This time the bitterness was savage and Campion, meeting those old, chilly, naked eyes, was suddenly ashamed of himself for his smugness. He caught one of those sudden panoramic glimpses of a whole thirty-eight-year life and was aware for an instant of the paralysingly infuriating tragedy of waste.
‘I want to know,’ said the old man. ‘For my own satisfaction I want to know. Now look here, my boy, this is a private matter between you and me. The public aspect of this affair is fixed and finished. Richard is dead. Everybody knows he shot himself. And that is the end. But I want to know why he did it and I want you to find out.’
Mr Campion’s pale eyes were intelligent behind his spectacles, but he looked uncomfortable.
‘You’re thinking he may have had a brain-storm?’ Sir Henry made the query an accusation. ‘You’re ready to believe in the form, are you? Well, you may be right. But I want to know.’
Mr Campion was an adroit young man and the present situation was not one he had not encountered before.
‘I’ll do anything I can,’ he said slowly. ‘But, after all, we’ve covered a lot of ground already. You say yourself he must have been very extravagant. He was earning money and could have carried on, but he had no money when he died. You think he spent all his mother’s legacy on Miss Wells? That is very probable, but it is a thing we shall never find out. No one can find out how a man spent the money he drew out in cash three years before. I will do all I can, but I can’t promise results.’
Sir Henry leant back in his chair and surveyed his companion consideringly. He was smiling a little and his magnificent head had never looked more imposing.
‘My boy,’ he said, ‘I’m going to tell you something. This is a secret. Never let it out of your mouth, whatever happens, but when I tell you you’ll see why I am so anxious that you should carry on.’
He hesitated and Campion was puzzled. It was impossible not to be impressed by the other man’s manner, nor had he any reason to suspect him of anything faintly theatrical or unsound. In his experience Sir Henry was a sophisticated and in many ways a hard man.
‘Yes?’ he invited.
‘You’ve seen this girl Georgia Wells, as I asked you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you taken with her?’
The question was so unexpected that Campion blinked.
‘No,’ he said truthfully. ‘I see her attraction but I should never be bowled over by her myself.’
‘Did she strike you as being a clever woman? Not a bluestocking, of course, but a really clever woman? Clever in the extraordinary way women sometimes are? Clever enough to get a man to do anything she wanted him to by reasoning with him?’
Campion gave the matter serious consideration.
‘Not unless he was a fool,’ he said at last.
‘Ah!’ The old man pounced on the admission. ‘I thought not. That’s what makes this so very interesting. Richard was not a fool. I would admit it if he was. I haven’t been a physician all my life without learning that you can’t make a true diagnosis if you falsify the symptoms. Richard was not a fool in that way. He was a virile type, the type to lose his head over a woman for a night but not for a month or two. Once he got his mind working again it would work, whatever his physical inclinations were. Do you follow me?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Campion dubiously. ‘But forgive me, I don’t think this is getting us very far. You see, there’s no evidence even of a quarrel. She seems to have been happily engaged to him right up to the time he disappeared.’
‘Campion’ – the old man was leaning across the table – ‘you’ve seen that girl and you know her history. Do you honestly think she was the type of woman to be engaged to anybody?’
The younger man stared at him. The question had jerked him round to face a problem which had been chipping away at the back of his mind for some time. Now that it was out, unprotected by the automatic acceptance that is given to a fact that is known to everybody, the whole matter did strike him as extraordinary.
‘A woman once through the divorce courts, important in a Bohemian profession, doesn’t go and get herself involved in a long engagement.’ Sir Henry’s voice was contemptuous. ‘She gets married, my boy. She gets married.’
Campion sat up.
‘They were married!’ he said blankly. ‘But that’s incredible. She married again. What about Ramillies?’
‘Yes, that was six months after Richard disappeared.’ The old man was speaking earnestly. ‘After he disappeared, mind you, not after he died. No one knows when he died, although the likelihood is that the two events coincided. But the point I want you to realize is that the woman knew Richard was dead more than two years before we did. She must have known it. Why was she so quiet about it?’
He leant back in his chair and surveyed Campion steadily, his fierce cold eyes hard and intelligent.
Mr Campion passed his hand over his fair hair.
‘Are you sure of this?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You could prove it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t know it for certain until three or four weeks ago and by then I felt sure the boy was dead. Now that I know roughly when he died, I am wondering. Whatever we find out I don’t want it made public. I see no point in that. The publicity would hardly hurt me or his memory, but I have daughters and they have children, so I see no reason why the tale should linger on. Let it die with Richard. But I want to know.’
Mr Campion did not look at ease. His thin, good-humoured face with the twisted mouth was grave and his eyes were thoughtful.
‘You put me in a very awkward position,’ he said at last. ‘When I undertook this search for your son I simply felt I was making myself useful to an old friend of Belle Lafcadio’s, and I’ve been more than glad to do it, but now I’m afraid I can’t go any farther. This woman Georgia Wells is an important client of my sister’s. To get hold of her I must abuse hospitality there. You see how it is.’
He paused apologetically, and the old man watched him, a faint smile playing round the corners of his mouth.
‘I’m hardly contemplating revenge,’ he observed.
‘No. I did realize that.’ Campion was hesitating and unhappy. ‘But this marriage alters the whole complexion of the business.’
‘I think so. It makes it very curious.’
Campion was silent, and after a while Sir Henry went on.
‘My boy,’ he said, ‘I’m an old man who’s seen a great deal, and I don’t like mysteries. My son’s death was a shock to my affections, of course, but it was also a shock of surprise. I simply want to know what the circumstances were that induced Richard, who was no neurotic, to take his life, and why that woman should never have told what she must have known. Don’t make a mouthful of it, but if you should ever find out, remember I want to know.’
Campion raised his head.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said, ‘but don’t rely on me.’
‘Very well,’ said the old physician, and changed the subject abruptly.
For the rest of the meal they discussed the Abominable Snowmen and other sedate fripperies, but as Campion drove back to London a thought slipped quietly into his mind and sat there nagging at him.
Georgia Wells had not been sure of Portland-Smith’s death until the day on which the discovery of his body had been reported in the newspapers: of that Campion was only fairly certain; but there was one point upon which he was prepared to stake his all, and that was that she had no idea that her ex-husband had committed suicide until Campion himself had told her.
Chapter Six
IT WAS A little over six weeks later, one evening when the summer was at its height and London was sprawling, dirty and happily voluptuous, in the yellow evening sun, that Mr Campion, letting himself into the flat, was accosted by a hoarse voice from the bathroom.
‘Your sis rang up. She’s coming round with a Frog of some sort.’
Not wishing to snub, but at the same time hoping to convey some disapproval at the lack of ceremony, Mr Campion passed on to the sitting-room without comment.
He had seated himself at the desk, found some cigarettes and pulled a sheet of notepaper towards him before there was a lumbering in the passage outside and a vast, melancholy figure in a black velvet coat surged breathily into the room.
Mr Lugg, Mr Campion’s ‘male-person’s gentleman’, regarded his employer with reproachful little black eyes.
‘You ’eard,’ he said, and added with charming confiding, ‘I was cleanin’ meself up. You’d do well to put on a dressing-gown and a belt.’
‘A belt?’ inquired Campion, taken off his guard.
‘Braces is low, except when worn with a white waistcoat for billiards.’ Lugg made the pronouncement with justifiable pride. ‘I picked that up down at the club to-day. You’ll ’ave to get a new robe, too. Mr Tukes’s young feller has a different-coloured one for every day of the week. What d’you say to that idea?’
‘Slightly disgusting.’
Lugg considered, his eyes flickering.
‘I tell ’im it was pansy,’ he admitted, ‘but I couldn’t be sure. It was a shot in the dark. “Robe”, though; make a note of that. “Robe” ’s the new name for dressing-gown. I’m learnin’ a lot from Mr Tuke. He lent me ’is book, for one thing.’
Campion threw down his pen.
‘You’re learning to read, are you?’ he said pleasantly. ‘That’s good. That’ll keep us both quiet.’
Mr Lugg let down the flap of the cocktail cabinet with elaborate care before he deigned to reply.
‘Silence is like sleep,’ he observed with unnatural solemnity. ‘It refreshes wisdom.’
‘Eh?’ said Mr Campion.
A slow, smug smile passed over the great white face and Mr Lugg coughed.
‘That give you something to think about,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘D’you know ’oo thought of it? Walter Plato.’
‘Really?’ Mr Campion was gratified. ‘And who was he?’
‘A bloke.’ The scholar did not seem anxious to pursue the matter further, but afterwards, unwilling to lessen any impression he might have made, he spurred himself to a further flight. ‘’Im what give ’is name to the term “platitude”.’ He threw the piece of information over his shoulder with all the nonchalance of the finest academic tradition and peered round to see the effect.
He was rewarded. Mr Campion appeared to have been stricken dumb.
‘Is that in the book?’ he inquired humbly after a pause.
‘I expec’ so,’ said Lugg, adding magnificently, ‘I read it somewhere. Mr Tuke’s getting me interested in education. Education is the final stamp of good class, that’s what ’e says.’
‘And a belt,’ murmured Campion. ‘Don’t forget that.’
The fat man heaved himself towards the desk.
‘Look ’ere,’ he said belligerently, ‘I expected somethin’ like this. Every step I’ve took in an upward direction you’ve done your best to nark. Now I’m on to somethin’ useful. I’m goin’ to educate myself, and then I’ll never feel inferior, not with anybody, see?’
‘My dear chap – ’ Mr Campion was touched. ‘You don’t feel inferior with anybody now, surely, do you? Lay off, Lugg. This is a horrible line.’
The other man regarded him shrewdly. His little black eyes were winking, and there was a certain sheepishness in his expression which was out of character.
‘Not with you, of course, cock,’ he conceded affectionately. ‘But I do with Mr Tuke. ’E thinks about it. Still, let ’im wait.’
‘Is it all in the book?’ inquired Mr Campion, whom the idea seemed to fascinate.
‘A ruddy great lot of it is.’ Mr Lugg wrestled with his pocket. ‘I’ll be as hot as most when I get this on board.’ He produced a small dictionary of quotations and laid it metaphorically at Mr Campion’s feet. ‘I’m leavin’ out the Yiddish,’ he remarked as they turned over the pages together. ‘See that bit there? – and there’s another over ’ere.’
Campion sighed.
‘It may be Yiddish to you, guv’nor,’ he murmured, ‘but it’s Greek to me. These two lads Milt and Shakes get an unfair look in, don’t they?’
‘They’re all all right.’ Lugg was magnanimous. ‘But when I get good I’ll do me own quotations. A quotation’s only a short neat way of sayin’ somethin’ everybody knows, like “It’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide”. That s the sort of thing. Only you want it to be about somethin’ less ’omely . . . women and such.’
Mr Campion seemed rather taken with the idea of running a line in personal quotations on the system of ‘every man his own poet’, and Lugg was gratified.
‘I don’t often get you goin’,’ he observed with satisfaction. ‘Lucky I ’it on this; it might have been religion. There’s a bloke at the club . . .’
‘No,’ said Mr Campion, pulling himself together. ‘No, old boy. No, really. Not now.’
‘That’s what I tell ’im.’ Lugg was cheerful. ‘I’ll come to it, I says, but not now. I’m sorry, mate, but I don’t see yer as a brother yet. Which reminds me – what about your sis? She’ll be ’ere any minute. What’s she up to? She’s in with a funny crowd, isn’t she?’
‘Val? I don’t think so.’
Lugg sniffed. ‘I do. Mr Tuke tell me in confidence that ’e ’eard someone pass a remark about seein’ ’er at a luncheon party at The Tulip with a very funny lot . . . that bloke Ramillies, for one.’
Once more Mr Campion pushed his letter aside, faint distaste on his face.
‘Of course we don’t want to go listenin’ to servants’ gossip,’ continued Lugg happily, ‘but I like that girl and I wouldn’t like to see ’er mixed up with a chap like Ramillies.’
He pronounced the name with such a wealth of disgust that his employer’s interest was stirred in spite of himself.
‘I’ve met Sir Raymond Ramillies,’ he said.
‘’Ave yer?’ The black eyes expressed disapproval. ‘I ain’t and I don’t want to. A ruddy awful chap. ’Ide your wife in a ditch rather than let ’im set eyes on her. ’E’s a proper blot. I tell you what, if you ’ad to set in public court and ’ear a beak talkin’ to ’im after the sentence you’d ’ave to turn your ’ead away. You’d blush; that’s a fact.’
‘That’s slander,’ said Campion mildly. ‘The man’s never been in the dock in his life.’
‘And wot’s that?’ Lugg was virtuous. ‘As you very well know, there’s a lot of people walkin’ about to-day ’oo ought to be in the jug by rights. ’E ’appens to be one of them, that’s all.’
Long experience had taught Mr Campion not to argue with his aide in this mood, but he felt bound to protest.
‘You mustn’t drivel libel about people. You’re like a woman.’
‘Ho!’ The insult penetrated the skin and Mr Lugg’s mountainous form quivered. ‘You’ve got no right to say a thing like that, cock,’ he said earnestly. ‘I know what I’m sayin’. Sir Ramillies is mud, not so good as mud. He’s done one man in, to my certain knowledge, and the army tales about ’im make my ’air curl, wherever it may be now. ’Ere’s an instance. Take the time of the Irish trouble. There was a couple of fellers come over to England after ’im. They were lookin’ for ’im, I admit that, but neither of ’em ’ad a gun. They lay for ’im up in Hampstead where ’e used to live. ’E spotted ’em and went for ’em quick as a flash. ’E caught one chap and killed ’im with ’is bare ’ands – broke ’is neck. The bloke was on the run, mind you, but Ramillies got ’im by the ’air and forced ’is chin up until ’e ’eard ’is neck go. ’E was only a little feller. It was ’ushed up when they found out the lads were reely after ’im and it was self-defence, and Ramillies was ruddy pleased with ’imself. Saw ’imself a Tarzan. I don’t know what you think about it, but it don’t sound quite nice to me; not at all the article. It’s downright brutish, look at it how you like. Put me off the chap for life. It’s not
respectable to lose your temper like that. Makes you no better than an animal. It’s dangerous, for one thing.’
The story was certainly not attractive, and it occurred to Mr Campion that it was unfortunate that, having met Ramillies, it did not strike him as being obviously untrue.
‘Do you know this for a fact?’
‘Of course I do.’ Lugg was contemptuous. ‘I ’ad a drink with the other bloke. ’E was in a state – not frightened, you know, but shook. There’s other tales about Ramillies not as pretty as that. I wouldn’t soil yer ears with ’em. ’E’s not the bloke for your sis to sit down to table with, not if she was in Salvation Army uniform, take it from me.’
Mr Campion said no more. He remained sitting at his desk with his head slightly on one side and an introspective expression in his eyes.
He was still there, drumming idly on the blotter with his long, thin fingers, when the doorbell buzzed and a subtle change came over Mr Lugg.
He straightened his back from his ministrations at the cocktail cabinet and padded over to the wall-mirror, where he settled his collar, arranging his chins upon its white pedestal with great care. Having thus set the stage, he pulled a silk handkerchief out of his side pocket and gave his glistening head a good rub with it, using it immediately afterwards to give a flick to the toe of each patent-leather pump. Then he pulled himself up to attention and, turning all in one piece with his plump hands flat against his sides, he tottered from the room.
A moment or so later he returned with an expressionless face and the words ‘This way, please. ’E’ll see you and be ’appy to,’ uttered in a voice so affected in tone and quality that the announcement was barely comprehensible.
Val came in hurriedly. She looked very charming in her black suit with the faintly military air about it, and with her came all that fragrance and flutter which has been the hallmark of the ‘lovely lady’ since Madame de Maintenon discovered it. She was so vivacious and determinedly gay that Campion did not notice any change in her for some time.
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