Campion did not reply to him. His mouth was grim as he went across the room and looked down at the woman.
‘Mrs Lobbet, you should have gone to the police,’ he said quietly. ‘When did you miss your daughter?’
The young widow sprang up. Before she had been broken-hearted; now she was terrified.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘I tell you I don’t know anything. I – I don’t want to discuss anything with you. Please go away.’
He shook his head.
‘You’re making a great mistake,’ he said gently. ‘This is England, you know. Conditions are rather different over here. I know when someone dear is kidnapped in America it is often safest not to go to the authorities for fear of reprisals, but over here, believe me, it’s not the same.’
The girl did not speak. There was a light of pure desperation in her eyes and her lips remained obstinately closed. He stood watching her for a little while and finally shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You could have trusted us.’
He had reached the door before she called him back.
‘If only I knew what to do,’ she said brokenly. ‘If only I knew what to do.’
Lance went suddenly across the room and took her hand. He looked young for his years and very handsome as he peered down into her face.
‘We are both reputable people, my dear girl,’ he said. ‘We’ll give you our credentials if you’ll let us. We found that holder in such very odd circumstances that it made us curious, and quite by chance we were able to trace it to you. Won’t you tell us all about it? We’ll help you if we can.’
It was a sincere little speech and gradually the tenseness round her mouth slackened, although her eyes were still afraid.
‘Where did you get it?’ she whispered. ‘Did you see her? Do you know where she is?’
It took them the best part of an hour to convince her that they were genuinely disinterested parties in the affair. Lance left the description of the scribbled message, which had now taken on such a new and pathetic significance, to Campion, who managed it very tactfully, without frightening the young mother unduly.
‘So you see,’ he finished at last, ‘we were curious and just a little apprehensive. How old is Janey?’
‘Only six.’ Fran Lobbet’s voice quivered. ‘She’s just a baby. I’ve never let her out of my sight before, but this new nurse seemed so sensible and trustworthy that I let them both go out into the Park. When they didn’t return I was paralysed with fear. Then the telephone message from these – these people came.’
‘Oh, they phoned you, did they? What did they say?’
‘The usual thing. I nearly fainted when I heard the warning. I’ve read about the same sort of thing in our newspapers. I wasn’t to tell anyone or – or I’d never see her again. I was to go to Oxborough Racecourse and put ten thousand dollars to win on a certain horse with a certain bookmaker. Then they promised she’d be returned to me.’
‘Did you do it?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. That was the day before yesterday. I did everything they told me, but there was no sign of her when I got back here. I waited by the telephone all day and this morning, when I was half out of my mind, they rang again. They swore that she was safe but they made another demand. They may be playing with me. She may be dead. But what can I do? What can I do?’
The appeal was too much for Lance.
‘My poor, dear, good girl,’ he said, forgetting himself completely, ‘ring up the police instantly. This is frightful. You poor child, you must be in agony. See to it, Campion. Get on the telephone.’
‘No, no, please don’t! Please. They’ll kill her if I do that, I know they will. They so often do. There are hundreds of cases of it back home.’ She was clutching his coat imploringly, and Campion intervened.
‘You’re not back home now,’ he said. ‘Look here, it’s not as bad as you think, or at least I think not, thank God. This is a smaller country and the law is tighter, but I think you may be right about not calling in the police at this juncture. Tell me, did the man you spoke to on the phone have an American accent?’
‘Yes, a slight one.’
‘I see. Then that’s what’s happened. Probably the whole thing’s engineered from the other side, with confederates in this country. The nurse is in it, of course. When did you engage her?’
‘Just before we sailed. She came to me with wonderful references and she seemed so placid and sensible that I never dreamed –’
Mrs Lobbet’s voice trembled and she broke off, fighting with her tears.
‘I’m alone,’ she said. ‘I daren’t trust anyone. Even now I don’t know about you. Forgive me, but you come to me out of the air with something that Janey had with her. How can I trust you? I oughtn’t to talk. Oh, my God, I oughtn’t to talk!’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Lance, who was still puzzled. ‘What was a child of six doing with a lipstick?’
In spite of her anxiety a faint smile passed over Fran Lobbet’s beautiful face.
‘It belonged to her doll,’ she said. ‘Janey has a very grand French doll with a green belt, and on the boat, when they were giving away those little samples, she got hold of one because it was a doll’s size. I tied it on to the belt for her with a piece of green thread. That’s how I recognised it. Look, the thread’s still there.’
‘I see. And when she was too scared to shout she used it to write her name on the door. She’s a clever kid for six.’ Lance’s black eyes had grown bleak. ‘They’re swine,’ he said softly. ‘They deserve what’s coming to them. Now look here, Mrs Lobbet, you’ve got to allow us to manage this. We’ll get her back, I promise you. We’ll get her back safely if it’s the last thing we do. You can rely on us.’
Campion did not echo the impulsive promise. Long experience of criminals had made him cautious. But there was a rare spark of anger in the shadows behind his eyes.
‘Suppose you tell us about this latest demand,’ he said quietly.
Mrs Lobbet glanced from one to the other of the two men. She seemed pathetically young and tragic and, to Lance at any rate, one of the loveliest women he had ever seen.
‘It’s so impressed on us back home that complete silence is the only hope,’ she said, ‘but I can’t help it. They’ve lied to me once and they may go on doing it. I feel I’m taking her life in my hands, but I’ll tell you, and please God I’m doing the right thing. This is what they’ve told me to do.’
As Campion listened to the instructions his opinion of the organising powers of the gang increased. It was a pretty little plan, evidently devised by someone with a proper appreciation of English laws and police procedure. Janey’s captors required her mother to attend Thursday’s Oxborough meeting alone. She was to seek out a bookie called Fred Fitz, whose stand would be among the others, but she was not to speak to him until the second race was actually being run. Then she was to walk over and place two thousand pounds in one-pound notes on Flyaway to win the two-thirty.
The simplicity of the scheme was exquisite. Here was no clumsy passing of notes in narrow lanes, no leaving of mysterious boxes on churchyard walls. A bookmaker is the only man on earth who can receive large sums of money for nothing from perfect strangers in the open light of day without occasioning suspicion or even interest. Moreover, in the event of a police trap what man could have a better story? Any tale which she might tell about mysterious telephone messages could always come as a complete surprise to him, and who could argue? No charge could be preferred against him, for he had done nothing to offend.
‘I’ve got the money ready and I shall do exactly what they say.’ The girl spoke stiffly, as if her lips were set. ‘You mustn’t come with me. I mustn’t jeopardise her chances in any way. I daren’t. I just daren’t.’
‘Mrs Lobbet is right,’ said Campion hastily before Lance could interrupt. ‘For her own peace of mind she must keep her bargain with the crooks. She must go to the meeting and pay the ransom money alone.’
‘Bu
t we shall be there,’ Lance insisted.
Campion cocked an eye at him. ‘Oh, dear me, yes,’ he said and his precise voice was almost caressing. ‘We shall be there.’
They were there. Lance Feering in chauffeur’s uniform drove Fran Lobbet to the meeting in his own car.
Campion went racing alone. Apart from an hour’s intensive telephoning in the morning, his day might have borne the scrutiny of the most suspicious of shadowing crooks. He had an early lunch at the celebrated White Hart Hotel in Oxborough Wool Market and drove gently down to the car park as though he had no care in the world. He watched the first race from the stand, won a little money, and afterwards wandered down to the bookies’ ring to collect it and place another trifling stake.
He did not bet with Fred Fitz. Indeed, he scarcely looked at the wizened little man who was shouting so lustily. He did not recognise his face and did not expect to. The morning’s careful inquiries had identified him as a small man of no reputation, nor of sufficient importance to be of any great interest to the police. After discussing him on the telephone with Superintendent Stanislaus Oates of Scotland Yard, Campion had been moved once more to admire the organising abilities of the men who had engineered the kidnapping of the little American girl. Fitz was one of those men who float round the edge of the underworld, doing odd jobs for larger and more whole-hearted crooks. Since nothing definite was known against him the police were bound to treat him as an honest man, whatever their private opinions might be.
The man who was acting as his clerk, however, was a different person altogether. As soon as Campion set eyes upon that sharp white face his own expression became an amiable blank and he never glanced again in his direction. There was no mistaking Fingers Hawkins. Once seen never forgotten, and Campion had not only seen but had dealt before with that little crook, whose reputation was not admired even by his own kind.
He returned to the stand in thoughtful mood. If Fingers was a typical member of the gang with whom he had to deal, things could hardly be more unpromising.
He took up his position and reviewed the scene through his glasses. The meeting was not a very popular one and the crowds were not enormous, although there were enough people to make the gathering interesting. The racecourse is just outside the town, which lies in a hollow, and beyond the red rooftops the rolling green hills, dotted with country houses, rise up to the skyline. It was a sunny day, and as Campion’s powerful glasses swept the country they brought him little intimate glimpses of manors and farms and villas nestling in their surrounding greenery. He spent some time apparently lost in the beauties of the scene, and dragged his attention back to the course almost with reluctance.
Just before the second race started, when the stand was full and the crowd was moving steadily towards the rails, he caught sight of Fran Lobbet. She was wearing the red hat on which they had agreed, and was quite alone, he was relieved to notice. Through his glasses he watched her edging her way towards the ring, clutching an enormous white handbag with both hands. She made a very small and pathetic figure in her loneliness, and his indignation rose to boiling-point. He did not notice the horses coming up to the start, and it was not until the roar from the crowd told him that they were off that he was ever aware of their existence.
As the crowd swept past Fran in a last-minute rush, the bookies and their stands were temporarily deserted, and Campion saw her walk resolutely forward. His glasses left the girl and focused upon the ignoble features of Fingers Hawkins. The little crook appeared to be employed in something which looked at first like amateur tic-tac work. His arms rose above his head and dropped again. Then Fran came into the circle. A package passed and she received her slip. Still Campion did not follow her. Fingers made his entry and then, stepping up on the box, raised his arms once again. Afterwards he too raised glasses and looked steadfastly out across the course.
Campion remained where he was for a few seconds and for a while appeared to watch the race, but he did not stay to see the finish. At the very moment when the horses passed the post he was forcing his way out through the excited throng, and two minutes later climbed into a solid looking black car containing five expressionless men, all of whom appeared to favour the same particular type of nondescript raincoat.
‘Over there, on the brown hill,’ he said briefly to the man at the wheel. ‘A modern white villa with a flat roof. Take the London road and branch off by a church with a spire.’
The short fat man with the American accent, who was known to the Federal Police as Louis Greener, was still standing on the flat roof of the white villa, his glasses trained on the racecourse which lay, a patterned ribbon of colour, in the valley below him, when one police car, followed by another, swung quietly up the steep drive and debouched its swarming cargo before it reached a standstill.
Mr Greener was engrossed in his vigil and was not disturbed from it until a shout from the room below him, followed by a volley of revolver shots, brought him back to present emergencies with a rush. He dropped his glasses and fled to the stairhead just as a lean figure appeared through the hatchway, an automatic in its hand.
‘I should come very quietly if I were you,’ said Campion.
Twenty minutes later the villa was calm and peaceful again, and the drive was empty. Fingers Hawkins drove up in a small car, a tremendous smile on his unbeautiful face, and a suspicious bulkiness about his coat pockets. He was not alone. Two men accompanied him, each betraying a certain careful solicitude for his safety which could hardly be accounted for by mere affection. Fingers was jaunty. He sounded the horn two or three times.
‘You come be’ind me,’ he said to his bodyguard. ‘I deserve a committee of welcome for this lot. Now let’s see how his American Nibs treats a bloke who’s done ’alf his work for him.’
He strolled up to the front door and kicked it open.
‘Anyone at ’ome?’ he shouted as he passed into the hall. ‘No ’anging about, if you please. Oi! Shop!’
His companions followed him, and as soon as they came into the hall the door closed quietly behind them. The little click which the latch made as it shot home brought them all round, the hair bristling on their necks. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and the police closed in on them.
Meanwhile, in a private sitting-room at the White Hart, Fran Lobbet sat in an arm-chair clasping a grubby little bundle, while tears of pure relief streamed down her face. From the other side of the room Lance Feering beamed at her.
‘She’s all right,’ he said. ‘I believe she enjoyed it.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Janey Lobbet’s bright eyes peered at him from a tangle of hair. ‘Sometimes I was frightened. After Nurse left me I was frightened.’
‘But you’re not frightened now, are you, darling?’ Fran put the question anxiously and the child chuckled.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not now. I’m tough.’
They laughed and Fran smiled at the man.
‘I’ll never be able to thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. Campion worked the oracle.’ Feering nodded towards the fourth occupant of the room, who sat on the edge of a table, an expression of mild satisfaction on his thin face. ‘I don’t see now how you spotted the house. What was it? Second sight?’
‘In a way, yes. I did it with my little binoculars,’ said Campion modestly. ‘Fingers takes full credit for the rest. As soon as I saw his little weasel snout quivering pinkly through the undergrowth I thought, “Hullo, my lad, you’re not handling two thousand pounds of anybody’s money without a pretty close watch being kept on you, I’ll bet.” I saw he had two attendants in the background, but neither of them looked exactly like the foreman of the sort of outfit we had been led to expect. I was completely in the dark until I noticed Fingers signal to someone apparently in the middle of the course. Then he put his glasses up and I saw he wasn’t watching the race. Since he was taking a longer view, naturally I did the same myself and caught sight of a person whom I now know to be a most unpleasant bird called
Louis Greener, standing on a flat roof and waving his arms about in reply.
‘That was really quite enough in the circumstances. The police were waiting, as they had promised, so off we went and there was the gang and there was Janey. She and I came away and we left the boys waiting for Fingers and the loot. There should be a happy family party down at the police station by this time.’
His voice died away. Neither Fran nor Lance was listening to him. He watched them for some seconds, but they appeared to be having a satisfactory, if wordless, conversation of their own, so presently he wandered off to find the Inspector in charge of the raid. That good-tempered man was comforting.
‘Fingers has been talking about you, sir,’ he said cheerfully as Campion appeared. ‘I’ve had it all took down. I’m thinking you might like a copy. Coming from him it’s a regular testimonial. If it wasn’t so highly coloured that some might think it vulgar, you could almost have it framed.’
9
Safe as Houses
MR ALBERT CAMPION came gingerly down the steep staircase of the White Lion Inn at Little Chittering in Sussex with two important queries occupying his mind. One was the comparatively simple question, where was the bar, and the other a more philosophical matter concerning the Blood Tie, or how much need the average man endure for his relations before he is entitled to sneak quietly home to London and go to earth in his club?
He had just set foot upon the uneven floor of the narrow passage and had caught a welcome glimpse of a promising oak-and-pewter interior a step or so ahead, when there was a rustle at the top of the stairs behind him and a muffled voice inquired pathetically:
‘Any luck with her, my boy?’
The thin man with the horn-rimmed spectacles swung round guiltily and glanced up. At the top of the staircase stood a sad and somewhat fantastic figure. He was a small man approaching sixty, who wore at the moment a long tweed coat which descended almost to his shoes, and an old school muffler which bound up his head so thoroughly that only a triangular patch of worried face and a tuft or two of bedraggled pepper-and-salt moustache showed among its brightly-coloured folds. One eye, too, was visible, a watery, red-rimmed affair with a depressed glaze. Mr Campion felt a twinge of pity for him and resented the emotion. Things were bad enough without adding Second Cousin Monmouth’s troubles to them.
Mr Campion & Others Page 19