Mr. Campion's Abdication

by Mike Ripley

  Signora Petraglia did not seem convinced.

  THIRTEEN

  Supporting Cast (Past)

  ‘All right then, I was looking for the Abdication Treasure, just like a lot of others round here are just at the moment, even if they pretend to be kindly old gentlemen who wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’

  Bill Crow had not admitted defeat. His interrogation had turned into a negotiation and he was not going to give ground gracefully.

  ‘And what exactly do you think this Abdication Treasure consists of?’ Campion remained cool and seemed more interested in counting the notes in his wallet than in the rodent seated on his three-legged stool glaring up at him.

  ‘I dunno. Nobody does, could be anything,’ said Crow.

  ‘You might already ’ave it in stock,’ said Mr Lugg, who had worked his way around and behind Crow through the minefield of junk and was holding aloft a badly chipped statuette of the cloaked figure of the ‘Sandeman Don’ famous from the sherry adverts.

  ‘I doubt that’s it,’ said Campion, ‘but keep looking and you might find the Maltese Falcon in here. And speaking of black birds, let us get back to you, Mr Crow. If you honestly have no idea what the Abdication Treasure is, or what it is might be worth, why on earth are you attempting to find it?’

  ‘It’s like I said, everybody else is looking so there must be something in the old stories.’

  Campion produced a crisp ten-pound note from his wallet and flicked it between his finger and thumb. ‘Now you have my interest, Mr Crow. I have not yet seen anything which takes my fancy in your emporium but I am always in the market for a good story, so please tell me one.’

  The general manager and sole proprietor of the Heronhoe Emporium considered his options carefully. He was unsure who the tall, thin man in the spectacles actually was. A toff, certainly, and a clever one – not like some of the stuck-up types that used to visit the hall in the rare days when old Wemyss-Grendle had money and hosted raucous house parties much to the trepidation of the female servants there. Nor was he one of those weekend yachtsmen, the sort the locals called ‘cloth-cap admirals’, who put into Heronhoe in the summer hoping to find a picturesque coastal hideaway they could brag to their friends in Hampstead about. That lot usually left disappointed, and quickly. Clearly he was not a policeman, nor any sort of official Bill Crow could bring to mind; officialdom had never been known to open its wallet to the likes of Bill Crow.

  As for the older and considerably heavier half of this odd partnership, now he was a type Bill Crow could recognize as a bit of a kindred spirit. He may have gone fat some years ago but he hadn’t gone to seed and could still move swiftly and quietly when he wanted to. If there were not some boxing in his history then there was certainly some rough-housing and it would not do to be too close to the older man if things turned ugly.

  Yet for all the bald man’s bulk and intimidating swagger, it was the tall, thin one – a gentleman through and through for sure who looked harmless – who was the one to be careful of. Bill Crow was no psychologist or dedicated student of human nature, but a life lived on the edge of legality had given him the survival skills to assess opponents and weigh up the odds. In his own mind he was in no doubt that this well-spoken gent with his good tailoring would fight dirty if it came to it, but at the moment there was cash money rather than violence on the negotiating table.

  ‘The stories have been around for years, since before the war.’

  ‘Since the excavation of the Sweethearting Barrow, in other words,’ said Campion.

  ‘We called it the Heronhoe Boat round here.’

  ‘Of course you would. May I ask how old you were back then, Mr Crow?’

  ‘I’d be twenty-three, twenty-four, something like that. Why? What’s it to you?’

  ‘Not terribly much,’ said Campion equably. ‘You weren’t tempted to join in the dig?’

  ‘That was a game for mugs, that was,’ scoffed Crow. ‘I had a good job on the boats back then and we used to land fish up at Lowestoft and down at Harwich. I had girls in both places so I didn’t have a lot of spare time.’

  He treated Mr Campion to a wolfish grin, or a grin which would have been more convincingly lupine if it had been accompanied by a full set of teeth.

  ‘Not that anybody had treasure in mind when they were digging. We hadn’t had the Sutton Hoo find then and nobody round here knew much about archaeology – that was something the vicars and schoolteachers were interested in, not the man in the street – and times were hard back then, a lot of unemployment. There were plenty of blokes willing to do a bit of digging to keep the vicar happy if he was putting on some free food and maybe slipping them the odd half-crown. The rumours started after the visit of King Edward.’

  ‘The Prince of Wales, as he was at the time,’ Campion corrected him.

  ‘My old mother, Gawd rest her, always called him King Edward and Mrs Simpson was “the woman who stole our king”. He was quite a favourite round here, as plenty of local folk had seen him out riding up at the hall or having a pint over in Sweethearting.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I understand he was something of a regular at the King’s Head,’ said Campion, casually examining his fingernails as if the bank notes he was fanning had stained them.

  Bill Crow curled a lip into a lascivious smile. ‘He certainly was when Elspeth pulled the pints there.’

  ‘That would be Elspeth Brunt, would it not? Now tell me about her.’

  ‘She was a cracker, Elspeth was, the life and soul of the party. Younger sister of the landlady but the customers, being mostly men, always thought of it as Elspeth’s pub, not Sonia’s or Arthur’s. Every man who saw her gave her the eye and more often than not he’d get a come-hither wink in return, as long as he had a few bob in his back pocket. She was good for attracting business, that’s for sure, though it was Sonia who did all the work. A proper diamond, Sonia was. Elspeth liked a good time too much and she never made any secret of the fact.’

  ‘Did that include a good time with the prince in his days as a bachelor gay?’

  ‘We all had our suspicions but Elspeth never boasted about that one, though she was not slow to gossip about her other conquests, like that crazy captain up at the hall.’

  ‘Yes, dear Gerald remembered her fondly – possibly too fondly. Didn’t I hear that she once worked for him at the hall?’

  ‘Everything in a skirt with their own teeth was offered a job in service at the hall during the captain’s day but none of them lasted long. Wandering hands, you see. Elspeth was more used to that than most so she stuck it out longer, but when the war came there were plenty of blokes around to take her out and give her a good time.’

  ‘Were you one of them?’

  Crow flapped away the suggestion. ‘Not me. Elspeth wouldn’t have anything to do with a smelly trawler-man and, in any case, I had other fish to fry, as it were. She could be choosy at times, though it didn’t stop her marrying an Eyetie ice-cream seller. Still, that was after the war – her good-time days were over by then and her looks were going.’

  ‘I have heard that Elspeth was the object of desire for a local journalist, Samuel Salt,’ Campion prompted.

  ‘Sammy Salt.’ The name struck a chord in Crow’s memory, as betrayed by his widened eyes and uplifted chin. ‘I remember Sammy. Wasn’t much older than me and fancied himself because he was a scribbler on the Hadleigh paper, as if reporting on flower shows and regattas was a really important job. He used to zip around on an old motorbike and sidecar combination, like he was running messages to the frontline. Bit of a prat if you ask me, but yeah, he had the hots for Elspeth when she worked at the King’s Head, though even after she quit the pub he still drank there rather than in Heronhoe.’

  ‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ murmured Campion. ‘You say Elspeth left the King’s Head. Would that be at the time of the dig?’

  Crow shook his head and a lock of dark, greasy hair slid over one eye. ‘No, she went the year before. Maybe she was o
ffered more money – and fringe benefits, if you know what I mean – to work up at the hall, or maybe she’d tried it on with Arthur Aldous and Sonia threw her out.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it wouldn’t have been that – Elspeth was too choosy, like I said, and Arthur wasn’t her sort. Anyway, the job at the hall didn’t last long and she came here to Heronhoe and worked in shops until the war broke out and she went off to the NAAFI.’

  ‘So Elspeth, whose name keeps cropping up, wasn’t actually in Sweethearting at the time of the royal visit?’

  ‘No. As I said, she’d left the King’s Head by then and didn’t show the slightest interest in the royal visitors until after the war.’

  ‘For someone who was never romantically involved, if I can put it like that, you seem well-informed of Elspeth’s movements,’ said Campion, ignoring the ill-concealed snort of derision which came from Lugg somewhere in the dark, dusty recesses of the emporium, ‘and her thoughts.’

  ‘Just ’cos I wasn’t one of her fancy men doesn’t mean I didn’t know her for nearly thirty years!’ Crow’s voice rose in pitch as if he had been accused of some heinous crime. ‘I used to see her round the town all the time, and for a while she lived just round the corner and I was able to get her the odd bit of furniture for her house. I even supplied one or two bits and pieces for the restaurant after she married the Eyetie.’

  ‘That would be Stephano Bolzano, yes?’ Campion asked.

  ‘That’s right.’ Crow looked at the older man suspiciously.

  ‘Do you happen to know when that was?’

  ‘Be around 1956, I reckon. We had quite a few Eyeties floating around the town then, former prisoners who had saved up a bit of cash working on the land since the war and were looking for businesses and property to buy. Elspeth got friendly with some of them and would disappear off to London with them. She used to call it “visiting Little Italy” like it was going on holiday.’

  Across the showroom, Campion and Lugg exchanged glances, though Crow failed to notice.

  ‘When she came back married to one of them, it was a bit of a surprise, I grant you. I hadn’t pegged her for the marrying kind and never knew she was a Catholic, though I doubt she was a good one. Getting wed seemed to suit her, though – settled her down – and she helped Stephano run the restaurant right up until she died suddenly. He took it badly, sold up and moved back to Italy.’

  Campion palmed two ten-pound notes from his wallet and held them to his chest like a winning hand at Pontoon. The gesture had the desired effect of cementing Bill Crow’s attention.

  ‘Shortly before he decamped for Bella Italia, Stephano Bolzano went to see Gerald Wemyss-Grendle and quizzed him about this somewhat ethereal concept of an “Abdication Treasure”. The captain, of course, knew nothing, but where did Bolzano get the idea there might be something?’

  ‘That would be Elspeth, for sure. She was convinced that the king, when he was abdicating, sent gifts to them that had helped him get through the crisis; his sort of version of an unofficial Birthday Honours list. Elspeth, and plenty more round here, were convinced he’d sent a little bit of royal treasure to the area because he’d enjoyed coming here and those that knew about him and Mrs Simpson had kept their mouths shut.’

  ‘And the obvious candidates for this royal generosity were Heronhoe Hall and the King’s Head, both places he frequented.’

  Campion paused and locked eyes with Crow.

  ‘Those would be the places worth looking,’ Crow said slowly, ‘if a person was looking, that is …’

  His right arm twitched involuntarily as if the hand was about to reach out for the bank notes Campion held, but something warned him that the old man could make the money magically disappear until it had been fully earned.

  ‘And a person who was looking – one who was in no danger of incriminating himself – would be looking for exactly what?’

  ‘That’s just it, nobody knows. Nobody cared about whether there was any “treasure” in the Sweethearting Barrow, as you call it, when it was being dug. It was just a bit of local history and it kept the vicar happy. It was only when those buggers up at Woodbridge found all that stuff at Sutton Hoo that people started talking about treasure – and why didn’t we have any? Somebody must have found something and squirrelled it away. Somehow, that idea of a lost “treasure” got mixed up with the idea of the king and Mrs Simpson being here and being grateful, and that became the “Abdication Treasure”, but it was all pie in the sky.’

  Try as he may, Crow could not read Campion’s impassive face.

  ‘Look, it stands to reason, don’t it? If the old king had dished out a bit of treasure then it would have been to the captain up at the hall or to Arthur Aldous at the King’s Head, right? But old Wemyss-Grendle is in some old people’s home or a poorhouse somewhere and Arthur’s widow is living in an almshouse and still having to work as a cleaner and barmaid even though she’ll not see seventy-five again.’

  Campion allowed himself a wry smile. ‘For some of us, seventy-five is a target not a memory, though I take your point and, rather begrudgingly, admire your logic. Nobody who might have seems to have prospered from any sort of “treasure”, which begs the question: why now?’

  ‘Why now what?’

  ‘Why, after all the time that’s gone by, was it suddenly worth it for somebody – no names, no pack drills, at least not yet – to go breaking and entering into Heronhoe Hall and the King’s Head, the two likely locations you have just identified?’

  Somewhat to Campion’s surprise, Bill Crow did not hesitate. ‘It was them Italians stirred it all up again!’

  ‘Please be more specific.’

  ‘That gang of Eyeties who turned up here a week ago, said they were from Italian television “scouting locations” or some such nonsense for a film about the dig in 1935. Three of them in a left-hand-drive Frog car, one of them bouncy ones, stuffed with equipment. The ringleader is a woman – tall, blonde, curves in all the right places and probably quite a looker in her day, but fierce as hell. A right bitch who could scare the trousers off a man at twenty paces, if you ask me.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Campion smoothly, ‘but I would not argue the point. You seem, as usual, to be well-informed.’

  ‘Strewth!’ Crow exhaled loudly. ‘You couldn’t miss a woman like that in a place like Heronhoe if you wore a sack on your head; long leather coat, leather boots and short skirt, stomping around like she owned the place. Gawd, any bloke with a pulse would notice her! They all fetched up at the restaurant – Stephano’s – where they seemed to be expected and straight away they were chatting up the locals in the Hythe Inn and round the Rising Sun, buying rounds and asking if anyone knew any stories about hidden treasure connected to the dig at Sweethearting and the royal visit way back when.’

  ‘And naturally you kept your ear-lugs akimbo, listening in,’ Lugg said darkly, and Crow realized that the big man had moved uncomfortably close.

  ‘I didn’t have to do any eavesdropping.’ Crow was indignant. ‘They came to me and introduced themselves. The woman told me to call her Danny and she wanted me to sort out some old jackets and hats – props, she called them – so that she could dress people up like they were in the Thirties.’

  ‘And you, of course, obliged,’ observed Campion.

  ‘Business is business and she paid cash money.’

  ‘I bet she also asked for a bit of local knowledge as well, about Heronhoe Hall and the King’s Head, for instance?’

  ‘She might have mentioned them.’

  ‘And in doing so, planted the idea in your head that there might be something in this treasure story after all?’

  ‘Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire,’ Crow said smugly. ‘Otherwise, why would people like you be sniffing around? I reckon we’re not that different, us two.’

  Lugg gave a loud snort of derision which startled Crow and made him wince. Campion placed the two ten-pound notes he had been holding on to the dusty surface of a teak-effect radiog
ram. Then he picked one of them up again and replaced it in his wallet.

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair!’ complained Crow.

  ‘No, it’s probably not,’ said Mr Campion, ‘but then we’re not that different, you and I, are we?’

  ‘That was not too bad,’ said Daniela Petraglia. ‘Now we need to move the camera so Gianfranco can film our loyal diggers, so make like you are digging.’

  Rupert and Perdita descended carefully from the spoil heap – it would hardly do if a future king of England and his lover slipped and slid down the slope on their backsides, even if this was all make-believe.

  ‘I think that went well,’ said Rupert once they were on terra more firm.

  Perdita pulled off the white-framed sunglasses she had been told to wear. ‘I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t see a thing and my teeth are chattering so much I couldn’t hear anything you said.’

  ‘Your reactions were perfect, darling,’ Rupert played the gallantry card with the ease of someone familiar with the frailties of actors, ‘and that’s what matters on film. It’s not acting, like in the theatre, but reacting for the camera, and I am sure the camera simply loves you.’

  With the spoil heap rampart between them and the film crew and the diggers, Rupert embraced his wife and moved in to kiss her, only to be met by the pressure of her white-gloved palms on his chest.

  ‘To hell with the camera, show me that you love me and get my coat out of the car.’

  In the trench, Daniela Petraglia was organizing her extras into what would have been the crowd scenes in a biblical epic, as long as four bodies constituted a crowd. It was not a problem, the director explained to her cast, as because with a low camera angle and a ‘tight shot’ on their heads and upper bodies, the trench would look crowded with enthusiastic volunteers. As most of the real volunteers were men, however, it would be best if Cat – the smallest and most girlish – worked furthest away from the camera at the far end of the trench.