Cargo of Eagles

by Margery Allingham

  He turned to Dido.

  ‘This is where you came into the picture. When the news about the will got around, Jonah Woodrose had the idea of scaring you off by getting Wishart to write those letters, hoping you’d sell out without a fight and he could get his hands on the property.

  ‘Miss Jensen also began to take an interest in the new owner. She even got herself a part-time job in the Swallow Café so that she could keep an eye on your movements. Do you recognise her, now?’

  Dido surveyed her coldly.

  ‘Ye-es,’ she said at last. ‘I do now. She was a rotten waitress. I often wondered why she never smiled and generally kept her back to me. How did you find that out?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Mr Campion, modestly. ‘It was simply a logical guess. The woman who ran the café was talking about useless part-timers when I went there.

  ‘The real upset to her plans came when Teague was released. This must have been quite a shock. Remember, she’d never seen him except possibly in an old photograph. I think they were in touch with each other in a cautious furtive way after her mother died, but she had no idea of what he was really like. Instead of a hero there was nothing but a broken, frightened old man, a poor chap who wanted only peace and quiet—no more secrets, no more adventures.

  ‘Miss Jensen had to do some sharp re-thinking. She may have been baulked for a little, but she certainly wasn’t stupid.

  ‘Her idea, in fact, was remarkably ingenious. Both Teague and Burrows had what you might call trade marks which were well known here in Saltey—a silver bullet, a trick with a stone and a patched eye. She set out very successfully to establish a reign of terror by suggesting that they were both back and looking for trouble. By conjuring up the impression that they were around she drew everyone’s attention in the wrong direction. She knew her father would be suspected, but even if he were winkled out of his hiding place he would have no difficulty in proving his innocence.

  ‘In the meantime he provided the perfect bogey man to scare anyone who knew more than was good for him into making a move. She started the trail by leaving his pocket book at the café to make sure that the police got the message. She had a lot of willing help of course, from her tearaway friends though I very much doubt if they knew quite how they were being used, even when they were beating up Jonah and the unfortunate man Sibling.’

  He turned to Morty. ‘The chap who raised a bruise on your head—Moo Moo, I expect—was probably acting without instructions, paying off a score on his own behalf. But it all helped the illusion. Burrows got the credit for that one.

  ‘This whole exercise failed because nobody in fact had very much to conceal. Like Miss Jensen they were waiting for a cat who refused to jump. That didn’t deter the lady: she and her friends raided and smashed every smugglers’ hideaway in the place and broke into all the secret stores and bolt holes she’d learned about from her mother’s knee.

  ‘Only The Hollies remained. On the short list now, and when our boys began to turn their surveying instruments on to the grounds she couldn’t resist coming back for a final search. Not the neatest of traps, perhaps, but it worked.’

  Morty straightened his back.

  ‘You took a chance,’ he said. ‘Dido might have been hurt.’

  ‘She wasn’t part of the plan.’ Mr Campion was apologetic. ‘I’m afraid she wasn’t deceived by our apparently off-handed behaviour. She made her own investigations.’

  Dido looked up and for the first time placed a hand over Morty’s.

  ‘It doesn’t matter any longer,’ she said. ‘The important thing is the reason for all this trouble. Albert, do you know the answer?’

  He paused before replying as if he was re-considering a difficult decision.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘Yes, I do. The question is really one for Miss Jensen and she may not like the truth when she sees it.’

  He turned to the girl. ‘You’ve come a long way to satisfy your curiosity. It might be wiser, even now, to leave well alone. You could walk right out of this room and as far as we are concerned no one will follow you.’

  She shook her head without looking up. Her hands remained clenched, the knuckles white with tension. It was some time before she answered, speaking quietly and slowly, almost to herself.

  ‘Anything hidden here belongs to my father. He fought for it. He did time for it. He’s paid for it. It’s nothing to do with anybody else. It’s his.’

  Mr Campion sighed and pulled back the chair he had been leaning on.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said, wearily. ‘In a way it does belong to your father. Charlie, will you keep an eye on the lady? I want to move the table first.’

  Morty jumped to his feet, pulling Dido after him. ‘Do you mean to say it’s here—right under our feet?’

  ‘Right under our feet. It’s as simple as that.’

  A dusty space was cleared in the centre of the room. Beneath the threadbare turkey carpet there was a large rectangular cast iron grid which fitted flush with the yellow and red tiles of the floor. Its fellows could be found in the aisle of any Victorian church.

  Lugg had provided himself with a small crowbar and with the aid of one of the surveyors he prised the diamond patterned screen from its socket. The cavity beneath contained two heavy, cast iron pipes, running from end to end, a part of the heating arrangements for the conservatory.

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Mr Campion. ‘You could pass a mine detector over this without discovering anything remarkable though I doubt if James Teague thought of that one. Even the police had it up when they were looking for a gun. Evidently there wasn’t a gardener or plumber in the search party, which is just as well.

  Dido peered into the cavity.

  ‘What did they miss?’

  ‘The real pipes don’t come this way at all. They run round the walls and are heated by a stove on the other side of the wall. This was James Teague’s private store cupboard built out of what used to be a pool for watering flowers. There is an old photograph of it on my bedroom wall showing a draining table above it covered with prize begonias. These pipes are just intelligent camouflage fixed to a false floor. Even the hooks to lift the whole thing out have been standing in a corner for twenty years.’

  He looked around him.

  ‘This is the moment of truth.’

  Morty and Dido stood very close to each other, their arms linked. Slowly Lugg and his helper lifted the pipes and the floor beneath them in one piece until they were level with the tiles. Slowly they dragged the burden to one side exposing a deeper cavity flanked by grey concrete walls.

  The hanging lamp shone directly upon the thing that lay in the pit: a sprawling wreck, half skeleton, half mummy which had once been a man. Wisps of rotting blue clothing clung to the bones and heavy seaboots covered the feet but the skull from which the jaw still hung was parchment yellow and naked.

  The shocking quality of the sight was emphasised by the reactions of everyone in the room. Death had come violently and suddenly to this stranger, blotting him out like a fly on a windscreen. It did not matter if he had died yesterday or lain there for a century: the impact of sudden irrevocable finality filled the room. The young men looked down, absorbed the shock, looked away, then returned to stare curiously. Morty held Dido back, his arm about her shoulder. Mr Campion alone watched Doll Jensen, his eyes cold and speculative.

  Her voice, strangled to a whisper broke the petrifying silence.

  ‘Christ,’ she muttered. ‘He’s looking at me. He’s not dead.’

  Mr Campion shook his head. ‘I’m afraid he’s very dead indeed. You are looking at the body of Thomas Alfred Burrows and somewhere in his rib cage you’ll no doubt find a silver bullet. He was wearing his glass eye when he was killed. His trademark has outlived his body.’

  The girl stepped closer to bend over the pit. The vivid blue eyeball stared back from its socket giving the bones an expression of suspended life, a leering secretive grimace which changed oddly to simple astonishment as
the light caught it. She straightened herself and began to laugh in a high pitched, mirthless wail which was more frightening than the thing beneath her feet.

  Dido considered her coldly for a moment and then, releasing Morty’s arm she moved round the cavity. Two smart slaps across the face with a left and a right, rocked the dark curls backwards and silenced the screams. Charlie, standing behind Doll, caught her by the shoulders and shook her.

  ‘That’s enough of that. Here, sit down. Put your head between your legs, if you feel faint.’

  He lifted her off her feet, dropped her on to a chair and tried to bend her forward. She thrust him away and began to sob quietly and uncontrollably, hugging herself and weaving her body from side to side.

  Dido eyed her professionally but without pity.

  ‘There’s very little wrong with her. She’s had a shock—haven’t we all?—but she’s as tough as nails. The question is, what do we do with her?’

  ‘The answer to that,’ said Mr Campion, ‘is simple and uncharitable. We do nothing. We’re none of us policemen. A good counsel could probably demolish my theories even if they resulted in a charge. My responsibilities here are to the living, to the future.’

  The sobbing had stopped and as he turned to the girl she raised a blotched white face, streaked with mascara. She was still frightened, still choked with shock, but an instinct for self preservation flickered in her eyes.

  ‘I think you must go now. I think you must go right away—indeed you would be remarkably foolish if you ever tried to come back. I hope you understand that?’

  She nodded almost imperceptibly, glancing from one face to the next, making certain that he spoke for them all.

  ‘What about that—that thing?’

  Campion waited before answering.

  ‘That thing, as you call it, is your father’s secret. As far as you are concerned it must stay that way. You should be on your way.’

  She stood up and shook herself, straightening her shoulders as if she had been freed from carrying a heavy knapsack and sidled carefully round the dark hole in the centre. Lugg opened the door into the garden and stood back for her to pass but on the threshold she hesitated and turned directly to Morty.

  ‘You wouldn’t . . . ?’ she said and paused. The question answered itself. ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

  When she reached the far end of the lawn she began to run.

  20

  Cargo of Eagles

  AS LUGG CLOSED the door the remainder of the group turned to Campion. He was sitting forward in a chair, his hands clasped between his knees, staring absently into the cavity in front of him.

  ‘What now?’ said Morty. ‘Is this the end of the whole god-damned business? Is this what the entire shooting match was about? A matelot who was murdered twenty years back?’

  The thin man looked up as if he found the question surprising. ‘Oh, no. Not the end. In a sense it is only the beginning. Dr Jones, speaking professionally, would you prescribe tea at this moment? I’m afraid the dawn is going to sneak up on us very soon. Lugg can arrange it if you agree?’

  The tension had broken and Dido gave a sigh of weariness and relief.

  ‘Speaking professionally,’ she said, ‘I prescribe Farmer’s tea, thick, hot and strong. But for the love of mike anywhere else but here—the kitchen, perhaps. I’ll give him a hand.’

  Mr Campion rose to his feet.

  ‘Charlie and the boys,’ he said, ‘have a rather tricky job ahead of them. They are about to compound a felony and we are all, I suppose, accessories before the fact. But Burrows has served his purpose and I think his remains should be discreetly removed. If you and Morty agree, he can be transferred very efficiently into oblivion.’

  He turned to the leader of the surveyors.

  ‘You know what to do. Could you be ready and move in half an hour?’

  Charlie grinned. ‘We can fix our own tea break.’

  Mr Lugg had worked miracles with unpromising material in the kitchen for the room had a stone flagged floor, an ancient black oven and an air of hard working austerity. It was now warm, polished and glowing with a bright scarlet and white chequered tablecloth as the centre piece. Hot amber tea laced with whisky appeared within minutes and the reviving benison was sipped in silence.

  Morty broke the spell by thumping the table. ‘The loot,’ he said explosively. ‘The pirates’ hoard that’s driven Saltey round the bend for all these years. Was it just another myth, an inflated nonsense like the Demon—did it ever exist?’

  Mr Campion surveyed him over his glasses.

  ‘Oh yes. It certainly existed.’ He stood up and crossed the room to a cupboard beneath a dresser. From it he produced a dark green metal box about eighteen inches square and four inches deep, a solid unattractive object which might have been designed to hold ammunition. He placed it carefully on the table for it was clearly heavy.

  ‘A treasure chest. Or part of it.’ He patted it gently before continuing. ‘This is the real object of the exercise. It weighs fifty pounds and there are ten of them. Until two nights ago when Lugg and I found them they were lying beneath the body of Target Burrows but it seemed best to satisfy Miss Jensen’s curiosity by allowing her to know only half the story.’

  He pressed a spring catch and raised the lid. Inside lay a row of cylinders each wrapped in discoloured paper which had once been white, fitting closly into grooves. He prized one free with a kitchen knife and unwrapped it methodically, balancing it in his hand. The column swayed in the air and broke, splaying a yellow cascade over the table. On the chequered cloth the coins made a gay modern design in red, white and gold.

  ‘Double Eagles,’ he said. ‘Twenty dollar gold pieces. Pirate gold—fairy gold—a king’s ransom. It depends how you look at them.’

  The steaming drink provided an essential pause. The bright coins glistened on the table between the tea cups and it was some time before Morty picked one of them up, holding it gingerly between finger and thumb.

  ‘Give me a minute to get my breath,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen one before except on a bandleader’s watchchain. They must be worth a fortune.’

  Mr Campion sipped his tea thoughtfully before producing a slip of paper from his wallet.

  ‘According to my Bank Manager, who says he is not really used to this sort of enquiry, the Double Eagle is worth £15 and weighs 0.967501 of a fine ounce. Today’s price for bullion gold is £11.11.9 an ounce. Mathematics is not my strong point but I make the grand total around £100,000. Quite a haul, even for a modern pirate.’

  ‘How much did Doll really know of this?’ Dido’s voice had the trace of an edge. ‘Or was she guessing hopefully in her little dream world?’

  Mr Campion shook his head. ‘She didn’t know anything. All she had to go on was the vague boast repeated by her mother. Teague only opened his mouth once and as soon as he was caught he thought better of it. He had killed two men to keep his secret and in a way, three. But twenty years is a long time to think over one’s sins especially if not all of them have been found out. There’s no statute of limitations for murder, you know, and he dared not face the chance of a second charge when he was old and broken. When I saw him it occurred to me that he’d had some sort of mild stroke. He . . .’

  Morty interrupted. ‘You said he killed two men and possibly three. Who was the third?’

  ‘The third death was Matt Parsley, the undertaker. I don’t think Teague killed him but he was certainly morally responsible. On that particular night the 26th of March, 1946, when the barge Blossom lay off the Bowl, Teague and Burrows took their cargo ashore. It was stowed in champagne cases which fitted the boxes very neatly, two to a case.

  ‘Matt Parsley was an old villian who knew all about smuggling and had certainly helped them many times before, and his workshop was very close to the quay. They loaded the stuff on to his barrow, probably putting most of it into a coffin, in case anyone noticed them going up the road to Forty Angels. Teague had his hideaway here at The Hollies
, a cache he’d built long before the war for hiding contraband. Miss Kytie was away all that spring and the house was empty.

  ‘What happened in the garden room that night is a matter of pure guess work. My guess is that Matt Parsley, who was a fat, asthmatic old man with a weak heart, had an attack, perhaps brought on by lifting heavy weights, I think he died in this room, but quite unexpectedly—leaving only Teague and Burrows. They may have quarrelled and had a fight for Teague may have killed his partner in cold blood. Again Burrows may have been killed first and the shock was too much for Matt Parsley. Remember, there was the very devil of a row about the piracy when it became known. On the night the Blossom lay off Saltey a description of the two men was broadcast, with particular emphasis on Burrows’ glass eye, which made him very easy to recognise. They had to hide the loot and they certainly didn’t trust each other enough to lie low separately until things quietened down. Teague was the brains of the act and he probably realised that as long as Burrows was anywhere near him, his chances of being recognised and caught were more than doubled. He was a calculating killer and the idea could have been in his mind all along. He is the only man who knows the truth and he is pretty certain to die with his secret.

  ‘What I am sure he did was to put Matt Parsley’s body into the coffin and trundle it back to the shed, where he abandoned it in a rather spectacular way.’

  Mr Lugg lifted one of the curtains and looked out. ‘Dawn coming up,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the boys a drop and see how they’re gettin’ on with the packin’.’

  Morty was still playing with the golden array on the table.

  ‘Who owns this stuff? What happens to it now?’

  ‘Two very good questions,’ said Mr Campion. ‘And the first one isn’t so simple to answer. Strictly speaking it belongs to the Treasury but that is not quite where it is going.’