Margery Allingham's Mr Campion's Farewell

by Mike Ripley

  The Master signalled the impassive Gildart.

  ‘Point taken, Casper. St Ignatius has a proud tradition of offering hospitality unquestioningly to urchins, vagrants, weary travellers, pilgrims, the poor – both deserving and undeserving – the lame, blind and lost; and even Fellows of King’s.’

  ‘I can second that,’ said Mr Campion.

  Professor Christmas narrowed his eyes and asked, ‘And which category do you come in?’

  ‘Initially, in this instance, the lame, for I threw myself upon the charity of the college when the hospitallers of Addenbrooke’s had had enough of me. I remain here as a pilgrim of sorts, seeking enlightenment.’

  ‘From me?’ whispered Professor Christmas, shrinking coyly back in his seat and widening his eyes in mock surprise.

  ‘The very fount of all knowledge, I am assured.’

  ‘Well, dear boy, I always try and help the younger generation when they seek enlightenment.’

  ‘I would hardly call myself the younger generation,’ Campion smiled.

  ‘You are to me! I will be ninety on my next birthday, which makes me old enough to be your father.’

  ‘Casper, please!’ exclaimed the Master, flapping at his distinguished guest with his napkin, but the Professor had set himself on a course of mischief.

  ‘Of course, I’m not saying I am … but …’ he turned to Campion and winked lewdly, ‘… was your mother in Colchester in September 1899 by any chance?’

  ‘Casper! How very rude; and quite possibly treasonous!’ Dr Livingstone shouted in exasperation, his face the colour of beetroot.

  Campion held up the palms of his hands to calm the Master and kept the smile fixed on his face.

  ‘I’m pretty sure she wasn’t,’ he said to Christmas, ‘but extrapolated, that was a jolly good guess at the date of my conception.’

  ‘I’m a historian,’ said the Professor drily, ‘I don’t guess; I look things up. I looked you up. Still have no idea what you want with me, though.’

  ‘If you’d let the poor man get a word in edgewise, Casper,’ said Livingstone waspishly, ‘you might find out. If you listen, you might learn, though I do realise that is futile advice to give to anyone from King’s.’

  As the two Dons glared at each other, Mr Campion took the initiative.

  ‘I need enlightenment on the history of the wool trade in general and, if at all possible, on a place called Lindsay Carfax in Suffolk.’

  Christmas at King’s inflated his body with a loud and long intake of breath.

  ‘In the late 12th and early 13th centuries,’ he began, ignoring the soft groan from the Master of St Ignatius on his right, ‘Suffolk was one of the mostly densely populated areas of England. That population survived on the backs of sheep; quite literally. The wool on their backs became “the jewel in the realm” and by the time of Henry VII, woollen cloth made up 90% of England’s exports. The Speaker of the House of Lords doesn’t sit on a woolsack for nothing, you know; and Henry Tudor was a shrewd man. He knew the value of English wool and he supported the merchants. All in all, he’s underrated as kings go and it would be a terrible shame if all he was ever remembered for was denying Richard III a horse, a horse at Bosworth and stealing the crown out of a thorn bush. He was one of the only monarchs we’ve had who actually left the country in the black rather than the red. He could teach today’s politicians quite a bit about the balance of trade and export drives!’

  ‘Does enlightenment have to come,’ queried Dr Livingstone, ‘in the form of a lecture as long as the Enlightenment itself?’

  ‘Wisdom is the daughter of experience, Jolyon, and impatience is the mother of ignorance,’ the Professor declaimed, ‘though I bet there isn’t a St Ignatius man alive who can tell me who I’m paraphrasing.’

  Dr Livingstone dropped his head and stared silently into his glass.

  ‘Leonardo da Vinci,’ said Campion quietly. ‘Now pray continue, Professor.’

  Christmas granted Campion a gracious but almost imperceptible bow and then said: ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Still in the fifteenth century,’ breathed the Master, only to be ignored.

  ‘Yes, well, in the sixteenth century the fashion changed to lighter weights of wool cloth than those normally produced in Suffolk, but wool was still a very big business and when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries he made sure than the best grazing lands – and the biggest flocks – went to his closest friends. One such case in point was the lands of Abbey of Lindsay Carfax, which were reckoned, acre for acre, to be some of the richest sheep country in England.

  ‘The wealth of Lindsay Carfax, indeed its very existence, depended on wool. If the church there is old enough, I’ll wager you’ll find an inscription somewhere saying something along the lines of: I thank God and ever shall, it was sheep that paid for all. There are wool churches all over Suffolk and Norfolk, huge things that now seem completely out of proportion to the size of the congregations they attract.

  ‘Of course it all changed with the industrial revolution. Suffolk has no fast-running water, or coal mines, and the wool trade moved to where the machines could dominate – the mill towns up north. Lindsay Carfax declined just like dozens of other wool towns in East Anglia, though it did have one last flurry of woollen notoriety in the 1740s when it was named a centre of owling.’

  The Professor, like all good professors, waited for his student to catch up.

  ‘Owling? That sounds as if it could be quite fun,’ said Campion, tilting his head to one aide and adopted what his wife called his Idiot-in-search-of-a-Village expression.

  ‘It wasn’t fun if you were caught,’ lectured the Professor. ‘The traditional punishment for owling was to have the left hand cut off and nailed in a public place, which just shows how highly sheep were valued.’

  ‘So owling is sheep stealing, or should that be rustling?’

  ‘Technically, owling is sheep smuggling, traditionally to France or Holland, where English wool was highly prized and prized even more if you could avoid taxes and duties and the attentions of the revenue men. The traditional centre for owling was Rye in Sussex, but Ipswich was a very useful port if you were owling to Holland and many of the sheep that were ‘owled’ came from Lindsay Carfax, a place which seemed untroubled by the forces of law and order in the eighteenth century.’

  ‘Some would say that tradition still continues,’ noted Campion and the Professor snorted a snort to show that such an idea did not surprise him.

  ‘A report to the house of Lords in … 1741 I think, called for measures to prevent the “pernicious practice or smuggling, running or owling wool” and proposed a public registry which would keep a tally of all bales of wool and cloth and fleeces. It was especially sensitive at that time because of trade embargoes imposed by the war.’

  The Professor paused in his lecture and looked at his pupil expectantly. Mr Campion allowed the moment to hang in the air before saying:

  ‘That would be the War of Jenkins’ Ear, I presume?’

  ‘Well done,’ beamed Christmas. ‘Not all hope is yet lost for St Ignatius.’

  Dr Livingstone objected by snorting loudly whilst Campion smiled an embarrassed smile.

  ‘I think I learned that at school, I’m afraid. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing one forgets, is it? Going to war over a Welshman’s ear being sliced off by the dastardly Spanish whilst on the High Seas; that’s just the sort of history lesson which sticks in the mind of a spotty schoolboy, but I can’t recall any mention of owling. Was it relevant to Captain Jenkins’ unfortunate surgery?’

  ‘Not directly, but a war – any war – disrupts trade. Wool was a valuable export, much in demand and in those circumstances, owling flourished. You have, I presume, guessed why it was called owling?’

  ‘Because it was always done at night and the smugglers communicated by owl hoots?’

  ‘Good boy. At least St Ignatius gave you a suspicious mind, which is always useful to a scholar – or a policeman.’

&nbs
p; ‘I have neither the application nor the talent to be either,’ said Campion, ‘but let me pretend to be both and press you further. Was Lindsay Carfax known to be a hotbed of crime, or perhaps a nest of owlers?’

  ‘Certainly. The local sheep farmers would have profited from it, the local magistrates, who were probably also sheep farmers, would have turned a blind eye and the Revenue Men were too few and too far between to do anything about it. There were questions asked in parliament – in the Lords, that is – and I’m sure the name of Lindsay Carfax would have been mentioned, as it would have been in the flurry of pamphleteering which took place at the time.’

  ‘Pamphlets?’

  ‘Oh, in the 1730s it positively rained pamphlets on the scourge of owling! The pamphlet was the cheap and easily distributed form of mass propaganda long before Goebbels showed how one could twist the wireless to evil ends, or Hollywood and now television showed how to keep the masses happy on a diet of mindless pap.’

  ‘That’s rather a sweeping generalisation, isn’t it, Casper?’ muttered Dr Livingstone.

  ‘You think so, Jolyon?’

  ‘Perhaps … perhaps not … I wasn’t really listening.’

  Now it was Professor Christmas’ turn to snort in disgust, before he warmed, once again, to his theme.

  ‘I remember – and you must realise, my boy, that I am speaking without the benefit of notes – some famous ones were printed around 1739, anonymously of course. Most of them were; to avoid prosecution for sedition. One pamphleteer signed himself “A Sussex Farmer” and called for favourable treatment of wool imported from Ireland, in order to stop Irish wool being “owled” to France and Holland. The whole subject was highly political, you see, because such a lot of money was involved. People made fortunes by smuggling in those days. Today, the income-tax Gestapo are far better resourced, unfortunately.

  ‘Another propagandist called for the total abolition of duties, basically saying leave the wool trade alone for the good of the national economy, but I doubt too many people took it seriously as it purported to come from a Mr Webber.’

  ‘You mean it wasn’t taken seriously because it wasn’t anonymous?’ asked Campion, confused.

  ‘No, dear boy, the anonymous ones were the most seditious as a rule. Putting the name Webber to a pamphlet indicated it was either an inside job, or a put-up job.’

  ‘Really, why?’

  ‘It would be like getting a letter asking you to leave your front door unlocked at night, signed “A. Burglar”. It’s all in the name. Webber is actually Old English for “weaver”, which is a dead giveaway for somebody involved in the wool trade. Surnames, or their origins, can tell us a lot about people. Take yours for instance.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Tread carefully, Casper,’ said Dr Livingstone softly.

  ‘Well, the name you adopted – Campion. It comes from the Old French “champiun” meaning a professional fighter who could be employed to stand in for you in a trial-by-combat. Almost certainly came over with William the Conqueror, in fact I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the name William Le Champiun on a roll for Suffolk in 1220 or thereabouts. No relation, I suppose?’

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ grinned Campion, ‘but I’ll certainly check, just in case he left me anything in his will. Your theory on surnames is fascinating, though, and bears out something useful the Master told me.’

  ‘You were taught something useful in St Ignatius?’

  ‘It was not surprising that I was taught, only that I learned. The Master and I were discussing Will Kemp and his nine-day jig to Norwich and I learned that Kemp was also a name associated with the wool trade.’

  ‘Well obviously,’ sniffed the Professor. ‘It’s Old English again, a kempster was one who combed out the short, coarse hairs on a fleece and Kempster is not an uncommon surname today, neither is Shearer, who sheared sheep, or Packer, someone who packed wool into sacks, or Walker, someone who walked over wet fleeces to thicken the wool, which I think was more or less the same job as a Fuller, and that’s another common surname. You’d be surprised how many modern English surnames, or variations of them, are derived from occupations connected to the wool trade, especially here in East Anglia.’

  ‘Actually, Professor,’ Campion said politely, ‘I don’t think I would.’

  Fourteen

  That Riviera Touch

  ‘The hotel is beautiful, but I do wish we hadn’t arrived in a hearse.’ Perdita stepped out of the dress which had fallen around her ankles with a sigh; and stretched her arms upwards to the sun pouring through the open windows, adopting a pose of which her husband thoroughly approved.

  ‘It wasn’t a hearse, my love, it was a Citroën,’ replied Rupert, his hands clasped behind his head as he lay supine on the bed watching his wife change out of her travelling clothes, ‘admittedly rather a large one.’

  ‘It was bigger than the Caravelle we flew in on. I could have parked my little Mini in its boot.’ Perdita chose a cotton top with wide blue hoops from her suitcase shook out the creases and pulled it over her head.

  ‘Technically, I don’t think the Safari has a boot, as it’s an estate car,’ said her husband, his eyes registering every contour of her body, ‘though the French don’t call it a Safari, they call it a Break or something. Still, it was jolly nice of Monsieur Bouilleau to send it to meet us at the airport.’

  ‘Who is Monsieur Bouilleau?’ asked Perdita demurely as she stepped into a pair of very short crisp white shorts.

  ‘The manager of the hotel, or perhaps the deputy manager or the under-manager, I’m not actually sure, but he is a personage of some importance and an old friend of my father who has been told to take us under his wing.’

  ‘Told?’

  ‘Asked.’

  ‘That’s better. I would hate to think we’d been foistered on anyone in order to do your father’s skulduggery.’

  ‘He assured me that no skulduggery was involved,’ said Rupert, concentrating with admiration as his new wife slipped her feet into a pair of white leather sandals and bent over to adjust the straps, ‘or at least very little.’

  In fact, it had been Rupert’s mother Lady Amanda who had given the assurance that no skulduggery was involved – because she had declared there had better not be – and that Mr Campion’s offer of a second honeymoon for the couple came with only two conditions: that they stay at the luxurious Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, which would naturally involve a visit to the nearby casino, and that, whilst there, they pass on Campion’s best wishes to a distant relative, Lady Prunella Redcar.

  Rupert and Perdita, who had first met less than two years before as minor players (walk-on parts only) in a piece of skulduggery at a Gothic pile with literary pretensions called Inglewood Turrets, both had ambitions of the thespian persuasion. After fifteen months of having them thwarted, both singly and as a double-act, they had decided that two unemployed Equity members could starve as cheaply as one and had decided to marry. The offer of a second honeymoon – the first having proved the old adage that the Scottish Highlands really were the wettest place in the United Kingdom – was a chance to catch some late summer Riviera sun and to extend their repertoires.

  The offer of the trip to Monte Carlo had come at such short notice that the couple had little chance to choose or rehearse the roles they imagined themselves playing until they were already aboard the Air France Caravelle to Nice. To the consternation of the other passengers they had initially plumped to be a Bonnie and Clyde couple on the run from the law and living off their ill-gotten loot. When they tired of that scenario, Perdita suggested she played the youngest of four daughters from an impoverished aristocratic family who had, unwisely, eloped with the chauffeur’s son and the last scraps of family silver to have avoided the pawnbroker. That, Rupert had said, was ‘far too Austen-tacious’ for which he had received a punch on the arm. His own preference, given that one of the conditions of their free holiday was that they had to visit a casino, was that he should assume the man
tle of a debonair secret agent sent to the Riviera to expose a vile enemy by besting him at whist, or snap, or Happy Families, or whatever card game it was they played for ludicrously high stakes. For that suggestion, he took another blow on his arm as Perdita pointed out that he had not packed a tuxedo, or at least she certainly hoped he hadn’t, and the stakes involved in casino-visiting would be anything but high given their budget.

  As their jetliner began its approach to Nice airport, they had plumped to be an ambitious young Hollywood starlet (‘typecast again’, Perdita had sighed) accompanied by her rather shady theatrical agent who was probably of Hungarian stock judging by the accent Rupert adopted with gusto. Yet it very quickly became clear to them that the staff of Nice airport and possibly the entire native population of the Riviera were not the sort to be impressed by Hollywood starlets – however pretty – or oily agents, however atrociously they mangled the French language.

  By the time they had been greeted by a small, round Frenchman with a goatee beard and a square of white card on which was written CAMPIUN and deduced, in halting French, that he had been sent from the hotel to collect them, they had tired of the film star life. Once she had seen the large black Citroen estate car in the airport car park, Perdita had assumed the identity of an abducted and rather dim virgin, constantly referring to Rupert as ‘Mr Snodgrass’ and wondering why her father always referred to him as (deep gruff voice) ‘that damned lounge lizard from Accounts’. Rupert, holding his giggles in check, played his part and unctuously reassured ‘Miss Trim’ that they were now far away from her ferocious father’s prying eyes and after tonight he hoped that she would allow him to use her Christian name, Boadicea, for the very sound of it excited him, he confided, twirling the ends of an imaginary moustache. Perdita was already too good an actress to allow herself to giggle – or ‘corpse’ as it is known in the trade – or even blush at the liberties Mr Snodgrass was taking or hoping to take and she threatened to swoon if Mr Snodgrass made any salacious suggestions about putting his slippers under her bed. Such a thing, proclaimed Miss Boadicea Trim primly, could scar a young chambermaid for life.