudolph would like to speak to ‘is brother,’ he said. There was an indistinct reply, and Mr Lugg’s scow! darkened and his little eyes glittered with sudden anger. ‘Yus, and look nippy about it, my young gent’s gent,’ he said bitterly; then, turning to Campion, he mimicked a voice of horrible refinement: ‘’is Lordship is ’avin’ ‘is ’air curled and may be some moments comin’ to the phone.’
‘Hair curled?’ said Campion.
‘I dunno. Cleanin’ is teeth or somethink silly. ’Ere ’e is, sir.’
Campion took the phone.
‘Hullo, Sonny Boy,’ he said, grinning into the instrument. ‘Did she accept you? It’ll cost you seven and sixpence. Better buy a dog. Yes, boy, I said dog. I say, where’s the Bentley? Could you send her round? No, Wootton can leave her here. Oh, and by the way, Ivanhoe, now you’re sober you might point out to the family that you can only disinherit an offsp
ring once. One offspring – one disinheritance. Make that quite clear. Yes, I know it’s four o’clock in the morning. You’ll send the bus at once, won’t you? Yes, the business is looking up. I’m going to buy some braces with your crest on if the present boom continues. Cheerio, old son. I shall expect the car in five minutes. Good-bye.’
He rang off. ‘Once more into the breach, dear friends,’ he said, smiling at them. ‘We’ll take some brandy in a flask, Lugg. Look after the ladies. Don’t let them out We won’t be more than a couple of days at the most.’
‘Two young females in this ’ere flat,’ said Lugg. ‘Well!’
‘Shocking!’ agreed Campion. ‘I don’t know what my wife would say.’
Marlowe stared at him. ‘Good Lord, you haven’t a wife, have you?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Mr Campion. ‘That’s why I don’t know what she’d say. Get your coats on, my little Rotarians.’
25 The Bait
THEY DROVE ALL through the dawn: out of the city into Essex, and from Essex into Suffolk.
Marlowe and Giles dozed in the back of the Bentley. Campion sat at the wheel, his natural expression of vacant fatuity still upon his face.
But throughout that long drive, in spite of his weariness, his mind was working with unusual clarity, and by the time they turned into the drive he had come to an important decision.
They stumbled out of the car, sleepy and dishevelled, to find themselves outside an old house, ivy-covered and half hidden by towering cedars. There was an air of darkness and shadow in the big garden, of privacy undisturbed for centuries.
An old man admitted them to the house, accepting Campion’s explanation with quiet deference.
‘Mr O’Rell is having breakfast with the vicar, sir,’ he said. ‘Will you come this way?’
‘That’s your father’s nom de guerre,’ murmured Campion to Marlowe. ‘I wanted to call him Semple MacPherson, but he wouldn’t stand for it.’
They followed the man into a room which ran all along one side of the house. The outside wall had been taken down to allow space for a long creeper-covered conservatory, and it was here, sitting at the top of the stone steps leading down to a sloping lawn, that they found Judge Lobbett and his host at breakfast.
Old Crowdy Lobbett sprang up at the sight of them. His delight at seeing his son again was evident, but on seeing Giles’s bandaged face he turned to Campion with considerable anxiety.
‘Isopel and Miss Paget – are they all right?’
Marlowe answered him. ‘Quite safe now, dad. But Biddy had a terrible experience. Things have moved some.’
The old man was eager for explanations, but Alaric Watts came forward and he paused to introduce him.
Marlowe, once he realized that it was safe to speak before the vicar, sketched a rough outline of the affair in Kensington.
Crowdy Lobbett listened to him with growing excitement. At the end he rose to his feet and strode restlessly down the room.
‘This is terrible!’ he said. ‘Terrible! Always others. I seem to escape myself, but wherever I go, whoever comes in contact with me seems to suffer. I spread this danger like a plague.’
‘Oh, well, we’re all right for the present,’ said Giles, with an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘Marlowe and I aren’t really hurt, and Biddy and Isopel are perfectly safe for the time being. It’s what’s going to happen next that’s worrying us.’
Old Lobbett turned inquiringly to Campion, who had been unusually silent ever since their arrival. The young man smiled at him.
‘We’ve been spilling so many beans for your sake that we’ve forgotten the pork,’ he said. ‘It’s the morning papers that have brought us down here.’ He produced the back page of the famous daily from his pocket and handed it to the judge.
An exclamation escaped the old man as he saw the photograph Campion indicated, and he handed it to the vicar.
‘Disgusting!’ said Alaric with sudden heat. ‘Disgusting! It’s an ichthyosaurus, not a diplodocus. They’ll be calling it an iguanodon next. Cluer will be furious about this.’
‘Anyhow, it’s a darn good portrait,’ said Mr Campion. ‘That’s the real trouble.’
The seriousness of this new development was by no means lost upon Crowdy Lobbett. He had been lulled into a false security by the peace of Kepesake and by the absorbing interest of his new friends. His very blue eyes had grown darker, and the lines were deepening upon his still handsome face.
‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘This can’t go on any longer. I made up my mind that if this last scheme of yours failed, Campion, or if the danger threatened any of you youngsters, I should face this thing alone and take what’s coming to me. It’s the only way to buy immunity for those about me.’
Campion let the other two finish their outbursts against this suggestion without making any contribution towards it. At length his silence became noticeable, and they turned to him. Giles was angry.
‘Good Lord, Campion, you’re not saying that you agree with this ghastly idea?’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t stand it for a minute, sir,’ he went on, turning to the judge. ‘We’re in it now. We’ll see it through to the end. You’re with us in that, aren’t you, Campion?’
Campion shook his head slowly, and was about to speak, when the vicar interrupted him.
‘No doubt you would prefer to discuss your affairs without me,’ he said softly. ‘I shall be in my study when you want me.’ He went quietly out of the room; as the door closed behind him Giles and the father and son turned towards Mr Campion once more.
The effects of the night’s work had told upon him physically. There were dark shadows in his pale face, and behind the heavy glasses his eyes were inexpressibly weary. But his spirit was as effervescent as ever, and his voice, when he spoke, had lost none of its light-heartedness.
‘This rather ticklish question,’ he began, ‘has been dragged up before I meant it to be. Natheless, as they say in the writs, since the matter has now come to a head, let’s dot it. I think, if you don’t mind, sir,’ he went on, glancing at the judge, ‘a review of our transactions to date is clearly indicated. There’re one or two facts that are important and must be properly filed for reference.’
Judge Lobbett, who had now become accustomed to the young man’s somewhat misleading business manner, signalled to him to go on.
‘First of all,’ said Campion, ‘Old Airy-fairy Simister, who, as we all know, is anxious to remain a kind of Machiavellian Mrs Harris, has a theory that you have a line on his birth certificate. So you have, but since it’s written in Esperanto, or something, you can’t read it. He doesn’t know what you’ve got hold of, and realizes that he wouldn’t recognize it if he saw it.’ He paused and glanced round at them. ‘Any boy who does not follow that, please put up his hand. All got there? Good! I’ll carry on. He realized it was impossible to kidnap you in New York without running undue risk, so he hit on the ingenious little plan of scaring you out of action. That proving unsatisfactory, he invented a sensational killing on board ship. The untimely end of my poor Haig finished that idea for him. Now we come to Mystery Mile.’ He talked on hurriedly, peering at them anxiously through his heavy spectacles.
‘There, as we know, we were spotted straight away, and poor old St Swithin got it in the neck, more by luck than judgement on Simister’s part, I fancy. There’s a mystery there we haven’t fathomed yet, by the way.’
He paused for breath.
Judge Lobbett was bending forward intently. Campion continued:
‘To return to little Albert,’ he said. ‘How did the famous sleuth go to work? First of all he gained the confidence of our client here. How did he do this? He detailed to Mr Lobbett senior the facts appertaining to the putting-away of Joe Gregory, a gentleman who crossed upon the same boat unspotted by anyone except his own dirty soul and myself.’
The judge turned to Marlowe. ‘That was so,’ he said. ‘Until Campion convinced me of that I thought he was some young adventurer who had got hold of you. I don’
t suppose you remember hearing about Gregory. I sent him down for a long term some years ago. He was one of Simister’s men. When I found that out it impressed me very considerably.’
‘Thousands of these splendid testimonials at our head office,’ murmured Campion, and continued: ‘It was through this, then, that Our Hero and the Guv’nor got down to business on the disappearing act. Mr Lobbett agreed with me that our best chance was to make them show their hand a bit. This was done by our sensational vanishing performance at the maze. So far so good. The clever detective’s splendid ruse worked sensationally, apart from one or two nasty bloomers which resulted in Biddy’s adventure.
‘Then, as the movies have it, “Chance with her Fateful Finger, Like a Cheap Loud Speaker, Bellowed our Little Secret to the Waiting World”, and now you and little Albert are in the bouillabaisse.’
‘You really expect them any minute, I suppose?’ said Marlowe.
‘Hardly,’ said Mr Campion judicially. ‘We learned a good deal via Knapp and Biddy. In the first place, we discovered that Old Holy Smoke, the Voice in the Dark, was using our friend Datchett and his neat little organization, plus a pretty selection of thugs. That is to say that we know exactly who our enemies are with the single exception of our little Sim himself, who, by the way, is probably some well-known and respected person, like the Premier, or Mr Home, of the Home and Colonial.’
‘You don’t think he’s got any of his own men over here?’ It was Judge Lobbett who spoke.
‘It all depends on what you mean,’ said Campion. ‘I’m not sure whether Mr Datchett isn’t one of his own men. Certainly, he is second in command at the moment. And that is where we come to our second slight advantage. If ever anyone had his headquarters and staff mucked up completely, the man is Datchett. He himself is probably not yet convalescent. That gives us time, anyway. It also gives us the blessed possibility that the Big Bezezus himself will turn up to make a personal affair of it. It’s well on the cards, I think.’
Mystery Mile Page 18