The China Governess

by Margery Allingham

  ‘I like this pub of yours. I’d like to live here for a couple of weeks every other year.’ Although he was grinning he was not entirely joking and his narrow black eyes, which had brows like circumflex accents, were serious as he glanced across at Julia. Something about her had made him gloomy, she was surprised to see.

  ‘And how is the teenage world?’ he inquired abruptly, revealing his train of thought. ‘All dreams and dance dresses I hope. That’s how it ought to be. Something with a future if it’s only disillusion. Mine is more homely country and that’s in the American sense.’ He glanced at Campion. ‘Some of the young thugs we’re getting in nowadays are dreaming up weapons which would have been thought offside by the Saints and Martyrs!’ he remarked and returned to Julia. ‘This beastly man you were talking about when I came in? Is this the stern father who won’t let you marry the boy friend?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She seemed shocked and he smiled at her, amused. ‘How much did Mr. Campion tell you on the telephone?’ she inquired.

  ‘Almost all, a brilliant précis,’ murmured Campion modestly. ‘What I omitted was the part played by Basil Toberman in resurrecting the tale at this particular time.’

  ‘Do you know he did it deliberately to harm Timothy? He said he had.’ Julia spoke as though she expected Luke to find the statement incredible and he sat listening to her, his head a little on one side. ‘I actually heard him say it to Mr. Campion.’

  ‘How extraordinary!’ His lips curled despite himself. ‘I’m glad he’s the “beastly” bloke, though. I’m sensitive about daughters who don’t revere their Dads. My own young woman isn’t exactly respectful but she’s only eighteen months old.’ He was losing his suspicion of Julia, Mr. Campion noted with relief, and his eyes were friendly as they rested on her serious face. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know about young Mr. Kinnit’s birth? Where his family came from or what has happened to it now?’

  ‘Oh, we know he came from Turk Street, Ebbfield, but the place just isn’t there any more. It was bombed to the ground.’

  ‘Turk Street?’ Luke glanced at Campion. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘No.’ The man in the spectacles was apologetic. ‘The information came from what one might perhaps call “other than concrete sources”. You haven’t met Mrs. Broome the nurse, Charles. She’s a delightful woman but as a witness she’s a treat of a very special kind. The buses which brought the evacuees from London were thought to have come from the Turk Street area but there’s no proof that the boy came from there. Turk Street had a colourful reputation at one time and I thought we’d break all this to you when we saw you.’

  Julia glanced from one man to the other.

  ‘I didn’t know there was anything awful about Turk Street,’ she said quickly. ‘Mrs. Broom didn’t either. She just remembered the curious name. How awful was it? Vice or crime or what?’

  Luke continued to watch her; he was not unreservedly on her side yet.

  ‘It was low class,’ he said using the old-fashioned phrase to see if it irritated her. ‘Why do you want to know about the young man’s family?’

  ‘I don’t. Personally, I don’t care if they were T.B. infested orang-outangs. Timothy is Timothy to me and nothing and nobody else. It’s Tim who seems to have become completely insane on the subject. Father wants to know about the family but Timothy is mad to know.’

  Luke grunted. ‘Why aren’t you leaving it to them? You can’t hope to suppress anything and if it’s there they’ll find it as soon as you do.’

  She met his thrusting stare steadily. ‘I know that, but I want to be prepared and I want to be in it.’

  The superintendent seemed satisfied for he nodded.

  ‘Fair enough. He’s cooled a little, has he? It happens,’ he added apologetically, for the colour had come into her face and a new shininess to her eyes. ‘He was all set to elope, poor lad, and got shunted on to a new track suddenly.’

  ‘I know.’ Her voice broke, yet she had not looked away. ‘But so was I, and I wasn’t.’

  Mr. Campion, who was sitting opposite Luke and following the conversation with some misgiving, was unprepared for his reaction. A spasm of pure pain flickered over his face before he smiled faintly.

  ‘Touché,’ he said. ‘Well, in that case we’ll have to do something about it.’ He gave her a wide, disarming grin. ‘And it wouldn’t hurt us to get a move on instead of asking damn silly questions, would it?’

  It was an unusually definite promise from anyone as punctilious as the superintendent, so Mr. Campion led the talk into other channels and the meal ended happily. He was not astonished to receive a telephone call from Luke three or four days later.

  ‘That twenty-year-old inquiry in the Turk Street area,’ the superintendent began, the microphone blurring and vibrating under the strain of his voice. ‘I haven’t discovered very much, but, as I thought, I recollected something fairly recent which might tie up and at last I’ve had a moment to study the file. You don’t read the Ebbfield Observer, I suppose?’

  ‘Supposition sustained, chum.’

  ‘All right. Don’t let it worry you. There was a paragraph in it a few issues ago which might have interested you and, since it appeared in print, I don’t feel I’m divulging any departmental secrets by calling it to your notice. The headline reads “Model Dwelling Outrage. Lodger Identified. Man Understood to Have Left Country”. Got that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mr. Campion sounded mystified. ‘Model Dwelling refers to that Utility Pile down there, does it?’

  ‘Yes. The idea is to build five more in the same enclosure – they put them on legs like that in the hope they’ll make room for each other. About five weeks ago there was trouble there on the top floor. An old couple had their home broken into one night while they were down at the local with their lodger. The place was wrecked in a very big way. When they came in the lodger took one look at the mess and fled after notifying the police by telephone, and the poor old lady had a stroke and died, thereby complicating the issue considerably from our point of view.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mr. Campion was interested. ‘The “indirect responsibility” question?’

  ‘Is that what it’s called?’ Luke was not enthusiastic. ‘All I know is that the legal bosses have suddenly got excited about any case where the original wicked action produces some extraneous consequence besides the one intended. In this business there was talk of a charge of murder or manslaughter. To me it just means more homework. However, there was considerable pressure put on our D.D.I. He is a Scot called Munday – and he had a local demon on his shoulder as well, in the shape of a Councillor who has to raise the cash to complete the building scheme. This lad wanted everything made sweet just a little quicker than soon. Munday worked like a fiend and finally discovered that the missing lodger was one of the Stalkeys.’

  ‘Really!’ Mr. Campion was gratifyingly astonished. ‘The detective agency? Is that terrible old gentleman J. B. Stalkey still alive?’

  ‘Talky the Stalker or Stalky the Talker!’ Luke’s grunt was amused. ‘No. He’s gone. The angels got him at last – still pontificating no doubt. Joe, the middle son, reigns in his stead and the other two, Ron and Reg, do the footslogging. Reg was the mysterious lodger. He seems to have taken one look at the damage and scarpered. It must have shaken him, because he went right out of the country. He’s looking up family connections in Ontario now, according to Joe.’

  ‘What was he doing in Ebbfield?’

  ‘Munday would like to know. He’ll be waiting for him at the airport to ask him when he comes home. All we know is that he went round from pub to pub raising the subject of Turk Street in the old days and appeared particularly interested in any family who was evacuated from there to the country in the war. When I saw that in the report I wondered if he was on the same track as yourself.’

  ‘It has a likely smell. What does brother Joe say?’

  ‘Nothing. Joe isn’t talking. He’s the same old sea-lawyer his father was
and he knows his rights. We’ve got no power over him. He’s an ordinary citizen. English tecs aren’t licensed, as you know. He says he doesn’t know what Reg was doing. He’s protecting his client, of course.’ He paused. ‘There’s only one other point which might be of interest and that is, that as soon as the Councillor gathered that the crime might have been committed in protest against an inquiry made by a private investigator he shut down on the whole thing like a piano lid and didn’t want to hear any more about it. That was after he’d been badgering Munday on the telephone every half hour.’

  ‘Odd.’ Mr. Campion said slowly. ‘Has the D.D.I. any theory to explain it?’

  ‘No. But the Councillor has a home and a wife. He may just not want a visit from the same gang of thugs. But if that’s it, I’m surprised. He didn’t strike me as that sort of bloke. He was more the fanatical sort. The I’ll-do-you-good-if-it-kills-us-both type of social worker.’ He laughed. ‘Well there it is,’ he said. ‘All I can do at the moment, I’m afraid. I liked the girl. They’ve got great charm when they’re honest, haven’t they?’

  If he was talking of womankind in general or a type in particular did not appear. He rang off and after a while Mr. Campion took his hat and went down to the East Central District, where in a dusty cul-de-sac there was an unobtrusive door whose small plate announced modestly: ‘J. B. Stalkey and Sons, Inquiry Agents. Established 1902.’

  He found Joe Stalkey sitting in his father’s old chair in an office which had remained carefully unchanged since the founder of the firm had first conceived the idea of a private detective agency having the standing of a firm of family solicitors.

  The small room contained one magnificent period bookcase, glazed above and panelled below. It took up all one wall and against its mellow and elegant background Stalkey the Talker had posed and impressed clients for nearly fifty years.

  Joe Stalkey had not the old man’s florid presence. The slightly harassed expression and deprecating smile so typical of the child of an over-forceful parent had robbed him of authority. He remained a gangling, middle-aged man whose broad features were a little out of alignment, as if they had been drawn by someone with an astigmatism. When Campion came in he looked at him in open astonishment.

  ‘This is a bit of an honour, isn’t it?’ he demanded, his smile leering. ‘I don’t think you’ve been in here in twenty years, have you, Mr. Campion? What can we do for you? Any little chore however small will be welcome, I assure you. Don’t hesitate to mention it. As long as it’s legal and the money is safe we’re not choosey. We can’t afford it. We haven’t had quite the advantages of some people. Do sit down, won’t you? I have at least ten minutes before a client —’

  ‘— Who must be nameless, steps out of a brougham with a coronet on the door,’ murmured Mr. Campion with such complete seriousness that he might just have meant it as a compliment. ‘You’re very obliging. I don’t think your father would have been so kind. He never appreciated my style, I felt.’

  The man behind the desk was regarding him cautiously. He did not understand him and never had. He suspected bitterly that his incomprehensible success was due to something basically unfair, such as class or education, but was begrudgingly gratified to see him in the office all the same.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s all yours.’

  Mr. Campion seated himself in the client’s chair and crossed his long legs. His hat, his gloves and his folded Times newspaper he held upon his knee. ‘I wanted to see Reginald,’ he said. ‘But I hear he’s in Canada. I wondered if he could tell me anything about Turk Street twenty years ago.’

  The man behind the desk had large cold eyes and their glance became fixed upon his visitor. It rested upon the narrow folded newspaper which Campion held, with an intensity which was noticeable. It was as if he were reading the small type of the advertisements on the outside page.

  ‘Well?’ There was nothing even impatient in Mr. Campion’s inquiry and he was astonished to see Stalkey’s tongue moisten his lips. He had changed colour too, and his fist, which was unusually large-boned, was not completely steady where it lay on the desktop.

  ‘I’ll hand it to you, you’ve got on to it very quickly.’ He spoke without meeting Campion’s eyes, letting the words slide out regretfully. ‘Ron lost his temper,’ he said.

  Mr. Campion had no idea what he was talking about but it appeared to be promising.

  ‘Did he?’ he murmured. ‘That’s always dangerous.’

  ‘There’s no real harm done.’ Joe Stalkey spoke irritably, ‘but of course Ron is a big man. He’s heavier than I am and ten years younger. The kid put up an astonishing fight but he hadn’t an earthly chance and he is in a bit of a mess, I admit it.’ His eyes narrowed suddenly. ‘Am I making a monkey of myself, by any chance?’

  His visitor grinned.

  ‘We appear to have travelled somewhat quicker than sound, if that’s what you mean,’ he admitted. ‘Let me explain myself. I am interested in anything I can discover about a woman and a very young baby who were evacuated from Turk Street to an address in Suffolk on the day war broke out in 1939. I heard today that your elder brother Reg was making the same sort of inquiry just before he went to Canada, and I wondered if we were all working on the same problem and, if so, whether we could pool our resources. For an adequate consideration of course.’

  ‘Damn!’ Joe Stalkey was very angry with himself. He had coloured and his hands were nervous.

  ‘You chaps build such a legend about yourselves that one believes it!’ he said with unreasonable reproach. ‘I didn’t see how you could have got on to this morning’s shindig, but because it was fresh in my mind I assumed you must have done as soon as you mentioned Turk Street. You’re the reason the Central Branch have suddenly got interested again, I suppose? You’ve stirred them up and they’ve stirred up the police down there and some wretched detective constable went and leaked to the kid. That’s about it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have all happened together, would it? A coincidence like that couldn’t have occurred otherwise. You coming in here in the afternoon just when Ron had been tackled by the kid in the morning. I was justified in making that mistake.’

  The thin man in the hornrims leaned back.

  ‘I’ll come clean,’ he said. ‘I’m not with you at all. Ron is your younger brother, isn’t he? He is carrying on Reg’s inquiries I suppose?’

  ‘Like hell he is!’ Joe Stalkey showed evidence of having a temper himself. ‘That isn’t our sort of business at all, Mr. Campion. You’ve no idea what the state of that flat was after the wrecking. I saw Reg before he left for Canada and he was shocked, I tell you. There the message was, you know, written right across a mirror: Dick, go home! Like an American film. I don’t know what the younger generation is coming to. Stalkey & Sons isn’t that kind of concern. Nice neat evidence, clear reports, and if necessary a discreet and creditable appearance in court, that’s all we contract for. As soon as we saw what we were on to we walked out and stayed out. Our sort of clients aren’t the class to get involved in violence!’ The final word was invested with unspeakable disgust and Mr. Campion noted the return of an old snobbery new in his time. He was still very much at sea, however, and was debating how to remedy it without being too outspoken when Joe Stalkey went on.

  ‘He says he didn’t do it, of course, and he pretends he doesn’t know who did. It’s gang stuff pure and simple. I think the world is damned; modern youth is quite openly against civilization. Higher education just makes them worse.’

  Mr. Campion raised his eyebrows but ventured no comment. Instead he put a cautious question.

  ‘If Stalkey & Sons washed its hands of Turk Street when the flat was wrecked and Reg went to Canada, how did Ron get into the business?’

  The flush on Joe Stalkey’s unsymmetrical face deepened and his deprecating smile appeared briefly. ‘The ass went to get Reg’s shoes, can you beat it? As you probably would not know, East End repairers charge a quarter of what one has to pay elsewhere and th
e work is often much better. When Reg was down there he left a couple of favourite pairs of shoes with some little one-man outfit and told Ron to pick them up for him when he had a moment. Ron is a careful chap and it’s just what he would remember, being hard on shoe leather himself. This morning he was going that way so he telephoned to ask if the shoes were ready, found they were, went down there. Of course the kid had been tipped off and was waiting for him.’

  Mr. Campion took a long breath.

  ‘When you say “the kid”,’ he began, ‘who?’

  ‘You know quite well who I mean. I mean young Kinnit,’ Joe said. ‘There’s no point in beating about that bush in my opinion. We were acting for his legal guardians. The aunt and father by adoption. Alison and Eustace Kinnit. Actually we dealt with the woman. We were employed by the family before, you see, when they were first trying to trace the kid’s identity about fifteen or sixteen years ago. Father handled it on that occasion but it was hopeless from the start. It was just after the war ended and the whole area was still a shambles, records lost and everything. Pa satisfied the court that every avenue had been explored without result and the adoption or guardianship or whatever it was went through and that was that.’

  Mr. Campion continued to be dubious.

  ‘You are telling me seriously that young Kinnit was responsible for wrecking the council flat? Have you any proof of this at all?’

  ‘I don’t want any. I don’t want anything to do with it, and don’t forget anything I’m telling you now is off the record.’

  Joe Stalkey’s face, unattractive to start with, was not improved by an expression of obstinate prejudice. ‘Of course he is. Ron reports that he is babbling about having been locked in his college at Oxford at the hour in question, but that only proves he has some useful friends or enough money to employ a few hooligans. What one might be able to prove is one thing but what we know must be the truth is another. Be your age, Campion. Who are you working for? The little lad himself?’

  ‘No. I belong to the other side of the family. I am protecting the interests of the girl friend.’