More Work for the Undertaker

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Mr Campion wondered if he had imported a body lately, collected it for relatives for burial here.’

  ‘They’ve done nothing of the kind since nineteen-thirty. Undertaking isn’t the ideal business for hanky-panky. There are so many checks, registrars’ certificates and so on. Frankly, I don’t see why he should be employed to smuggle anything. Whatever the stuff was, once it was here I should have thought a lorry would have served the purpose better. No one notices goods delivered by a lorry, but everyone takes a bit of a look at a coffin.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t see the point of it.’

  ‘Don’t you, George?’ Luke was grinning savagely to himself. ‘You didn’t see the casket with the gold whatnots?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Picot folded back his notebook as he spoke. ‘I inspected four ornamented caskets all in light wood. Mr Bowels, snr., admitted to removing a coffin from a cellar he rented in this house, but says he used it for a job in Lansbury Terrace. We can get a description from witnesses, but for proof we’ll have to apply for an exhumation order. I didn’t think you’d feel like doing that, sir, especially as nothing seems to turn on it.’

  Luke grimaced at Campion.

  ‘What about this hotel work of Bowels’s?’

  ‘The grand piano top, sir?’ Picot frowned. ‘He was very frank about it. It happened over a year ago. The piano top belonged to the Balsamic Hotel, not to him, and he boxed the corpse very decently as soon as he got it to his place. He has one shed done out as a sort of private mortuary. It’s all above board, known to the authorities and so on.’

  ‘What did he carry it in? Has he got a truck?’ Campion put the question curiously.

  ‘No, sir. These are his vehicles.’ Picot’s notebook was in use again. ‘There’s two hearses, one better than the other, both horse-drawn. It’s not a wealthy district, you see, and the locals take their dying seriously. They’re conservative about horses at funerals. For weddings they like a car. Then there’s two mourning coaches; if they need more they have to hire limousines. And there’s the coffin brake. That’s the lot. They have four horses, all black. Three are well past their best, but the fourth is a young one.’

  ‘Have you seen all this?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Patted the horses.’

  ‘What’s a coffin brake? That rather sinister affair that looks rather like an ebony cigar box on wheels? I haven’t seen one of those since I was a child.’

  ‘Haven’t you, sir?’ Picot conveyed that it was the eminent visitor’s loss. ‘People round here like the coffin delivered in one of those. Seems to make it more respectful not to have the hearse call twice. The Bowels have a very good one, old but in fine repair. Nice high box-seat for the driver. It looks very decent coming along. There is one other point I feel I should mention: all the time we spent with Mr Bowels, snr, the old gentleman was sweating like a pig. He was open in his answers and we could not find a thing out of place. He was helpful, took us everywhere without a murmur, and he was polite to a fault, but he did sweat.’

  ‘And what do you deduce from that? That he’d got a cold?’ Charlie Luke was more tired than a man could be.

  ‘No, sir.’ Picot was reproachful. ‘I gathered that he was frightened stiff. I don’t know why. I shall mention it in my report, of course. Good night, sir.’

  The D.D.I. reached for his hat.

  ‘I tink I go home,’ he said. ‘Miss Ruth has been poisoned, Clytie’s boy friend has been slugged, Pa Wilde has done himself in, the Captain has put himself out, Jas is innocent but sweating, and we’re just exactly where we always were. Cawdblimiah! We don’t even know who wrote the poison-pen letters.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mr Campion, ‘that reminds me, I didn’t give you back that last letter the doctor received. I had a little thought about that.’ He took the wretched sheet from his coat pocket and spread it out on the coverlet beside him. The second passage which had interested him was near the end. He read it aloud.

  ‘“. . . Am watching you who are to blame for all trouble and misery god know amen glass tells all don’t forget . . .”’

  His lazy eyes met Luke’s own. ‘I’ve come across that before, once,’ he said. ‘That communicative glass sometimes means a crystal. Got any practising clairvoyants in the district?’

  Luke sat down abruptly, his hat hanging from one bony wrist.

  ‘I was thinking about the Captain and the woman he was waiting for by the pillarbox,’ Campion went on slowly. ‘That old boy wears a small emerald in a comparatively new ring. It is a peculiar stone for a consciously masculine lad of his period, but Renee tells me his birthday is in May, and my Girl Guide’s diary says that to be lucky those born in May should wear green, preferably emeralds. He’s a self-centred man, a poor man, and a man with a lot of time.’ He eyed Luke, who was staring at him. ‘No one gets to hear so much from her clients as a clairvoyant. I can imagine a silly, very slightly sexy association between a chap like that and some crazy half-vicious woman between fifty and sixty whom he visits, and to whom he blabs his own and everybody else’s business. When the balloon went up and the letters were generally discussed, he must have suspected her. There may have been a quarrel. She may have threatened to post one under his own window. I don’t know. When Lawrence tackled him about the letter he certainly lost his head.’

  Luke sat perfectly still. He looked as if he were genuinely petrified. When he spoke it was very softly.

  ‘I ought to resign on this. You might have known her.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Slightly.’ He rose, still regarding the other man with a sort of shocked respect. ‘I even knew that he visited her once. One of my chaps mentioned that he’d seen him coming out of her house. That was in the very beginning of the case. I didn’t think another thing about it. You’ve got it from cold and I had all the aids and missed it.’

  ‘Perhaps I’m wrong.’ Mr Campion seemed taken aback by the violence of his success. ‘It has been known.’

  ‘Not on your life!’ Charlie Luke had come alive again. In minutes he had become twice as forceful and ten years younger. ‘That’s the gal all right. Calls herself Pharaoh’s Daughter. She gives readings for a tanner a time and we never bothered her under the Act because she seemed so harmless.’

  He was concentrating, dragging the picture from the depths of his remarkable memory.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ he said with tremendous conviction. ‘Yes! That’s her. Her real name is – let me think – Miss – Miss – Godalmighty!’ His eyes widened. ‘D’you know who she is, Campion? Yes! She’s his sister, dammit! Must be. His sister! She’s Miss Congreve, Old Bloblip’s sister at the bank. Oh God! don’t let me die before I get down there!’

  He was so excited that he had not heard the persistent tapping at the door. It was suddenly opened and a delighted, if inopportune, Clytie White appeared on the threshold. Unaware that she had arrived at a moment of crisis, she stood looking in at Luke, half anxious, half ecstatic. She was in all her glory. A skin-tight bodice revealed the charm of her young bosom. A mighty skirt spread out in exaggerated folds. A spotted scarf tied in a doubtful bow made her look like a dressed-up kitten, and a modern boater sat squarely and fashionably on her newly dressed hair.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded, and her voice was breathless.

  Charlie Luke paused in his flight to duty. Campion had never respected him more. He stood surveying her earnestly, his eyes narrowed, the whole force of his pile-driver personality concentrated on her problem.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said at last. ‘Take off the scarf and I’ll take you to the pictures Sunday.’

  22. Slip-knots

  WHEN CHARLIE LUKE finally returned it was morning on the day of Miss Evadne’s revel. Campion was still in bed, but not asleep.

  He had awakened with a query. It had been thrown, complete and vital, by his subconscious mind in sleep, and the more he considered it the more obvious and elementary it became.

  He saw by his watch that it was close on a quarter to seven. At the same
time he became aware that the house was not only stirring, but that some upheaval was taking place. He slid into a dressing-gown and opened his door, to meet an offensive of strange odours which suggested that Miss Jessica had been cooking again. He paid little attention to it, for on the other side of the landing Miss Roper was smacking Charlie Luke’s face. She was as angry as a disturbed sitting hen.

  Charlie Luke, grey with weariness but still remarkably good-tempered, picked her up by the elbows and held her kicking a foot or so from the floor.

  ‘Come on, Auntie,’ he said, ‘be a good girl or I’ll have to send a real policeman with a helmet to you.’

  Miss Roper let herself grow limp and he set her down, but she still barred his way.

  ‘One of your young men has been with him all night, and Clarrie and I have had a dreadful morning with him. Now he’s asleep and you’re not to wake him; he’s an ill man.’

  ‘I bet he is, but I’ve got to see him.’

  Renee caught sight of Campion, whom she hailed as a deliverer.

  ‘Oh, ducky,’ she said, ‘make this stupid boy see a little reason. The Captain’s had an accident. He doesn’t often do it, but when he does it’s enough to kill him. Charlie’s got a crazy idea he’s been writing anonymous letters, which is one thing he wouldn’t do, that I will say for him – though I could wring his wicked old neck for him this minute. I’ve got him to sleep and he won’t be fit to speak to for hours. Do make him leave him alone. He can’t stand, much less run away.’

  A dismal sound from the room behind her confirmed her diagnosis and her small brown body fluttered like a bird’s.

  ‘Oh, run along do!’ she said to Luke. ‘If he’s been up to anything you shall make him answer for it as soon as he’s half-way to being himself. I know him. He’d admit to anything now just to get a minute of peace.’

  Luke hesitated and she pushed him before her.

  ‘Oh, I have got a day,’ she said bitterly. ‘There’s all this to clean up, the boy’s coming from hospital at noon and has to go straight to bed, and then there’s this damn silly party. Evadne’s asked half London by all accounts. Take Mr Luke into your room, Albert, and I’ll send you both up a bit of breakfast.’

  Another and more violent groan from the stricken warrior made the D.D.I.’s mind up for him.

  ‘I’ll give him half an hour,’ he said, and then, catching Campion’s eye, raised both thumbs in an expressive gesture. ‘Right on the target,’ he said as he closed the bedroom door after them and turned his head away resolutely from the one comfortable chair. ‘I hand it to you.’

  Mr Campion seemed pleased. ‘Is the lady in the bag?’

  ‘In the cells, crying all over the floor.’ Luke shook himself expressively. ‘We’ve had her on the carpet most of the night and now the whole station’s wet. Funny thing, she was explicit enough on paper but we couldn’t get a word out of her except, “Oh, my God!” for close on three hours.’ He yielded to the chair’s invitation as he spoke and propped his lids open.

  ‘Did she admit it?’

  ‘Yes. We found the paper, the ink and the envelopes, as well as a sample of the disguised handwriting on a bit of blotting paper. But she wouldn’t come across until dawn. Just sat there like a bull frog.’ He blew out his cheeks, lowered his brows, and made himself a high-corseted bust with his hands. ‘Then she broke like an egg. We heard all about the dear Captain. He was so helpless and put upon. He touched her heart and moved her to do what she knew she didn’t ought, having been brought up very different. How do these old boys do it? Pull out their empty pockets and cry?’

  He wriggled himself more deeply into the cushions and made an attempt to keep his eyes at least half open.

  ‘To do him justice, she’s misleading. I don’t suppose he had the faintest idea what he was stirring up under that mumbo-jumbo-I-see-all exterior. He probably just rambled on, trying to make himself interesting.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and how did you get on with her brother?’

  Luke frowned. ‘We slipped up over Bloblip,’ he admitted. ‘As she opened the front door to us he slid out of the back. We shall collect him in the end, of course, but meanwhile it’s annoying.’

  ‘Was her letter-writing his idea?’

  The red-rimmed eyes flickered wide at the new suggestion.

  ‘I – shouldn’t – think so. There was no hint of it. No, I think Psychic Phoeb was just letting out her own stays. That’s what’s so peeving. Usually in these affairs, once you do get a genuine lead the whole thing comes unravelling out like Auntie’s jumper. But this just takes us to an evil-minded old blossom with a schoolgirl crush on the Captain and a grievance against the Doc. He snubbed her, by the way. That sticks out a mile, although all she’ll say is that she used to go to him for her stomach, but stopped. He is a bit short with hysterical patients, I’ve heard that before. The whole thing’s practically a dead end, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wonder. It’s extraordinary she should have been right. She accused the doctor of overlooking a murder and he had. That’s pretty good going for mere spite.’

  Luke was not satisfied. ‘She got it from the Captain. That’s why I want to talk to him myself. He may have said more than he knew. You know how it is when a chap comes pouring out his troubles twice a week. He forgets what he said last time; you don’t. She got the idea out of him. What would Bloblip know about what went on over here?’

  Mr Campion did not argue but began to dress.

  ‘When does Miss Congreve come up before the Magistrate? Do you want to be there?’

  ‘Ten. And Porky can see to her. She’ll get bail. Anything I can do for you?’

  Campion grinned. ‘If I might advise it, I should take an hour or two’s sleep in my bed. By the time you wake, the Captain may be almost intelligent if not affable. Meanwhile I should like to follow up a night-thought of my own. Where shall I find the local coroner’s office?’

  The final question cut short Luke’s protest. He was too well trained to ask a direct question, but he sat up at once, alert and curious.

  ‘Twenty-five, Barrow Road,’ he said promptly. ‘I’ve got several chaps released for duty now, though. No need to do your own homework.’

  Campion’s tousled head appeared through his shirt.

  ‘Don’t give it another thought,’ he said. ‘I may so easily be wrong.’

  He had breakfasted by a few minutes before nine and he came hurrying down the front steps to find only Mrs Love and her pail barring his way. She wore a sky-blue coif and a white overall for morning, and was gaily arch as usual.

  ‘Company today,’ she shouted, winking a rheumy eye at him and adding in a whisper, which was like a fall of sand, ‘there’s a lot coming because of the crime. I say there’s a lot coming because of the crime.’ She laughed like an evil child, light-hearted mischief in her rosy face. ‘Don’t fergit the party. Come back in time. I say come back in time.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be in long before that,’ he assured her, and plunged out into the misty sunshine.

  Yet he was mistaken. His call took him far into the morning and its consequence was a series of further visits. These were delicate encounters, demanding all the tact in his not inconsiderable store. Relatives were tracked and questioned, next-of-kin located but not confirmed; but, by the time the setting sun had achieved a blood-red Apron Street, he came striding down it with new excitement in his step.

  His first impression on catching sight of the house was that it must be on fire. The crowd had grown. Corkerdale, reinforced by two uniformed men, was holding the gate and garden walls, while the front door at the top of the steps stood wide and tantalizing. Miss Evadne’s conversazione had begun.

  Inside, the atmosphere was tremendous. An air of hospitality had been achieved by the simple method of leaving all the doors open. Someone – Campion suspected Clarrie – had fixed an old brass four-pronged candlestick on the flat top of the newel-post. The candles guttered in the draught and there was rather a lot of tall
ow about, one way and another. But the general effect was not ungay.

  No sooner had his foot touched the mat than Renee bobbed out at him from the drawing-room. She was unexpectedly magnificent in solid black, save for a small white silk afternoon tea apron adorned with rosebuds. He thought at first that her histrionic instinct had prompted her to dress up as a stage housekeeper, but her first words corrected him.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, dear,’ she said, catching his arm. ‘Thank God for someone with a mite of respectability. I’m the only one in the house who’s remembered to put on a speck of mourning. It’s not that they’re heartless, but they’re so busy thinking they don’t have time to think, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Perfectly. It suits you. You look lovely.’

  She laughed at him, the sun coming out in her worried eyes.

  ‘You wicked boy!’ she said. ‘There’s no time for that kind of talk now. I wish there were. I say, Albert’ – she lowered her voice and peered down the hall – ‘is all this true about the police now knowing who they want and flinging out a net and closing in on them?’

  ‘I hadn’t heard it,’ he said curiously.

  ‘Well, you’ve been out all day, haven’t you? I think you’ll find it’s right. Clarrie told me not to tell a soul, and I shan’t, of course, but there’s dozens more police about, just watching, waiting for the word.’

  ‘What a pity no one gives it.’

  ‘It’s nothing to laugh at, dear. They’ve got to have proof, haven’t they? Oh, I shall be glad when it’s all over, however horrible the shock is, and I’ve had a few. Look at my old Captain! – sneaking out to have his fortune told and play handy-pandy with a – well, I won’t demean myself, Albert, but really! – an old haybag. She’d make fifteen of me. She put the fear of God into him by writing the letters. He must have known. He swears he didn’t, the old liar, but as I told him, I may have kept my figure, but I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  She was very militant and utterly feminine. Her eyes were flashing like an angry girl’s.