Margery Allingham's Mr Campion's Farewell

by Mike Ripley

  ‘Never?’ said Eliza Jane, crossing his palette knife with a long paint brush as if they were fencing. ‘I thought you told me …’

  ‘Never is right. As it happens, I have never attended another meeting. What that gossiping Hecate is getting at is that I did make a half-hearted effort to put in an appearance last year. It was just after the great row about the drop-outs and the hippies and all that tedious jazz. There was a lot of chat about the Carders being behind the scenes in getting rid of them. I didn’t believe it and I didn’t see how it was remotely possible, but I thought I’d drop into the next Carders’ get-together and just ask.

  ‘They meet in the Carders Hall, as you would guess, and I was a few minutes late because I thought the more mumbo-jumbo I missed the better. If you went to that lecture you know what the place is like. You go through the main door into an outer vestibule with half-glass swing doors looking straight down the hall itself, facing the raised dais at the far end. I’d shown my invitation – the summons they call it – to the caretaker who was very suspicious of me and delayed me before I could push ahead.’

  ‘It was really very odd. There was nobody there – nobody, that is, except the Learned Clerk, and he was sitting at the head of the long table reading a novel and making notes. I watched him for quite a bit – five minutes perhaps – to make sure he really was alone and then I barged in and wished him a merry Michaelmas. The old goat shut his book with a bang, looked up at me and laughed. The joke was clearly on me. “The council is closed, sir,” he said. “The business of the day was concluded before your arrival. I have delayed my own departure in case you put in a late appearance.” “What went on?” I said, “I wanted to ask some questions. You were damn quick getting through the hocus-pocus.” “Our proceedings can only be discussed at our next assembly,” he said in a ripe, sucks-to-you voice, “I suggest you attend it as a duty and a right.”’

  ‘And did you?’ asked Mr Campion.

  Ben Judd laughed, an uninhibited snort of genuine amusement. ‘Not on your life. I had a very strong impression that if I did there would be nothing in it for me but another session worse than the induction ceremony and twice as long. I could tell by the look in that old dustbag’s eyes. He won, hands down and no questions asked. And that, I’m afraid, dear uncle of a nitwitted vulgarian, is the way it’s going to stay.’

  He rotated his glare so that it fell on Eliza Jane: ‘Get your frying pan, Abigail!’

  ‘And just who,’ demanded Eliza Jane, planting her fists on her hips, ‘is this Abigail?’

  ‘My dear young niece,’ said Mr Campion with a shake of his head but also a smile, ‘I will be reporting back to your aunt on the sorry state of your education. It was Abigail who cooked for King David and thereafter became his wife. She was both intelligent and beautiful, or so it says in Leviticus or Samuel, I forget exactly which. Perhaps both?’

  ‘I think you might be right,’ said Judd, ‘and I am delighted to see there are brains in the family after all.’

  ‘You are remarkably kind,’ said Mr Campion with proper humility. ‘If I asked how many Carders attended your first meeting would I embarrass you?’

  ‘The answer is five, including me and the Learned Clerk. The other four had more sense and didn’t turn up.’

  The visitor considered this snippet of information carefully.

  ‘Since there isn’t any Abbot of Lindsay Carfax any longer,’ he said, ‘I wonder who represents him now?’

  Ben Judd raised his golden beard and threw back his head in a chortle of delight.

  ‘I can’t tell you the answer to that one but it isn’t Leslie Trump. I think he’d be more astonished than you if he ever found out.’

  ‘Well he certainly gave no clues in his sermon this morning,’ said Mr Campion wistfully. ‘In fact he gave precious few clues as to what the sermon was supposed to be about.’

  Judd laughed again and thwacked the flat of the palette knife against his thigh. ‘He never does, which is why Saint Cats doesn’t get my custom anymore and won’t as long that little twerp claims the pulpit. He’s even more pathetic when he tries to appeal to today’s great unwashed youth. Have you read the little God-botherer’s Get with the Psalms? An appalling, quite ghastly tome, not worth the paper it’s printed on.’

  ‘I have not had the pleasure of reading Trump’s book, but he told me about it,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and that at least one reviewer seems to have taken exception to it by sending him nine copies neatly bisected, which strikes me as a rather violent mode of literary criticism.’

  ‘Nine copies? I’m surprised they printed that many, but of course it had to be nine, didn’t it? Everything happens in nines around here, it’s part of the mythology of the place; everything comes back to the Nine Carders, so no doubt Trump will blame them.’

  ‘Even though he does not know who they are?”

  ‘Oh no, Mr Kindly Uncle,’ said Judd, now waving the palette knife like a reproving finger, ‘you won’t catch me like that. I said I gave my word and my word stays given. Don’t fish for clues about the Carders with me.’

  Mr Campion nodded his head as if in graceful defeat.

  ‘But can I assume that you don’t blame the Carders for the little booby-trap that was laid for you’re the other night?’

  ‘Excuse me!’ Eliza Jane trilled from the tiny kitchen area where she was laying out bowls and pans like a grand master setting out a chessboard. ‘This is supposed to be the age of equality for women. Why couldn’t the trip trap have been meant for me?’

  ‘Woman, know your place!’ roared Ben grinning hugely, ‘A man’s home is his castle and if anyone is laying traps, then they are clearly aimed at the king of the castle, not the scullery maid!’

  Eliza Jane began to crack eggs into a bowl with perhaps more ferocity than was absolutely necessary.

  ‘Well here’s a royal proclamation for his majesty,’ she said loudly. ‘If he wants to enjoy my perfect omelettes in their most perfect state and not cold and rubbery, then he’d better nip upstairs to the dungeons now and select a decent white wine to accompany them.’

  Judd got to his feet and directed the palette knife like an épee towards the older man.

  ‘We are, sir,’ he announced grandly, ‘commanded to do the queen’s bidding, so allow me to give you a guided tour – it will not take long – of the only upstairs wine cellar in Lindsay Carfax, possibly the whole county. There is, I am told, a pub in Cambridge called the Snow Leopard which has its beer cellar on the first floor, but that is our nearest rival. Mere mortals, of course, would call it a bedroom “over the shop” but it happens to be where I store my wine and if you accompany me you will see where the booby trap tripped the delicate creature currently perfecting our luncheon, the scene of the crime itself.’

  ‘A crime scene with a reward of wine,’ mused Mr Campion. ‘Who could resist?’

  Judd lad the way out of the studio and into the narrow lane where Eliza Jane’s small convertible was parked. As he strode past it, Ben patted the nearside wing with a paw of a hand and Campion had the fleeting impression that this Viking artist could, should the mood take him, pick the tiny car up and toss it over his shoulder if it were in his way. But with three loping strides he was beyond the car and at the corner of the converted barn where he swivelled on his heels and presented both hands to the right of his midriff in the classic ‘Ta-dah!’ gesture of the magician completing a trick.

  ‘The staircase of doom,’ he declared in sepulchral tones, ‘or at least the staircase of a very pretty twisted ankle.’

  Mr Campion perused the wooden staircase which rose up the side of the old barn at an angle of fifty degrees and counted eighteen steps to a small landing outside a door which he presumed led to the sleeping quarters above the studio. The dark planking and the handrail at waist height seemed to be of perfectly sound wood and the whole structure securely bolted to the wall of the barn.

  ‘It’s perfectly safe – now,’ said Judd indicating that the older ma
n should climb first, which Mr Campion did rather effortlessly for man of his age, or so he congratulated himself.

  On the platform at the top, he waited for Judd, hot on his heels, to unlock the door and took in the view, such as it was. He guessed that at one time the narrow lane, which did not seem to be worthy of a name, had been the entrance to or accessible from a farm, but the only buildings left were three barns of brick and weatherboard. Ben’s studio conversion was the furthest from the High Street (the only street) of Lindsay Carfax. Across the lane was a similar but smaller structure, although clearly used for storage rather than habitation whilst a third, much larger, barn to the left near the road junction was a going commercial concern.

  On the roof, and presumably double-sided so that it could be seen from the High Street, was a large signboard in garish colours declaring that the barn was now the home of ‘Sherman & Sons – Garage Repairs and Petrol’. Mr Campion thought the bright, crudely-executed signage (the second ‘s’ in ‘& Sons’ had obviously been added later) could not possibly be missed from the village, but in Eliza Jane’s low-slung car he had managed to do just that. The original barn doors had been replaced with a metal sliding screen and in front of it, the corner of the lane had been concreted to form a forecourt on which two petrol pumps proudly stood guard. A freestanding swinging board like an inn sign advertised petrol at six shillings and sixpence a gallon, a price Mr Campion recognised from central London but thought rather steep for rural Suffolk.

  Despite his elevated position, the lie of the land and the barn opposite meant he could see little of Lindsay Carfax itself other than rooftops and the church tower. The latter, and the easily identifiable roofs of the Woolpack and Carders’ Hall, seemed to be the only ones without a television aerial sprouting from them, and Judd read Campion’s mind.

  ‘Damned things, I hate ’em,’ he sighed. ‘Shouldn’t be allowed on thatched roofs. They sprang up like nettles this summer when the Moon landing was televised; must have been the biggest boom in sales of goggle boxes since the Coronation.’

  ‘They do intrude and rather spoil the chocolate-box image of the place somewhat,’ said Mr Campion mischievously, watching Judd’s expression.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about chocolate boxes!’ he growled. ‘I leave that sort of painting to your niece, who at least paints with a smile and churns out what the punters want for a fair price and never claims it’s art, or else to piss-poor daubers like Tommy Tucker who takes up half my studio space for his picture postcard landscapes. If only they were the size of postcards they might be bearable, but with him it’s always a case of never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width-of-the-canvas and he calls it “art”, though, God knows, I’ve suggested he sells his work by the pound before now.’

  He pushed a key into the lock of the door before them.

  ‘Come on, the chef in the galley below will murder us if we’re late with the booze. I don’t really have a wine cellar up here, just a few bottles littered about, but I’m pretty sure a half-decent Chablis rolled under the bed the other night.’

  ‘Was that the night of the big storm – both inside and out? And the mysterious knocking?’

  ‘That’s right, you’ve just walked right over the crime scene.’

  Judd pointed to the stairs they had ascended. ‘Just there, third step down. That’s where somebody stretched a cord across, tied between the hand rail strut and a rusty old nail hammered into the wall at exactly the right height to catch a shoe or a boot and send the wearer arse over elbow, as they say.’

  ‘A stupid question, I know,’ said Mr Campion, ‘but wasn’t it obvious?’

  ‘On a clear day and climbing up rather than going down, may be; but not in the dark during a storm. Good as invisible.’

  ‘Did you keep the cord?’

  ‘Never thought to. I was more worried about dearest nitwit and making sure she hadn’t broken her neck. I just pulled it out of its moorings and chucked it as far as I could.’

  ‘Was it any particular sort of cord?’ enquired Mr Campion.

  ‘Cord? Rope? Does it matter? It wasn’t baling twine – which is what ties up most things in this parish that need tying – and it wasn’t a length of clothes’ line, it was much thicker and heavier. It felt like knotted hemp, but waxed? Does that make any sense?’

  ‘It might,’ said the older man pensively. ‘When do you think the trap was set?’

  ‘Well it wasn’t there when we came up the stairs, but with the weather and the shouting match we were having, someone could have sneaked up and done it and we wouldn’t have noticed. It wasn’t one of the Carders, though.’

  ‘And you’re sure of that?’

  ‘I doubt any of them are nimble enough to climb up here in the dark without slipping and breaking their necks, or having a heart attack,’ Judd scoffed. ‘In any case, the Carders do things by nines, or so the fishwives would have it, and they would surely have booby-trapped the ninth step, not the third.’

  ‘Nine is a multiple of three,’ Mr Campion pointed out.

  ‘Oh that’s far too clever for the Carders! In any case, what have I done to upset them?’

  ‘You refused to join their ranks,’ said Mr Campion. ‘They might have resented that.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense – no, just stuff them! I’ve given them their Proxy in Perpetuity, even if it is just a bit of legal mumbo-jumbo. Signed over my voting rights like a good little boy, so they no longer have any interest in me.’

  ‘Somebody does,’ Campion said thoughtfully. ‘Somebody who can climb up here in the dark, knock on your door and runaway before it opens.’

  Judd peered over Campion’s shoulder, looking down the stairs to the ground below as if judging the distance for the first time.

  ‘Yes, that’s quite a trick, isn’t it?’

  Six

  Tourist Trade

  ‘Today will be a day dedicated to tourism,’ Mr Campion announced to the waitress as he finished his breakfast of Suffolk ham and eggs (only local hams served at the Woolpack), ‘and that has set me up splendidly. I feel fit to face whatever rigours Lindsay Carfax can throw at the amateur explorer. Let me get my camera and my hat and do not tempt me with extra tea or toast, for I am, as our American friends would say, burning daylight!’

  Mr Campion felt sure that his flamboyant address to the waitress – and the half-crown tip – would both find their way on to the news desk run by Don the barman when he came on duty, and thence into the ears of any of the Woolpack’s patrons until an item of hotter news replaced him.

  With a wide-brimmed soft grey fedora at a rakish angle and his camera case strapped over his head and left shoulder like a sash holding a sword and scabbard, he adopted the air of a wary Cavalier patrolling a village known to have Roundhead sympathies.

  On his wanderings through Lindsay Carfax over the week-end, he had already familiarised himself with the external geography of the place. Now, he decided, it was time to get behind the Tourist Board frontages, the pargeting and the wavy Tudor beams, and discover something – anything – which might ease Charlie Luke’s unspecified worries. To date he had the makings of a stew – a stew of hearsay and rumour, its principle ingredients being nine ‘Carders’ whom nobody could, or would, identify or explain; to which he could add a spiteful booby-trap set for his niece’s lover and an unpopular vicar who may have disturbed a burglar. However he spiced it up, it was thin gruel to offer a superintendent of detectives, and so he decided to retrace the tourist trail Charlie Luke himself had taken.

  Being a Monday morning, the High Street bustled – as much as it ever bustled – with local shoppers, agricultural vehicles of every shape and delivery vans, rather than with gawking visitors and sightseeing coaches. Mr Campion politely returned the ‘Good Mornings’ of the inhabitants as and when they were offered and proceeded directly to that local shrine of literary fame, the house of the novelist Esther Wickham, whose name had once been murmured in the same quiet breath as Austen or a Brontë, and was still proc
laimed in public lectures by distinguished academics such as Sir Philip Trumpington (for a handsome fee, according to Don the barman).

  The oak plaque on the wall told him, in gold lettering, that this was indeed the house of:

  Esther Wickham (1821-1872)

  Social Novelist and Poet

  and that it was open to ‘visitors and the public’ daily between 9.30 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. and between 1.30 p.m. and 3.15 p.m. ‘during school term time’. Admission was ‘free on purchase of a volume’ but a shilling without a purchase. ‘Academic researchers’ were, however, welcome by appointment and could be accommodated at any time, although there was no indication as to where or how an appointment could be made.

  Mr Campion decided that his particular researches were far from academic and steeling himself at the prospect of shopping for unwanted souvenirs, he lifted the iron sneck on the door and pushed it open. At first glance, he was stepping back one hundred years into a Victorian country parlour, but it needed only half a glance more to realise that discreet electric bulbs had replaced gas mantles and that whilst the leather-bound Visitors Book on a side table near the door could just possibly have contained a century’s worth of signatures, the plastic ballpoint pen tied to the leg of the table by a length of string was unlikely to have written many of them.

  Instead of the racks of faded postcards, over-printed tea clothes, pencils and India rubbers he had half expected to be on offer, Mr Campion was pleasantly surprised to find that the commercial aspect of the premises was of the gentlest ilk and the rampant capitalism openly on display was that of a dusty bookshop. Moreover it was a bookshop which only sold the books of a single author and, Mr Campion deduced, no title written after 1872.

  There were numerous editions of that author’s most famous – or infamous, at least among those of school age, if set as a text for G.C.E. – work, her novel Jonathan Prentice, published in 1854 (and probably overshadowed by Dickens’ Hard Times) but set in 1812 during the Luddite riots. Surrounding that central work, as if guarding its flanks, were slim volumes of her poetry in numerous editions and colourful bindings, amongst which her most famous collection, Sundials by Moonlight, was most prominent.