More Work for the Undertaker

by Margery Allingham

  It was not a question and she gave him no time to let it grow into one.

  ‘It may lead to something but I can’t promise. The repertory theatre is overcrowded this year, but I’m afraid you know that.’ Her smile was very kindly.

  Campion, mildest of men, began to feel an uncharacteristic need to assert himself, but he remained cautious.

  ‘I believe there is a small theatre near here, isn’t there?’ he ventured.

  ‘Indeed there is. The Thespis. A very hard-working little troupe. Some of them are quite talented. I see every play except the rather unworthwhile things that they have to put on to try to draw the crowd, and once a month they all come here to a little conversazione and we have some amusing talk.’ She paused and a shadow settled on her fine old face. ‘I did wonder if perhaps I should put it off next week. We’ve had a little awkwardness in the house. I expect you’ve heard of it. But on the whole I think I shall carry on as usual. The only difficulty is those wretched newspapermen, although I’m afraid that they bother my brother far more than they do me.’

  She was sipping her fearful beverage very noisily, arrogantly, Mr Campion reflected, as if she felt she were privileged to give certain small offences. Yet she was still attractive and remarkably impressive.

  ‘I think I saw your brother as I came in,’ he began, and broke off, she looked so horrified. However, she mastered her irritation and smiled. ‘No, that was not Lawrence. Lawrence is – a rather different person. No, one of the pleasant things about this house is that one never need go down to the street. The street comes to one. We have been here for so long, you see.’

  ‘I heard that,’ he murmured. ‘All the tradespeople call in person, they tell me.’

  ‘The tradespeople visit downstairs,’ she corrected him, smiling. ‘The professions come up. That’s so interesting, isn’t it? I have always thought that Social Stratification would make a very jolly second subject if one wasn’t so occupied already. That was little Mr James, our bank manager. I always get him to come over when I have any business. It’s very little trouble for him. He lives above the bank, which is just across the road.’

  She sat there, florid and gracious, while her pleasant intelligent glance rested upon his face. His respect for her grew. If Charlie Luke was right and she had next to no money, her capacity for extracting service was quite remarkable.

  ‘When you came in,’ she observed, ‘I wondered if you were one of the reporters. They do such peculiar things. But as soon as you capped my little piece of Peele I knew I was wrong.’

  Campion doubted that argument but said nothing.

  ‘This little unpleasantness we are experiencing now,’ she began magnificently, ‘has made me think about the extraordinary curiosity of the vulgar. I use that word in its proper Latin sense, of course. I’ve been playing with the idea of writing a monograph on it. You see, the interesting point as it occurs to me is that the higher or more cultivated the subject the less the curiosity. Now that would appear to be a contradiction, wouldn’t it? Is it a question of parallel taboos exerting their restraints or is it actual? What do you think?’

  Of all the possible aspects of the Palinode case this was one which had so far escaped Mr Campion’s attention, but he was spared the effort of making an answer by the sudden opening of the door. It shuddered back against the wall and a tall, shambling figure, wearing very strong spectacles, appeared on the threshold. It was evident that this was the brother. He was tall and big-boned like his sister and possessed her wide head, but he was a far more nervous subject and his jaw was underhung and finer. Both his hair and clothes were coarse and dark and untidy, and his thin neck, surprisingly more red than his face, stuck out from a wide soft collar at a sharp forward angle. In both hands, carrying it before him as if he were pushing his way with it, he carried a thick volume which bristled with paper markers. He peered at Campion as if he were a stranger encountered in the street whom he thought he recognized, but on discovering he did not he swung past him and confronted Miss Evadne, saying in a queer honking voice which sounded goose-like and unreliable, as if he seldom used it:

  ‘The heliotropium is still out. Did you know?’

  He seemed so upset about it that Campion might have received an entirely false impression had he not remembered that Clytie White had been born in, or nearly in, the sea. The name was a classical one and he guessed that the original Clytie was probably a daughter of Oceanus. He fancied that he recollected that one of the daughters of the sea god was changed, after the habit of nymphs, into the plant heliotropium. He was not sure but the odds seemed very good on heliotropium being the family or pet name of Clytie White. It was all a little literary but not impossible.

  He was congratulating himself when Miss Evadne said easily:

  ‘No, I did not. Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it does.’ Lawrence was irritable. ‘Aren’t you forgetting the daisies which never blow?’

  Campion was elated. Once again he recognized the reference. It came out fresh from a forgotten locker in his mind.

  While to this day no grass will grow

  Where she lies low.

  I planted daisies there a year ago

  That never blow.

  You should not loiter so.

  Goblin Market. Christina Rossetti. The wise sister cautioning the silly sister about staying out late in questionable company.

  Lawrence Palinode seemed to be speaking fairly practically, if in a curious vernacular. Although deeply sympathetic towards Charlie Luke if he had been taking evidence in the patois of this particular country, Campion was relieved. If the Palinode ‘family language’ consisted of references to the classics, a good memory and a comprehensive dictionary of quotations should go quite a long way.

  Miss Evadne disillusioned him.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ she said to her brother. ‘Have you performed a Cousin Cawnthrope?’

  Mr Campion’s heart sank. He recognized in that remark the one unbreakable code known to man, the family allusion.

  The effect of the words on Lawrence was surprising. He looked bewildered.

  ‘No, no I haven’t, but I will,’ he said, and strode out of the room, leaving the door wide open.

  Miss Evadne handed Mr Campion her empty cup, presumably to save herself the trouble of bending forward to set it down. She had not altered her position since he had entered the room, and it went through his mind that she might possibly be hiding something behind her. It did not occur to her to offer him any sort of thanks or to ask him to sit down.

  ‘My brother is extremely clever,’ she remarked, her clear even voice caressing the words. ‘Of its kind a most ingenious mind. He prepares all the crossword puzzles for the Literary Weekly in his spare time, although his real work, which will be completed in a year or two now, is on the Origins of Arthur.’

  Mr Campion’s brows shot up. So that was it. Of course, the man had talked in crossword puzzle clues with an occasional unsolvable family reference thrown in. He wondered if they all did it, and if so, how often.

  ‘Lawrence has so many subjects,’ Miss Palinode continued. ‘Of us all he has always been the least exclusive in his interest.’

  ‘Among which he includes horticulture, no doubt,’ said Mr Campion pointedly.

  ‘Horticulture? Oh, yes.’ She laughed gently as she took the allusion to the heliotropium and the daisies. ‘Including horticulture, but only on paper, I’m afraid.’

  Mr Campion was informed. The obscurity had been deliberate. It occurred to him that the Palinode family did little that was not deliberate. Meanwhile a certain amount of muttering had reached them from the passage, not all of it amicable. Now a door closed sharply and Lawrence reappeared. He looked crestfallen.

  ‘You were quite right,’ he said. ‘I ought to have Cawnthroped. By the way, I’ve got this thing for you. I’ve worked it out. As I’ve always said, the foreign wheat was completely witless.’

  He put the book in her lap as he spoke, but av
oided her eyes. She let her big soft hands close round it, but she was annoyed.

  ‘Does it matter now?’ she reproved him gently, and added, smiling a little as if she were making a bitter little joke, ‘After all, the sheaves are gathered.’

  ‘Foreign wheat – alien corn – Ruth?’ reflected Mr Campion. Well, Miss Ruth Palinode, or part of her, poor lady, was at this moment in Sir Doberman’s laboratory. He arrived at that point in time to hear Lawrence catch his breath.

  ‘All the same I had to test it. You will allow that?’ he was saying fiercely to his sister.

  As he turned away his thick lenses focused on Campion standing a few feet from him, and suddenly, as if in apology for ignoring him so long, he gave him the sweetest and shyest of smiles. Then he went quietly out, closing the door gently behind him.

  Campion collected the tray and, as he bent to take it up, he caught sight of the title of the book on Miss Palinode’s Paisley-covered knees. The markers bristled from it like so many tapers.

  It was Ruff’s Guide to the Turf.

  6. Bedtime Story

  MR CAMPION SAT straight up out of sleep, turned on his elbow and waited.

  ‘There’s a light-switch by your side, ducky,’ said Miss Roper’s voice softly. ‘Turn it on. I’ve got a letter for you.’

  He found the button, noted his watch on the bedside table said forty-five minutes past two, and glanced up to find her already half-way across the room, looking like a travesty of something out of the lesser chapters of his youth. She wore a gay little happi-coat, over pink fairy-wool pyjamas, and a lace-and-ribbon boudoir cap. Moreover, in her arms, were a syphon, a bottle of Scotch, half full, and two large tumblers. The blue envelope was lightly caught between her knuckles. The note was on official police paper, but was written in longhand apparently by a hasty-tempered schoolboy.

  Dear Sir, re Ruth Palinode, deceased. Sir Doberman’s report to hand 0.30 hours this morning. Organs contain two-thirds grain hyoscine in available material, indicating much larger dose. Probably administered in form hyoscine hydrobromide but no evidence to show if taken subcutaneously or by mouth. Normal medicinal dose one-hundredth to one-fiftieth grain.

  Re Edward Bon Chretin Palinode, deceased. Proposed have up pronto. Belvedere Cemetery, Wilswhich N. 4.0 a.m. approx. Cordial invitation extended, no offence taken if you cut it.

  C. LUKE, D.D.I.

  Campion read the document through twice and folded it. He decided once again that he liked Charlie Luke. Proposed to have Edward up pronto, did he? What a dear chap he was. Well, he could have his exhumation, and good digging.

  At this point Miss Roper handed him a glass half full of dancing amber.

  ‘What’s this for? To steady my nerves?’

  To his dismay her hand wobbled. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, ‘it’s not bad news, is it? A policeman brought it and I thought it was probably your licence, and you might be lying here worrying about it.’

  ‘My what?’

  Her kind foolish eyes wavered in embarrassment.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ she said defensively. ‘I thought you might have to have a paper or something, to protect yourself if – if –’

  ‘If I got poisoned?’ he inquired, smiling at her.

  ‘Oh, the whisky’s all right,’ she said, mistaking him promptly. ‘Take my dying oath it is. I’ve had it under lock and key. Well, you have to these days anyway, don’t you? But I have and, see, I’m going to have mine.’

  She settled herself daintily on the extreme edge of the end of his bed and took a sizeable swig. Campion sipped his own but with less enthusiasm. He was not a whisky drinker and indeed by custom drank little of anything in bed in the middle of the night.

  ‘Did the policeman wake you?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. There was no great urgency.’

  ‘No, I was about, you know.’ She spoke vaguely. ‘I want to talk to you, Mr Campion. First of all, you’re sure there’s not bad news in that letter?’

  ‘Nothing that wasn’t expected,’ he said truthfully. ‘I’m afraid we shall find that Miss Ruth was poisoned, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, of course she was. They didn’t wake us up to tell us that, I hope.’ She spoke comfortably. ‘That’s the one thing we are sure of, unless we’re all going to look bloody fools. Now look here, Mr Campion, I want just to tell you this. I’m absolutely on the level with you. I’m more than grateful to you and you really can trust me. I shan’t keep anything back. I mean that, see?’

  It was a protestation which could have appeared suspicious from anyone else but was here curiously impressive. Her small red bird’s face was serious under her sportive cap.

  ‘I didn’t think you would,’ he assured her.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, there are little things one keeps to one’s self. But I won’t. Now I’ve got you here I’ll play fair with you.’

  He laughed at her gently. ‘What’s on your conscience, Auntie? Your young woman who changes on the roof?’

  ‘On the roof. So that’s how she does it. Little monkey.’ She was surprised and it would seem relieved. ‘I knew she took them off somewhere because last week Clarrie caught sight of her in the Bayswater Road all dolled up, and I met her coming in the same night in her old clothes. I did so hope she didn’t do it – well, in front of anyone. She’s not that kind of a girl at all, poor kiddie.’

  It was not quite clear if her pity bubbled up at this particular deficiency of Miss White’s, or at some more general weakness.

  ‘You like her?’ he suggested.

  ‘She’s a pet.’ The old woman’s smile was tickled as well as kind. ‘She’s had such a dreadful upbringing. These poor old folks don’t understand girls. How can they? Now she’s head over heels in love and she’s like a bud unfolding. I’ve read that somewhere, haven’t I? I was going to say it doesn’t sound like me. But she is. Thorny, you know, but with a little bit of pink just showing. Clarrie says the boy is very nice with her. Frightened to touch her, if you ask me.’

  ‘Is he very young too?’

  ‘Oh, quite old enough. Nineteen. A great bony fellow in one of those fair-isle pullovers shrunk till he looks like a skinned rabbit. I think he must have chosen those new clothes of hers. She’s paid for them of course. But she wouldn’t know how to buy herself a bathing dress. From what Clarrie said, the whole outfit sounded to me like a boy’s idea.’

  She took another sip and giggled.

  ‘He said she looked like a cross between the chorus and washing day. Plenty of frills, I expect, and everything a bit too tight. That’s a boy all over. On the back of the bike, too. So dangerous!’

  ‘Where did she find him?’

  ‘God knows. She never mentions him. Blushes whenever she hears a petrol engine, and thinks nobody knows.’ She paused. ‘I can just remember being like that,’ she said with a ruefulness which was delightful. ‘Can’t you? Ah, you’re not old enough. It’ll come back to you one day.’

  Sitting up in bed with his drink, hearing the small hours tick away, Mr Campion rather hoped it wouldn’t. But she was off again, bending forward now with delicate earnestness.

  ‘Well, dear, as I was saying, there is just one little thing that’s been going on for a long time and I feel I ought to mention it just so you don’t go rooting it out and being surprised . . . Hullo?’

  The final word was directed towards the door, which had opened quietly. A slender soldierly figure clad in a solid blue-cloth dressing-gown of wonderful cut and braiding had appeared on the threshold. Captain Alastair Seton stood hesitating. He was covered with embarrassment and extremely apologetic.

  ‘I do beg your pardons,’ he said, betraying just the accent but a slightly deeper voice than Campion had envisaged. ‘I was passing the door and thought the room was unoccupied. My – er – attention was caught by the shaft of light.’

  ‘Go along with you, you smelt it,’ said Renee, laughing. ‘Come along. There’s a tooth-glass over there. Bring it here.’

  The newcomer smiled with an i
nnocent mischief which was wholly disarming. ‘Something to mother,’ reflected Mr Campion, and he looked sharply at Miss Roper. She was pouring the whisky, a neat two fingers, obviously a ration.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Now, it’s quite a good thing you’ve come because you can tell Mr Campion exactly how it was that Miss Ruth was taken ill. You were the only one who saw her except the doctor. Keep your voice down. We’re in committee and anyway this bottle won’t last if anyone else comes in.’

  She was turning it into a party, showing off and covering up at the same time. So this was her secret. It seemed highly respectable.

  The Captain settled himself comfortably in a fumed-oak armchair shaped like a nordic throne.

  ‘I didn’t kill the lady,’ he said, smiling shyly at Campion as if he hoped he was going to be liked.

  ‘You didn’t know her, Albert,’ said Renee hastily, as if she were afraid to let go of the situation. ‘She was a great big woman, larger than the others, and she wasn’t quite so clever. I know what Clarrie thinks but he’s wrong.’

  ‘Strange as that may appear,’ murmured Captain Seton into his glass and laughing a little spitefully, as a cat might.

  ‘They didn’t kill her because of that, anyway,’ she went on, ignoring him. ‘They were all very angry with her, I know, but it wasn’t because she wasn’t clever. She was ill, poor woman. The doctor told me that nearly two months before she died. “If she doesn’t take it very easy she’ll have a stroke, Renee,” he said, “and that’ll mean more work for you. She’ll go like her brother did.”’

  Campion sat up. ‘Mr Edward died of a stroke, did he?’

  ‘So the doctor said.’ Miss Roper put suspicion and a warning into the words and her head was held on one side like a robin’s. ‘Still, we don’t know about him, do we? Well, on the day she died Miss Ruth went out early with her shopping bag. There’d been a bit of a barny the night before because I heard them all shouting at her in Mr Lawrence’s room. No one seems to have seen her until she came in about half past twelve. I was in the kitchen, the others were out, but the Captain here met her in the front hall. Now you go on, love.’