Margery Allingham's Mr Campion's Farewell

by Mike Ripley

  Clarissa Webster laughed and showed perfect white teeth haloed by her red lipstick.

  ‘Should you have some disposable income left which needs disposing of, then the Medley is definitely the place for you. Far more interesting than those dusty old exhibits. What have they persuaded you to buy so far?’

  Mr Campion raised the purchases he clutched. ‘A nineteenth-century novel and an instructive pamphlet on the workings of the famous Humble Box.’

  ‘I can do better than that, I could sell you a Humble Box.’

  ‘You have one for sale?’

  ‘Several. How many would you like? Or, as Mrs Thornton would say: how many can Oi do you for?’

  Mr Campion looked down into her smiling face.

  ‘Didn’t you tell me you could no longer bear to trade in antiques?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t say they were genuine …’

  Clarissa Webster’s eyes flashed like headlights and, if possible, her grin got even wider.

  Seven

  School Dinners

  It was, Mr Campion decided, a half-decent piece of (reproduction) furniture, riddled with hocus-pocus rather than woodworm. The Humble box was a rectangular box the size, perhaps, of a small man’s coffin, made from pale mahogany inlaid with bone, standing three feet off the floor on six legs which could have featured in Chippendale’s Directory. The lid, maybe a quarter-inch thick, was secured with two small brass clasps but no lock and, when raised on a single sturdy brass hinge, revealed the innards of the box to be a collection of vessels seemingly unconnected and serving no particular purpose. There were glass bottles and spheres containing red, blue and clear liquids; a Fahrenheit thermometer and its predecessor, a thermoscope, lay side by side at one end of the box and at the other, a weather-ball barometer. Scattered randomly between them were glass-fronted dials marked ‘Rain’, ‘Wind’, ‘Frost’, ‘Snow’, ‘Torrent’, ‘Earthquake’ and ‘Pestilence’ which apart from their dramatic effect seemed to have no mechanical function.

  Mr Campion looked as intently at the reproduction on show in the Medley as he had at the genuine article in the Humble Museum and mentally admired the quality and accuracy of the fake whilst simultaneously questioning why anyone should expend time and energy on bothering to forge such a thing.

  ‘Any wiser?’ asked Mrs Webster. ‘About how it works, I mean.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mr Campion, ‘and the instruction manual I purchased is not exactly forthcoming. I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to do, let alone how it goes about it.’

  The Medley, although overcrowded with reasonably-priced saleable goods, was devoid of customers. Being a Monday morning at the fag-end of the summer season, this was not unusual – the proprietoress had volunteered the information unasked to explain why she had resorted, as she put it, to roving the High Street looking to kidnap some. After a few moments admiring, as was expected, the oil and watercolour depictions of local scenes painted by his niece and signed enigmatically ‘EJF’ which adorned the walls, Mr Campion was confronted with a Humble box and, he feared, with the distinct feeling that he was being sold it.

  ‘It forecasts the weather, or so old Josiah claimed, and he should know as he invented it,’ said Mrs Webster cheerfully. ‘I don’t think it ever worked, though, and by all contemporary accounts his predictions were vague to say the least. I suspect he had an act, probably with a couple of stooges, which he put on to impress potential buyers. He would set the dials, show them the different coloured liquids and then pronounce that it showed there was a good chance of rain in the next week. No doubt he would have asked a local shepherd – red sky at night and all that rigmarole – what the chances of precipitation in the near future were. That’s the way most people did it round here.’

  ‘So the box didn’t make Josiah’s fortune?’

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so. Suffolk’s always been a superstitious county and they would have mistrusted any new-fangled inventions, preferring to stick to the old ways. Lots of Suffolk houses have dead cats buried under their front doorsteps. That’s supposed to keep witches out, if you were wondering.’

  Mr Campion allowed his eyebrows to rise but said nothing.

  ‘These days they’re bought as bits of furniture,’ Clarissa continued, ‘as conversation pieces. Or you can gut the thing and use it as a large sewing box, or a drinks cabinet, or keep books or sheet music in there. Some of the younger brigade keep LPs in there and put their record players on top.’

  ‘So there is a market for them?’

  ‘For the reproductions, yes, as long as we price them reasonably. The market isn’t huge, but they do sell. We’ve shipped several to America and quite a few to Europe. People seem to get attached to them and even send them back for repair when they get damaged.’

  ‘Who makes them for you?’

  ‘A deliciously innocent young arts-and-craftsy type called Tommy Tucker. Put him in a leather jacket and he could be a Soho tearaway; in a tie-dyed orange shirt he could be one of the hippy layabouts who besieged us last year. But Tommy’s no idler; he turns his hands to anything going. Very supple, his hands … a girl could …’

  Mr Campion interrupted her reverie.

  ‘I’ve heard that name before.’

  ‘I should think you have,’ said Mrs Webster opening her eyes again. ‘He shares a studio with Ben Judd, though they often row about it and, I suspect, they’ve had words about Eliza Jane, though I don’t think it’s come to fisticuffs yet. If it does, you will tell me, won’t you? Your niece is appallingly lax when it comes to passing on gossip and I don’t think she has the remotest idea that Tommy is besotted with her. That’s one of his.’

  Clarissa pointed to a watercolour hanging at a slight angle on the crowded wall. It showed the High Street, in summer judging by the foliage and floral displays, down which travelled a single, open-topped sports car driven by a girl wearing a headscarf and huge, round sunglasses.

  ‘Ben Judd doesn’t have much of an opinion of him as an artist,’ Campion observed.

  ‘Well, it’s not art is it? But, my goodness, it sells well enough to the tourists. That’s why Ben doesn’t rate it, but then Ben Judd has a pretty low opinion of almost anyone in Lindsay who isn’t Ben Judd.’

  ‘Why does he stay here?’ asked Campion with genuine interest.

  ‘Who knows? He has talent, that’s for sure; but he’s the sort of artist who thinks he has to suffer to get the best out of that talent. His late mother, Mrs Dyer, left him a few quid – enough for the essentials of life – and when that’s gone he may well move up to London or go to Paris, if artists still go to Paris these days. But you can’t really see Ben Judd starving to death in a garret, can you? Mind you, he probably would starve himself to death rather than compromise his blessed artistic principles, whatever he thinks they are …’

  Mrs Webster paused and looked over her shoulder as the first faint click of the front door handle being turned reached her ears. It seemed, Campion thought, that the woman’s brain was equipped with radar.

  ‘I spy you have some real customers at last.’

  ‘You spy inaccurately, I’m, afraid,’ said Mrs Webster. ‘It’s the third Monday of the month and that’s when the rent man comes to call.’

  It seemed that in Lindsay Carfax, the rent man came in threes, for when the door opened wide enough to trigger the shop bell, three be-suited figures entered and they were men of Campion’s generation, unlikely ever to be confused with Soho tearaways or hippy ‘layabouts’.

  Their leader, once over the threshold, seemed to fill the Medley with his presence and when he flung his arms wide and advanced on Mrs Webster, she stepped daintily forward to surrender herself to his bear-like embrace.

  ‘My darling Gus, how sweet …’ she squeaked but her words were lost as she buried her face in an ample yardage of her visitor’s pinstripe.

  Mrs Webster disentangled herself and turned back to face Campion unembarrassed.

  ‘We should think ourselves hono
ured, for we have the cream of Lindsay society gathered under this humble roof.’ She returned to the broad, ruddy-cheeked bear who had hugged her. ‘And just why, dearest Gus, is my landlord visiting me empty-handed?’

  ‘Don’t worry, my little vixen, I didn’t forget your perfume. There’s a half-gallon bottle of it in the back of the Bentley.’

  Mrs Webster clapped her hands together once and squealed in delight, then planted a kiss on a bluff, red cheek, bending her right knee and raising her foot coyly as she did so.

  ‘In that case, you and your henchmen are welcome, but why the three of you? Isn’t there some ancient protocol about the three of you not travelling together in case of accidents? Or have you come to increase the rent and you’re going to beat me up until I sign a new tenancy agreement?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Clarissa. We’re going to try that new country house hotel called the Rosery – that’s as in a place where they grow roses and nothing to do with rosaries and Catholics – over near Newmarket. It’s supposed to have a jolly good restaurant and we thought you might like to have lunch with us to try it out. If you are busy with a customer, however …’

  Clarissa pressed a red finger-nail to the centre of her chin, careful to avoid smudging her glossy red lipstick.

  ‘You know Clarissa stamps her foot if she loses a sale,’ she said in a little-girl-lost voice which would have sound hammy in the direst of amateur dramatics’ productions, ‘but then she’d positively hate to miss out on a free lunch with three gentlemen friends.’

  ‘Let me ease the decision-making process,’ said Campion with an extravagant bow in her direction. ‘I have an errand to run and therefore must take my leave, but I leave only to fight another day. I will return and make a purchase, possibly two. I doubt they will be Humble boxes, but I feel strangely drawn to one or two of your paintings, if only for the sake of family harmony.’

  ‘Do you promise to haggle over the prices? I love a good haggle.’

  ‘Madam, I have haggled in casbahs and bazaars with the best of them, from Casablanca to Samarkand’ said Campion returning Clarissa’s smile, ‘and I will give you a run for my money.’

  Mrs Webster let rip a deep-throated laugh and then remembered her manners.

  ‘But goodness gracious me, I am being so rude. It must be the presence of all these attractive men getting me all a-fluster. Let me to do the honours: Mr Albert Campion, distinguished visitor to this parish and favourite uncle of dear little Eliza Fitton, allow me to introduce the three most important men in Lindsay Carfax – a triumvirate of the ruling elite, if you like; Mr Augustine Marchant, Mr Marcus Fuller and Mr Hereward Spindler. If you ever think of buying property round here, Gus owns it, Marcus sells it and Mr Spindler will do the conveyancing. Now, talk among yourselves while a girl freshens her war paint, as she must do if she’s being taken out on the town.’

  ‘It’s only Newmarket,’ said Mr Marchant weakly, but Mrs Webster was a red blur as she disappeared into the back rooms of the shop.

  Marchant thrust out a hand.

  ‘Welcome to Lindsay Carfax … Campion, was it? I’m Gus Marchant and I’m just a simple farmer. It’s Marcus here who does most of the wheeler-dealing round here.’

  Where Marchant’s handshake had been as crushing as his bulk had implied, and had left Campion in no doubt that he had met a very sturdy son of the Suffolk soil, Marcus Fuller in comparison was a bird-like figure and his proffered claw indicated that it required only the briefest of contact to satisfy convention.

  ‘Don’t listen to my old friend Gus. He’s far from being ‘just a simple farmer’ though he can appear simple at times. Campion, did you say?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t, but it is,’ said Mr Campion as a third hand was offered to him.

  ‘Hereward Spindler,’ said the man behind the handshake. ‘I’m the local solicitor and my main job is to keep these two if not on the straight and narrow, then at least out of jail. You must be the Campion who married Lady Amanda Fitton … and aren’t you related to Lady Prunella Redcar?’

  ‘Guilty on both counts,’ said Mr Campion, ‘though the Redcar connection is very, very distant. I think the last time Lady Prunella saw me, I was in a font having water tipped over me by an enthusiastic vicar and she was not much more than a girl. I am afraid I have not met the lady subsequently, at least not since I could walk. She lives in the south of France these days, or so I hear.’

  ‘Near Monte Carlo,’ said Mr Fuller as if he resented the fact, ‘where she visits the casino more regularly than the milk man – if they take milk in a casino, that is; I really wouldn’t know.’

  ‘You’ve got to admire her energy,’ growled Mr Marchant. ‘Marcus and I were down in Monte last week and we saw her troop in there every morning heading for the roulette tables like a guided missile, and God help any flunky who got in her way. And she must be eighty-two if she’s a day.’

  ‘Well if I wasn’t related to her, I would certainly claim to be,’ said Mr Campion with a smile.

  Augustine Marchant put a stout finger in the air, signalling that a new thought had just occurred to him.

  ‘Speaking of game old birds,’ he said straight-faced, ‘how long are you visiting for, Campion?’

  Mr Campion allowed himself to look perplexed. It was a condition he was very adept at projecting, at least to the unwary.

  ‘I am, as they say, a man of leisure these days, so my plans are flexible … but game old birds? I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘No one follows Gus’ line of thinking for very long,’ said Mr Fuller.

  ‘Oh stop whining, Marcus! I meant game birds. We’ve got a shoot on Wednesday out at my place and I wondered if Campion here fancied his luck. I’d be happy to stand you the loan of a gun and a spot of lunch afterwards. You’d be doing me a big favour by providing some intelligent company as neither of these two reprobates are any fun at all. Marcus here is frightened of loud noises and Hereward has a lawyer’s natural aversion to sunlight and fresh air.’

  ‘Not everyone shares your love of gunpowder and carnage, Gus,’ said Mr Spindler prissily. ‘Perhaps Mr Campion has better things to do than tramp the mud of Long Tye Farm?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know my movements for Wednesday,’ said Campion, ‘but if I’m still in the vicinity I wouldn’t mind a pot shot at something defenceless but delicious.’

  ‘That’s the spirit! The Land Rover picks everybody up from outside Carders’ Hall at eight; saves you the fag of bringing your car. If you can make it, just tell Don at the Woolpack and we’ll make sure we don’t leave you behind.’

  ‘Don the barman? Does he list game-keeping among his talents?’

  ‘Don? His only talent is for gossip,’ Gus Marchant sniggered. ‘We have a saying in Lindsay that there are three ways of getting a message to someone: telephone, telegram and tell-a-Don. I assure you, telling Don is the fastest.’

  ‘Has Albert gone?’ Mrs Webster asked no one in particular as she emerged from the back room of the Medley with a black linen jacket over her arm and a red chiffon scarf around her throat. Otherwise, she looked exactly the same as she had when she had left the shop a few minutes before, or at least the trio of men did not spot any difference. Only she knew how much care she had taken with her face powder, a new lipstick and a comb and brush.

  ‘Albert is it? You’re a fast worker, Clarissa, I’ve always known that,’ said Marchant, casting an obviously admiring eye over Mrs Webster’s impressive contours.

  ‘Oh come on, Gus, you know I’m built for comfort not for speed these days.’

  ‘I know no such thing,’ Marchant spluttered. ‘In fact I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that.’

  ‘I’m sure you understand perfectly,’ said Clarissa coyly, ‘and since you’ve allowed the charming Albert to escape, you’d better make it up to me with a really expensive lunch.’

  ‘The man said he had errands to run,’ blustered Marchant. ‘I didn’t chase him away and I invited him shooting out at Long
Tye on Wednesday; if he’s still here, that is.’

  ‘Why exactly is he here?’ asked Marcus Fuller.

  Mrs Webster examined her nail polish.

  ‘I found him wandering like a lost soul between the Prentice House and Humble’s mausoleum and I dragged him in off the street, or used my feminine charms to lure him in here, whichever you prefer.’

  ‘I meant,’ sighed Mr Fuller, ‘why is he in Lindsay Carfax?’

  ‘And just who is he? What line of business is he in?’ echoed Marchant.

  ‘Shouldn’t you have asked that before you invited him to your shooting party?’ sniffed Hereward Spindler who, had he been wearing pince nez, would surely have been peering over the top of them.

  ‘Don’t be such a dried-up old stick, Hereward, I was only being sociable. Campion looked a decent enough type – chap who knows when to use a fish knife and all that – and he has an honest face, so he can’t be a lawyer or an estate agent.’

  Mrs Webster made a cat’s claw of her right hand and slashed the air with her long red nails.

  ‘Miaow! I thought we girls were the bitchy ones! But really Gus,’ Clarissa unclenched her claw and gently patted Marchant’s rosy cheek, ‘you ought to read a decent newspaper now and again, especially the society gossip rather than just the racing pages or the livestock prices.’

  ‘Don’t talk in riddles, woman! Are you saying this Campion is somebody in the news? Good God, he’s not somebody on television is he?’

  ‘Nothing so crass or crude, Gus,’ Clarissa laughed. ‘I doubt you’d ever see Mr Campion on the goggle-box, unless it was at a state occasion and even then I think he would blend into the background so you wouldn’t spot him. He’s a behind-the-scenes man and quite a well-connected one I’d guess, who moves in high circles.’

  ‘So what is he doing in Lindsay Carfax?’ demanded Spindler.

  ‘Discovering all he can about the Carders,’ said Mrs Webster with mischievous glee. ‘I sat with him at Walker’s incredibly dull lecture on Saturday and he spent the morning at Humble’s and at your place, so no doubt Mrs Thornton will provide you with a detailed report. As far as I know, he’s visiting his niece, Eliza Jane.’