Mr Campion had accepted the invitation to ‘a little informal dinner’ because the great lady happened to be his godmother and he had never ceased to be grateful to her for a certain magnificent fiver which had descended upon him like manna upon the Israelites one hot and sticky half-term in the long-distant past.
At the moment he was a little exhausted. His neighbour, a florid woman in the late forties, talked with an unfailing energy which was paralysing, but he was relieved to discover that so long as he glanced at her intelligently from time to time he could let his mind wander in peace. He observed his fellow-guests with interest.
There were sixteen people present, and Campion, who knew his godmother well enough to realise that she never entertained without a specific object in view, began to suspect that her beloved Cause was in need of extra funds.
Money sat round the table, any amount of money if Campion was any judge. The bewildered American he recognised as a banker, and the lady next to him with the thin neck and the over-bright eyes was the wife of a chain-store proprietor as yet without a title.
Campion’s glance flittered round the decorous throng until it came to rest upon a face he knew.
Geoffrey Painter-Dell was still in his late twenties and looked absurdly youthful in spite of a certain strained expression, which now sat upon his round, good-natured face. He caught sight of Campion suddenly, and immediately looked so alarmed that the other man was bewildered. His nod was more than merely cool and he turned away at once, leaving Campion startled and a little hurt, since he had known the boy well in the days before that promising youth had acquired the important if somewhat difficult position as Private and Confidential Secretary to one of the most picturesque and erratic personalities of the day, the aged and fabulously wealthy Lady (Cinderella) Lamartine.
That remarkable old woman, famed alike for her sensational gifts to charity, her indiscreet letters to the Press, and her two multi-millionaire husbands, was not present herself, but the fact that her secretary had put in an appearance indicated that the gathering had her blessing, and Campion suspected that his godmother’s discreet cadging for the Cause was doing very well.
He returned to Painter-Dell, still puzzled by the young man’s lack of friendliness, and caught him staring helplessly across the table. Campion followed his glance and thought he understood.
Miss Petronella Andrews, daughter of the famous Under-Secretary, sat smiling at her neighbour, the brilliant lights shining on her pale arms and on her honey-coloured hair; and that neighbour was Leo Seazon.
Campion remembered that there had been rumours of a budding romance between Geoffrey and Petronella, and he quite understood any anxiety the young man might exhibit.
The girl was charming. She was vivacious, modern, and if gossip was to be relied upon, something of a handful. At the moment she merely looked beautiful and youthfully provocative, and Campion wondered, without being in the least old-maidish, if she knew the type of man with whom she was dealing so light-heartedly.
Leo Seazon was bending forward, his distinguished iron-grey head inclined flatteringly towards her.
He was a mature figure, handsome in the way that was so fashionable in the last generation and has never ceased to be fascinating to a great number of women. He seemed to be putting himself to considerable trouble to be entertaining, and Campion raised his eyebrows. In his own somewhat peculiar rôle of Universal Uncle and amateur of crime he had in the past had several opportunities to study the interesting career of Mr Leo Seazon.
The man was a natural intriguer. He had a finger in every pie and a seat upon the most unlikely boards. His fortune was reputed to be either enormous or non-existent, although his collection of objets d’art was known to be considerable. He was a man who turned lightly from jade and water-colours to stocks and shares, from publicity to politics. He was also, at the moment, unmarried. It came back to Campion that he had last heard his name mentioned in connection with a certain foreign loan and it occurred to him then that Miss Andrews, and more especially Miss Andrews’s family, might be very valuable allies to Mr Seazon, could the matter be arranged.
He glanced back at Geoffrey with amused compassion. The young man still looked harassed, but now that Campion’s interest was thoroughly aroused and he cast a more discerning eye upon him, he saw that his expression had an element of fear in it. Campion was startled. Irritation, alarm, bewilderment at the hideous taste of women in general, all these he could have understood; but why fright?
It was the florid woman on his right who answered his question, although he did not recognise it as an answer at the time.
‘That’s the Andrews girl, isn’t it?’ she murmured, bending a virulently red head towards him. ‘If she were my daughter I don’t think I’d let her run about with that round her little neck.’
Campion glanced at Petronella’s pearls. As soon as they were pointed out to him he wondered why he had not noticed them before. It may have been that the face above them was sufficiently eye-taking. Now that he did see them, however, as they lay on her cream skin and fell among the draped folds of her pale satin dress, they impressed him.
The necklace consisted of a single string of carefully graduated pearls, with a second and much larger string arranged in scallops from the first so that a curious lace-like effect was produced. It was very distinctive. Campion had never seen anything quite like it before. It was such a sensational piece that even in that opulent gathering he took it to be an example of the decorative jewellery still in fashion. The Andrewses were a wealthy family, but not ridiculously so, and Petronella was very young.
‘It looks very pretty to me,’ he said casually.
‘Pretty!’ said the woman contemptuously, and he was astonished to see that her small dark eyes were glistening.
It was not until afterwards that he remembered that she was Mrs Adolph Ribbenstein, the wife of the jewel king.
At the moment, however, the conversation was cut short by his godmother, who swept the ladies upstairs to her new white and claret drawing-room on the first floor.
Campion saw Geoffrey watch Petronella follow the others, her white train rustling and the incredible necklace gleaming warmly on her small neck. His eyes were dark and questioning.
Their host, who seemed to come to shaky life only when his wife went out, developed an unexpected flair for interminable political stories, and Campion was unable to get a word with Geoffrey. Moreover, he received the impression that the young man was avoiding him intentionally and his curiosity was piqued.
Seazon, on the other hand, was in excellent form, and although a certain irritation with the elder man might have been excusable in Geoffrey Painter-Dell, now that the girl had gone any interest he might have had in the man seemed to have evaporated entirely, a circumstance which Campion found very odd.
Geoffrey sat with his head bent, his long fingers drumming absent-mindedly on the mirror table, and when at last their host consented to move he was the first guest to rise.
Circumstances were against him, however. As the little party mounted the staircase a servant waylaid him, and when he did come into the drawing-room some minutes after the others he went over to his hostess, who was talking to Campion.
She listened to Geoffrey’s worried excuses with gracious tolerance.
‘My dear boy,’ she said, ‘Cinderella has always been difficult. Run along at once and see what she wants.’
Geoffrey grinned helplessly.
‘She either wants me to draw up a scheme for a Parrots’ Home or ring up the prime minister,’ he said wearily.
The Countess of Costigan laughed.
‘Then do it, my dear,’ she murmured. ‘She’s a very powerful old lady. There aren’t many of us left.’
She gave him her hand and as he went off turned to Campion with a little grimace.
‘Poor boy,’ she said. ‘His soul isn’t his own. Cinderella’s very difficult.’
Campion smiled down at her. She was seventy, as kee
n-witted as a girl and quite as graceful.
‘Cinderella?’ he said. ‘It’s a queer name.’
His godmother raised her eyebrows.
‘She adopted it when she was first married, out of compliment to her husband. He was a German prince,’ she said acidly. ‘That ought to give you the key to the woman. Still, she’s absurdly wealthy, so we must forgive her, I suppose. Albert dear, do go over and talk to Mrs Hugger. That’s the thin one in the green dress. Dear me, money doesn’t mix well, does it? I asked you and the Andrews girl to grease the wheels a little. I knew you wouldn’t mind. Thank you so much, my dear. The one in the green dress.’
Mr Campion went dutifully across the room and passed Geoffrey Painter-Dell as he did so. The young man had paused to speak to Petronella on his way out and had evidently had some little difficulty in detaching her from a resumed conversation with Leo Seazon.
Campion passed by just as the young man was taking his leave and could not help overhearing the last half-whispered words: ‘Oh, don’t play the fool, darling. For God’s sake take the damned thing off.’
A moment later Geoffrey had gone and Miss Andrews was looking after him, angry colour in her cheeks and her eyes blazing. Seazon reclaimed her immediately and Mr Campion bore down on the lady in green.
The party broke up early. Petronella fluttered away on Seazon’s arm and Campion hurried off to see the final curtain of a first night whose leading lady was an old friend of his. But he could not get the odd scrap of conversation which he had overheard out of his mind, and Geoffrey’s disinclination to talk to him rankled.
He saw Petronella again as he walked down Bond Street the following afternoon. She was sitting beside Leo Seazon in the back of a grey limousine. They had passed in an instant, but Campion noticed that the girl was not smiling and that Leo was particularly elegant, a poem in spring suiting, in fact. He shook his head over them both, for he had liked the look of Petronella.
His thoughts returned to Geoffrey and his strange appeal to the girl which had annoyed her so unreasonably, but he could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion, and presently he shrugged his lean shoulders.
‘Damn the young idiots,’ he said.
He repeated the observation on the evening of the following day when Superintendent Stanislaus Oates, of the Central Branch of the C.I.D., dropped in to see him in that peculiarly casual fashion which invariably indicated that he had come to glean a little information.
The two men were very old friends, and when Oates was shown into the Piccadilly flat Campion did not bother to rise from his desk, but indicated the cocktail cabinet with his left hand while he added his neat signature to the letter he had been composing with his right.
The Superintendent helped himself to a modest whisky and lowered his spare form into an easy chair.
‘How I hate women,’ he said feelingly.
‘Really?’ inquired his host politely. ‘They haven’t invaded the Yard yet, have they?’
‘Good Lord, no!’ Oates was scandalised. ‘Ever heard of Lady Lamartine?’
‘Cinderella? I have.’
‘Seen her?’
‘No.’
Oates sighed. ‘Then you haven’t the faintest idea,’ he said. ‘She has to be seen to be believed. I thought someone told me you knew that secretary of hers pretty well.’
‘Geoffrey Painter-Dell.’
‘That’s the fellow. Know anything about him?’
‘Not much, except that he’s a nice lad. His elder brother, who died, was a great friend of mine.’
‘I see.’ The Superintendent was cautious. ‘You can’t imagine him being mixed up with any funny business? Not even if there were thousands involved?’
‘I certainly can’t.’ Campion laughed at the suggestion. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, old boy, but the Painter-Dells are absolutely beyond suspicion. They’re the blood-and-steel brigade, sans peur et sans reproche and all that. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Geoffrey is as innocent as driven snow and about as excitable.’
Mr Oates seemed relieved. ‘I practically told her ladyship that,’ he said, shaking his close-cropped head. ‘What a woman, Campion! What a woman! She’s so darned important too; that’s the devil of it. You can’t say “Run along, Grannie, you’re wasting the policeman’s time.” It’s got to be “Yes, milady, no, milady I’ll do what I can, milady” the whole time. It gives me the pip.’
He drank deeply and set down his glass. ‘She’s been at me all day,’ he said.
Mr Campion made encouraging noises and presently his visitor continued.
‘You were in the States in ’31,’ he said, ‘and so you don’t remember the Lamartine robbery. The house at Richmond was entered and nearly a hundred thousand quid’s worth of jewellery was taken. It was her ladyship’s own fault, largely. She had no business to have so much stuff, to my mind. No woman of eighty wants a load like that. Well, anyway, it was pinched, as she might have known it would be sooner or later. Fortunately we got most of it back and we put “Stones” Roberts away for seven years. It was clearly one of his efforts, and we just happened to find him before he’d unloaded the bulk of the stuff.’
He paused and Campion nodded comprehendingly.
‘Were you in charge?’
‘Yes. I was Chief Inspector then, and Sergeant Ralph and I cleaned the affair up as best we could. We didn’t get all the stuff, though. There was a thing called La Chatelaine which we never did find. We put “Stones” through it, but he swore he’d never seen the thing, and we had to let it go. Well, I’d practically forgotten all about it when the old lady sent for me this morning. She made it pretty clear that I’d better come myself if I was Police Commissioner, let alone a poor wretched Super, and the A.C. thought I’d better go. When I got there she was all set for me to arrest young Painter-Dell for knowing something about this Chatelaine thing, and I had an almighty job to convince her that she hadn’t a thing on the poor chap. I had a talk with him finally, but he wasn’t helpful.’
Campion grinned.
‘You didn’t think he would be, did you?’
Oates looked up and his sharp, intelligent eyes were serious.
‘There was something funny about the boy,’ he said.
Campion shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it. The old lady was too much for you.’
Still the Superintendent did not smile.
‘It was nothing she said,’ he insisted. ‘She simply convinced me that she wasn’t quite all there. But when I talked to the lad I couldn’t help wondering. He was so frightened, Campion.’
At the sound of the word Campion’s mind jolted and he remembered Geoffrey’s face at the other end of the mirror-topped table. Fear, that had been the inexplicable thing about his expression then.
The Superintendent went on talking.
‘Lady Lamartine sent for me because her maid told her that Painter-Dell had been asking about the ornament. The robbery took place a couple of years before he took up his appointment. He’d never seen the thing and had never asked about it before, but yesterday he seems to have put the maid through it, making her describe the jewel in detail. The maid told her mistress and her mistress sent for me. I explained that no one could base a charge on anything so slight, and to pacify her I saw the boy. I kid-gloved him, of course, but he was very angry, naturally. He handed in his resignation and the old lady wouldn’t accept it. I apologised and so did she. There was a regular old-fashioned to-do, I can tell you. But all the same I didn’t understand the boy. He was sullen and quiet, and in my opinion terrified. What d’you know about that?’
Campion was silent for some moments. ‘La Chatelaine,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘It sounds familiar.’
Oates shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s one of these fancy names some jewels get,’ he explained. ‘It’s a necklace which is supposed to have belonged to one of the French queens, Catherine de Medici, I think. It’s an unusual-looking thing, by the photographs. Like this.’
He got up and crossing to t
he desk, scribbled a design on the blotting-paper.
‘There’s a single string and then another joining it here and there, like lace, see?’ he said.
‘Dear me,’ said Campion flatly. ‘What are the stones?’
‘Oh, pearls. Didn’t I tell you? Perfectly matched pearls. The finest in the world, I believe. Interested?’
Campion sat staring in front of him, bewilderment settling over him like a mist. In his mind’s eye he saw again Miss Petronella Andrews at his godmother’s dining-table, and round her neck, falling into the soft satin folds at her breast, was, only too evidently, Lady Lamartine’s La Chatelaine.
It was then that he repeated under his breath the observation he had made in Bond Street on the morning before.
The Superintendent was talking again.
‘It’s a funny thing that this should come up now,’ he was saying, ‘because “Stones” Roberts came out a fortnight ago and we’ve lost sight of him. He didn’t report last week and we haven’t hauled him in yet. I always thought he knew something about those pearls, but we couldn’t get a word out of him at the time. Well, I’ll be getting along. If you say the Painter-Dell lad is above suspicion I’ll believe you, but if you do happen to hear anything, pass it along, won’t you?’
Campion came to himself with a start.
‘I will, but don’t rely on me,’ he said lightly, and rose to escort his visitor to the door.
He did not put the extraordinary story out of his mind, however, but actually set out that night on a pilgrimage round fashionable London in search of a young lady whom the Superintendent would have liked very much to meet. Campion’s conscience insisted that he take this step. It had clearly been his duty to tell Oates all he knew and, since he had not, he felt in honour bound to do a certain amount of investigating on his own account. Petronella was not easy to find. She was neither dancing at the Berkeley nor dining at Claridge’s. He looked in at the ballet and did not see her, and it was not until he remembered the Duchess of Monewden’s Charity Ball at the Fitzrupert Hotel that he found her, looking like a truculent little ghost and dancing with Leo Seazon.
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