‘We’d better see if he is alone, first,’ said Sanderson. ‘I shan’t be surprised if he is. He’s conceited enough for anything.’
‘If you find anyone outside he’s nothing to do with me,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Absolutely no connection with any other firm. No; as I told you before, I’m making a perfectly normal formal call. I climbed the wall by a honeysuckle bush. Up and down, quite unaided. Moggie couldn’t have done it better. Frankly,’ he went on, turning towards that worthy, ‘I don’t see what a cat burglar is doing in this.’
‘You don’t have to,’ cut in Sanderson quickly. ‘You don’t have to think about us. It’s your own skin you’ve got to watch. Fingers, you and the Major go and have a scout round.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mr Campion. ‘And whistle all the time. Then we’ll know it’s you. Meantime, perhaps I could show you some card tricks?’ he added, eyeing the pack on the table wistfully. ‘Or I’ll tell your fortune, Mrs Shannon. You’ve got a lucky face.’
To everyone’s surprise Mrs Dick threw the pack in his direction. Mr Campion picked them up and shuffled with great solemnity.
‘You cut three times towards me and wish,’ he said. His pale eyes were mild and guileless, and there was an infantile expression upon his face. She cut the cards, the half-amused, half-derisive smile still twisting her small thin mouth.
Mr Campion set about arranging the cards with a portentous air. ‘I see a lot of knaves about you,’ he remarked cheerfully. ‘One fat one,’ he added, eyeing the retreating form of the ‘Major’.
Sanderson laughed. ‘You’re a cool customer,’ he said, a tinge of admiration in his voice. ‘Carry on.’
‘I see a great understanding,’ said Mr Campion, plonking down the cards one after the other. ‘And a lot of trouble. Oh, dear, dear, dear! All black cards. It looks as if there’s a hanging in it for somebody.’
‘Shut up,’ said Sanderson, stretching out a hand as if to sweep the cards off the table. ‘He’s playing for time, or something.’
‘Hush,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I’m going to have my palm crossed with silver for this – I hope. Now here’s a whole stack of money – I might almost say a pot of money. Ah, don’t be led astray by riches, lady. Here comes the luck card. It’s very close but it doesn’t quite touch. There’s a fair young man in between. I should watch out for him, Mrs Dick.’
He prattled on, apparently oblivious of his surroundings.
‘There’s an old woman and her son who’ll give the game away if you don’t take care – a silly old woman and a sillier son. You’ll have a lot to answer for there,’ he said presently, and was interrupted by the return of the two searchers.
‘All the gates fast. Not a soul on the heath. He’s alone,’ said the Major. ‘Shall we take him along now?’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Mr Campion reprovingly. ‘The gentleman is suffering from second sight and must not be disturbed until the fit is passed. Now, let me see.’ He sat for a moment looking at the cards which he had arranged in a half circle on the table. They lay so that one broken end faced Mrs Dick and the other was beneath his hand.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said at last, as though a new thought had occurred to him. ‘And then there’s journeys.’ He bent across the table and planted a single card before the woman some distance from the rest, so that the whole formation resembled a rough question mark.
‘I see a far journey,’ he remarked. ‘Why yes, most certainly. You take the long road.’ And then, as she stared at the table, he swept the cards carelessly aside and rose to his feet.
‘The seance is ended,’ he said. ‘Any more for the information bureau? Sanderson, let me tell you your past.’
An explosive giggle from the ‘Major’ was silenced by a single savage glance from the gentleman addressed.
‘You’ll stop mucking about,’ Sanderson said. ‘Where shall I put him, Daisy? In the loft, I suppose.’
‘Looks to me as though he’s askin’ for it a bit obvious,’ said Moggie. ‘What price we chuck ’im out on ’is ear?’
It was Mrs Dick who settled the discussion. ‘Put him in the gate loft,’ she said. ‘Let him cool his heels for a couple of days.’
Sanderson grinned. ‘I thought you’d see reason,’ he remarked complacently. He put his hand on Campion’s shoulder and jerked him towards the door. Fingers Hawkins seized his other arm, and thus, with all ignominy, was Mr Campion escorted to the stables which he had so lately examined; but although he protested the whole way, it should perhaps be recorded that on the whole he felt distinctly satisfied.
CHAPTER 23
‘Madame, Will You Talk?’
—
AT EIGHT o’clock on the evening of July the second, Val Gyrth’s twenty-fifth birthday, Mr Campion languished in the room over the gateway of Mrs Shannon’s stable-yard. It was an effective prison. The windows were barred to prevent an entry rather than an exit, but they were equally efficient in either case. The two doors which led into other first storey rooms on either side were locked. Even had he desired to escape, the process would have been difficult.
The atmosphere was suffocating under the low penthouse roof, and his couch, which consisted of a blanket thrown over a heap of straw, was not altogether comfortable. Yet he was by no means disheartened. He had had frequent visitors during the day, but so far the one person he had come to see had studiously avoided him.
While Sanderson seemed fidgety with curiosity, Mrs Dick had not yet appeared.
This was the one factor in his plans that had so far miscarried, and here he was completely in the dark. And he realized clearly that upon Mrs Dick’s character everything depended.
During the day he had ascertained that there were considerably more men at the lady’s command than he had encountered at the poker game, but he felt grateful at the thought of the yellow caravan across the heath.
He rose to his feet and glanced out of the window. Great dark blue streaks of cloud were beginning to creep across the golden sky in the west. A clatter in the yard sent him over to the opposite window, and he stood looking down at just such a scene as Sanderson had described to the uninterested little group in the Cup House on the day after Lady Pethwick’s death.
Mrs Dick, assisted by a terrified stable-boy and the equally unhappy ‘Major’, was engaged in transferring her remaining pedigree mare from one box to another. They made an extraordinary picture; the woman, tall, angular and more mannish than ever in her rat-catcher riding-breeches and gaiters, and her white shirt buttoned tight to her neck and finished with a high stock tie of the same colour. Her cropped head was bare, and the evening light fell upon her pale, distorted face. The beast, a beautiful creature with a coat like black satin save for a single white stocking, was both nervous and bad-tempered. She was as heavy as a hunter and very tall, and as she moved the great muscles rippled down her shoulders like still water ruffled by the wind.
She refused the second box, and reared, pawing savagely with her forefeet. Mrs Dick, one hand gripping the bridle rein, lashed out with her whip. Again and again the mare refused, clattering over the yard till the bricks echoed. But the woman was indomitable; a dozen times she seemed to save herself by sheer skill and the single steel wrist by which she held the animal.
Mr Campion remembered the horse’s name, ‘Bitter Aloes’. As the words came back to him the battle outside came to a sudden end. The mare, charging savagely at her mistress, had been rewarded by a vicious punch on her velvet nose from a small but very forceful feminine fist, and as she clattered back from this unexpected attack the woman seized her opportunity and ran her back unprotesting into the box. Mrs Dick emerged a moment later, grim and triumphant, superbly conscious of her victory. She accepted the ‘Major’s’ clumsy congratulations with a tart bellow of ‘Don’t be a fool,’ which reached Mr Campion clearly in his prison, and once again the yard was deserted.
He remained standing by the window for some time, vaguely troubled. The presence of Moggie, the little Japanese half-c
aste, puzzled him. And there was the grey-headed man too. There was no telling to what particular branch of the profession he might belong.
For the rest, however, he was content to wait. If Mrs Dick had any spark of femininity in her make-up she would come to see him after the fortune-telling episode. He was a little surprised that she had not come before. The burning question of the moment, as far as he was concerned, and the sole reason for his present position, was the problem of whether Mrs Dick was alone the employee of the ‘Société Anonyme’, the amateur who, with the professional assistance of Matthew Sanderson and his associates, was directly responsible for the whole adventure of the Gyrth Chalice, the employee whose death according to the rules of the society would constitute the only reason for the abandonment of the quest.
For his own sake as much as hers Mr Campion trusted fervently that this was not the case. Both he and Val had mentally shelved this aspect of the affair, concentrating doggedly on the immediate protection of the Chalice. But always this question had been lurking in the background, and now, it seemed to Campion, it clamoured for recognition.
In spite of himself he shied away from the subject and turned his thoughts towards the Tower. He imagined the sedate and rather solemn little dinner-party now in progress; Sir Percival at the head of the table with Val on his right, Penny opposite her brother, and Pembroke, the old parson, beside her. The conversation would be constrained, he felt sure, in spite of the intimate nature of the gathering. The shadow of the secret room would hang over them all relentlessly; the secret room which held the real Gyrth Chalice, and something else, that something which never seemed to leave Sir Percival’s thoughts. He wondered if Val would react in the same way as his father had done, or if the sharing of the secret would lighten the burden on the old man’s mind.
He was disturbed in his reflections by the sound of a motor engine in the courtyard, and, glancing out of the opposite window to that by which he had been standing, he saw Sanderson bringing out a car from the garage.
Something about this most ordinary action alarmed him unreasonably.
There was a storm blowing up, and the heat, which had been oppressive all day, was now positively unbearable. Sanderson went into the house, and Campion was able to stare at the car at his leisure. Lying over the front seat he saw a coil of very flexible rope, knotted at intervals. He was puzzled, and his pale face peering through the bars of the window wore an expression of almost childlike discomfort. There was a distinct atmosphere of preparation abroad; something was about to happen.
The sound of a key turning in a lock behind him made him spin round.
Mrs Dick stepped briskly into the room. She wore the costume in which he had seen her in the yard, and the short-handled whip was still in her hand. She stood with her back to the door, her legs slightly straddled, and regarded him insolently.
Immediately Mr Campion sensed the extreme force of her personality, for the first time, directed upon him alone. He had met forceful and unpleasant personalities before in the course of a short and somewhat chequered career, but never in a woman, and it was this fact which robbed him for the moment of his usual urbanity.
‘You haven’t shaved this morning,’ she said suddenly. ‘I like men to be clean. I don’t want you in this loft any longer. Get in here, will you?’
Mr Campion looked hurt as he complied with her command, and suffered himself to be driven through a succession of similar lofts until he came to a full stop in a hay-strewn apartment which was, if anything, more hot and dusty than the one he had just left, in spite of the fact that there was a small open grating overlooking the heath in lieu of a window in the outer wall.
Mrs Dick followed him into the room and shut the door behind her.
‘I want you in here because both doors bolt on the outside,’ she remarked. ‘Now, young man, what did you come here for?’
Mr Campion considered. ‘You hurt me about not being shaved,’ he said. ‘None of your friends would trust me with a razor. I used to have a beard once. I called it “Impudence” – “Persuasion” out of “Cheek”, you see. Rather neat, don’t you think?’
Mrs Dick permitted herself one of her sour smiles.
‘I’ve been hearing about you,’ she said. ‘Impudence seems to be your strong point. I’m sorry you’ve got yourself mixed up in this. You might have been amusing. However,’ she went on, ‘since you’ve evidently got nothing to say, it’s quite obvious to me what you’re doing here. Since you are a prisoner like this, it gives you an excellent excuse to explain to your employers why you’ve failed. I recognize that fact.’
Mr Campion grinned. ‘I say,’ he said, ‘that’s a good idea. How did you come to that startling conclusion?’
Mrs Dick remained unmoved. ‘It was quite clever,’ she said judicially. ‘What a pity you’ll never be able to use it. Sandy thinks you know much too much to get away with it. I’ve never paid blackmail, and I’m certainly not going to begin.’
‘It must be the people you associate with,’ said Mr Campion with dignity. ‘My Union doesn’t allow blackmail. I had no idea I was going to be a perpetual guest,’ he added cheerfully. ‘I do hope you won’t expect me to wear an iron mask.’
Mrs Dick raised her eyebrows expressively, but she did not speak, and he went on.
‘I suppose your present intention is to keep me here until you fix everything up with your London agents?’
The woman shot a penetrating glance at him. ‘You know very well we haven’t succeeded yet,’ she said. ‘You were very clever, Mr Campion, making all that fuss about your spurious Chalice. A little childish, perhaps, but quite effective. You made us waste a lot of time.’
Mr Campion’s pale eyes flickered behind his spectacles. The blow had gone home.
‘So you’ve found that out, have you?’ he said. ‘You’ve been pretty quick. Little Albert has been taking things too easily, I see. Dear, dear, dear! What are you going to do next? Have a lovely treasure hunt and give prizes? I’ll come and tell you when you’re getting warm.’
‘I’m not amused by nonsense,’ said Mrs Dick. ‘In fact,’ she added with devastating frankness, ‘I have very little sense of humour.’
‘Well, that’s original, I can’t say fairer than that,’ said Mr Campion politely. ‘May I make you a suggestion? Take the Chalice you already have. It has been in the Cup House at the Towers ever since it was made. Present it to your employers. If they cavil at it you can answer sincerely that as far as you know it is the only Gyrth Chalice in existence. I fancy that they’d pay up.’
‘Now you’re beginning to be genuinely amusing,’ said Mrs Dick. She lit a cigarette from a yellow packet which she drew from her breeches’ pocket. ‘You don’t seem to be very well informed. The spurious cup was sent back to the Tower the day before yesterday. I know perfectly well where the real Chalice is and I’m going to get it.’
‘With Matt Sanderson, Fingers Hawkins, Natty Johnson, the Major, old Uncle Tom Moggie and all,’ said Mr Campion. ‘You won’t get much of a look-in on the pay roll, will you? Mother, is it worth it? Father’s got to have his share, you know.’
Mrs Dick stopped smoking, the cigarette hanging limply between her thin lips.
‘I’m managing this,’ she said. ‘I was approached and the responsibility as well as the reward is entirely mine.’
Mr Campion was silent for some moments. Then he coughed, and raising his eyes to hers, he regarded her solemnly. ‘If you’re really responsible for this little lot,’ he said gravely, ‘the situation becomes exceedingly uncomfortable and difficult. In fact, to put it crudely, to end the matter satisfactorily, one or both of us will have to retire from the picture pretty effectively.’
‘That,’ said Mrs Dick absently, ‘has already occurred to me. You won’t get out of here alive, my friend.’
‘Threats!’ said Mr Campion, his light-heartedness returning. ‘Isn’t it time you hissed at me? You have an advantage over me by being dressed for the part, you know. Give me a
pair of moustachios and I’ll be a villain too.’
The light was gradually going, though he could still distinguish her white face across the loft, but he felt himself all the more at a disadvantage inasmuch as the finer shades of expression on it were lost to him.
‘It would interest me,’ she said suddenly, ‘to know who employed you. The Gyrths, I suppose. How did they get wind of it in the first place? Well, I’m sorry they’ve wasted their money. Heaven knows they’ve got little enough.’
‘I suppose you need money yourself,’ said Campion quietly.
‘Naturally. I’ve spent two fortunes in my time,’ said Mrs Dick without boast or regret. ‘That’s why I’ve got to get hold of another. You don’t think I’m going to allow a little rat like you to interfere?’
‘You underestimate me,’ said Mr Campion with firm politeness. ‘Manly courage, intelligence and resource are my strong points.’
He raised his voice during the last words for the first time during the interview. Instantaneously there was a clatter of hoofs beneath his feet, followed by several thunderous kicks on the woodwork which shook the building.
‘Bitter Aloes,’ said Mrs Dick significantly. ‘She’s in the box beneath here. You’re in good company. Keep your voice down, though … she’s vicious with strangers.’
‘Not too matey with the lady of the house,’ observed Mr Campion more quietly. ‘I saw you playing together in the yard like a pair of kittens. I thought she’d get you with her forefeet.’
‘She killed a boy last year.’ Mrs Dick’s voice was brisk but expressionless. ‘I was supposed to have her shot but I wangled out of it. The little beast came on her unexpectedly. I saw it happen. It wasn’t a pretty death. Those forefeet of hers were like steel hammers.’
Mr Campion hunched his shoulders. ‘You have a curious taste in pets,’ he observed. ‘Fingers Hawkins and Bitter Aloes make a very fine pair. But suppose we cut the melodrama and come back to business? In the first place – merely as a matter of curiosity, of course – how do you hope to get away with it?’
Look to the Lady Page 20