Campion was aware of a long narrow brick front silhouetted against the sky, and then Mercer kicked open the door and they passed through a stone-flagged, oak-beamed hall into a vast studio or music-room which took up at least half of the entire building.
Campion’s first impression of that extraordinary room was of incongruity, his second of extravagance. A remarkable wireless set took up the whole of one wall. It was an extraordinary contraption which looked as if it might have been designed by Heath Robinson in the first place and afterwards allowed to grow, in Virginia creeper fashion, over everything which happened to lie in its path.
A huge concert Steinway took up the centre of the floor and there was one superb arm-chair.
The rest of the room was pure chaos. Piles of dusty papers lurked in every corner, books lay about in wild disorder, and the exquisite Cantonese shawl which covered the wall above the fireplace was dirty and had been badly scorched.
Mercer moved a heap of papers and wireless parts from a side table and produced a tray with a tantalus and glasses from beneath them.
‘Help yourselves. I don’t drink at night,’ he said, and threw himself into the arm-chair, only to get out of it again at once. ‘This damned coat is tight,’ he said, peeling it off and throwing it on the floor as if he had a grievance against it. ‘I hate tight clothes.’
Uncle William helped himself to a stiff drink and insisted on mixing one for Mr Campion. They stood leaning on the mantelshelf while Mercer lounged in the chair and regarded them, his light eyes sombre.
‘It happens very soon – death, I mean,’ he said solemnly. ‘There was a woman we didn’t know and didn’t particularly want to know. She was crude and noisy and blasted ugly, and now she’s dead. Where’s she gone?’
Uncle William coughed into his glass and his plump pink face was embarrassed.
‘Mustn’t be morbid, my boy,’ he said. ‘Very sad, and all that. Shockin’. Got to face it.’
Mercer looked surprised.
‘Good God, you don’t believe all that, do you?’ he said with a superiority which was somehow adolescent but none the less irritating because of that. ‘Sad … shocking … they’re just words. I was thinking as we came along tonight how extraordinary it was that she should have gone so quickly. You’d think some of her would remain. That awful teetering laugh, for instance. I mean you’d think the things that made her the highly coloured piece she was would disappear one at a time at least, not all go out bang, like turning out a switch. It’s a curious thing, that. I never noticed it before.’
Uncle William stared at him as if he suspected his sanity.
‘My dear feller, get to bed,’ he said. ‘You’re shaken up. We all are.’
‘Shaken up?’ Mercer was indignant. ‘I’m on to an idea. I’m not shaken up. Why should I be? I didn’t even know the woman and if I had I probably shouldn’t have liked her. Her death doesn’t affect me at all. It’s nothing to do with me. It’s nothing to do with any of us. I think Jimmy’s making too much fuss about it. After all, she only fell under his car. He couldn’t help hitting her. Good heavens, there’s nothing morbid about me! I was only thinking of the facts of the case. This morning she was a howling nuisance about the house, so I couldn’t help noticing her peculiarities. Now all that has just gone. Where to? There’s an idea in it. See what I mean? It’s a concrete idea. You could work it into a number, even. “Out in the dark, where my arms cannot hold you.” See the sort of thing. That’s how these songs get written. Something occurs to one and starts a train of thought.’
‘I should like to go to bed,’ said Uncle William heavily.
Mercer frowned. ‘I think you’re right,’ he said regretfully. ‘One must sleep. It’s a frightful waste of time. A stupidly arranged business. Why not let us live half the time and keep it light always instead of this mucking about, going to bed and getting up again and shaving. It’s waste.’
Campion eyed him narrowly, but there was no trace of affectation in his dark heavy face. He was obviously perfectly sincere. The belief in an omnipotent intelligence which his argument implied was so unexpected and out of character that Campion was at a loss to account for it until the simple truth dawned upon him. Mercer did not think at all in the accepted sense of the word. Ideas occurred to him and engendered other ideas. But the process which linked any two of them was a dark procession taking place in some subconscious part of the brain.
That his efforts at constructive thought were childish was made apparent by his next remark.
‘There’s no really good rhyme to “hold you” except “enfold you”, is there?’ he said. ‘It’s a rotten language. I must get Peter Dill on to the lyric. I think I may do that song. It’s got possibilities, all that “where are you” business, “so near and yet so far away”. ’
‘That fellow’s insane,’ said Uncle William as the door of the large bedroom which they were to share closed behind them some minutes later. ‘Hope the sheets are aired.’
There were three beds in the large old-fashioned room, and he opened them all solemnly before giving a considered opinion on the two best. Mercer had indicated the door of their room casually as they came upstairs and it was Uncle William who had demanded and finally obtained pyjamas for them both.
He sat up in the bed he had chosen, his white curls brushed upward and his face as pink and shining as a newly bathed cherub’s, and sniffed.
‘Money,’ he said as though he detected its odour. ‘Lots of money but no decent spendin’. Feller probably never considers his bank-book one way or another. Your bed comfortable?’
‘Very,’ said Campion absently. ‘It’s a patent of some sort.’
‘Most likely.’ Uncle William did not sound approving. ‘These wealthy, careless fellers get all kinds of things wished on ’em. Salesmen come round to the door.’
‘Not with beds, surely?’
‘With anythin’.’ The old man spoke with the unanswerable conviction of one who knows. ‘They get at the servants if they can’t find anyone better. There are servants here, I suppose?’
‘Sure to be.’ Campion spoke mechanically, his mind occupied by the delicate problem of Chloe Pye’s death and his own attitude concerning it. He had never withheld vital information before and his sudden decision to depart from his usual impartiality bothered him considerably. After all, a woman had been killed, and presumably by one of the people with whom he had spent the day. It was a situation commanding thought.
Uncle William was in talkative mood, however.
‘There may not be any servants. You never know with a feller like Mercer,’ he remarked. ‘D’you know what I think about him, Campion? He’s the kind of feller who ought to be hanging round sleepin’ on people’s floors, pickin’ up scraps of comfort, lookin’ after himself like a London pigeon, but, by means of a trick, don’t you know, by means of a trick he’s made a fortune out of those footlin’ songs of his and it’s put the feller out of gear. I’ve met men like him before, but never one with money.’
Mr Campion, whose attention had been captured only midway through this harangue, looked up.
‘I think you’re right,’ he agreed. ‘He hasn’t got much to spend his money on except himself.’
‘Exactly.’ Uncle William was becoming excited. ‘And he’s a chap who doesn’t want much. He’s always thinkin’ about gettin’ his own way and of course he gets it. He’s not a feller who wants diamonds.’
‘Diamonds?’
‘Well, elephants, then. Figure of speech.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Mr Campion remained thoughtful. ‘His songs are very successful,’ he said.
‘Sensuous twaddle,’ declared Uncle William with forthright disgust. ‘I’m not musical but I know rubbish when I hear it. Still, it seems to go down. Anythin’ too silly to be said can be sung. A German feller pointed that out.’
Campion shook his head.
‘All Mercer’s stuff has something,’ he said. ‘They’re not merely rot for rot’s sake. There’s
genuine feeling there, however horribly expressed. That’s what makes some of those songs so unbearably embarrassing.’
Uncle William brightened.
‘Like a common feller tellin’ you his troubles and shockin’ you because they remind you of your own sacred thoughts about some magnificent little woman,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I’ve noticed that, you know but never brought myself to mention it. Oh well, we’re all snobs at heart.’
The discovery seemed to please him. He chuckled.
‘The extraordinary thing is that the feller knows nothin’ about women,’ he went on. ‘It’s a joke in the theatre, you know. Sutane’s known him since he first started writin’. Never been in love in his life. Never even bought a woman a meal. Treats ’em gently but isn’t interested in ’em, as though they were pet rabbits or something. Must get it all out of his own head. I remember my cousin Andrew – the one who made all the trouble – telling me a long rigmarole all about that one evening. “Wish fulfilment,” he called it; never forgotten the word. It sounded unhealthy to me and I told him so. But since I’ve come out into the world, as it were, I’ve noticed there’s something in it. Mercer’s a thoughtless chap. Quite extraordinarily selfish. There must be several bedrooms in this house, but he lumps us in here together because he’s too lazy to point out another.’
Campion did not reply. Uncle William turned off the light over his bed and settled himself. But he was still not inclined to sleep.
‘Suicide or accident,’ he murmured, adhering to his philosophical vein, which was new to Campion. ‘What does it matter? Don’t want to be hard but I feel she’s better dead. Age wouldn’t suit her book at all, would it?’
Campion remained silent but his companion was not to be quelled.
‘Campion …’ His voice sounded insistent in the greyness.
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve landed ourselves among a funny crowd, my boy, haven’t we? A damned curious bandarloggy lot. Nothin’ like Cambridge.’
Campion relinquished his own thoughts regretfully.
‘Bandarloggy?’ he inquired.
‘Indian,’ explained Uncle William. ‘Means the “monkey people.” Got it out of the Jungle Book,’ he added modestly. ‘Got all my India for my memoirs out of the Jungle Book and Round the World in Eighty Days. Tried Kim but couldn’t get along with it. Funny things about those memoirs, Campion. If I’d done the decent thing and stuck to the truth no one would have read ’em. As it was, they laughed at me and I made a small fortune. I’m not a chump, you know. I can see how that happened. Better be a clown than a pompous old fool. Mother wouldn’t have realised that, though, and she was a clever woman, God rest her soul. I stumbled on it and it made me. I say, shall I have to go to the inquest on Miss Pye? Haven’t attended an inquest since that silly affair of Andrew’s. Don’t know if I want to.’
Campion stirred. ‘Where were you all the evening?’
‘Me?’ Uncle William laughed. ‘I was all right. No use sounding like a policeman. I didn’t see the woman after dinner. I’m no witness. I was in the little music-room behind the dining-room, listening to Mercer. I don’t mind his strumming when there’s no words. It’s these fellers bleating out their vulgar private thoughts who make me uncomfortable.’
Campion raised himself on one elbow.
‘You were listening to Mercer play all the evening, from after dinner till when?’
‘Until Linda came in looking like a ghost and told us all about the accident.’
‘I see. Where was Konrad?’
‘That little runt?’ The old man was contemptuous. ‘He says he left Miss Pye by the lake and came upstairs to his bedroom, which is over the room we were using. He lay there with the window open, listenin’ – or so he says.’
He turned over and hunched the clothes round him.
‘Don’t wish to be unkind,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘but if I was a woman one look at that feller would make me want to cut my throat.’
7
SUTANE lay on his stomach on a felt-covered table basking in the ultra-violet rays of the lamp which Miss Finbrough tended as though it had been a sacred fire.
He was leaning on his elbows, and his face, which was turned towards the assembled gathering, wore a gloomy and introspective expression.
The room was large and very light, and the pink Empire chintz curtains swayed lazily in the summer air. Outside the tree-tops were green and gold and small puffs of white cloud sailed by in an infinite sky.
Uncle William, a trifle embarrassed by the unconventional aspects of this morning audience, sat on the window-ledge with Campion lounging at his side. Sock Petrie leant back in a big basket chair. His eyes were hollow with lack of sleep but he watched Sutane unswervingly.
Mercer sat in an arm-chair also, his hands folded in his lap. He looked profoundly bored.
Benny Konrad was the only other person in the room. Clad in shorts and a sweater, he was lying on his back upon the floor, raising one leg after the other with monotonous regularity. The silence had lasted some minutes and now the only sound was his deep breathing – one, two, three, in; one, two, three, out; one, two, three, in – and so on, it seemed, for ever. His petulant young face was red from his exertions and one strand of his soft yellow hair lay damply on a forehead as clear and modelled as a girl’s.
‘Too hot,’ said Sutane suddenly, and Miss Finbrough laid a scarlet hand upon his skin.
‘Nearly over now,’ she murmured soothingly. ‘I’ll go on to your legs. Two more minutes.’
‘Inquest this afternoon at the pub, then,’ Sock remarked. ‘That cuts out the Swing Over rehearsal for you, James, but I don’t see how it can be helped. They’ll keep to the chorus, I suppose. What was Maisie like yesterday?’
Sutane frowned. Miss Finbrough had discarded her lamp and was exploring the small of his back with fingers like little steel hammers.
‘Oh, all right, you know, all right.’ He spoke without enthusiasm.
‘I thought she was frightful,’ said Konrad brightly. ‘Up – down, up – down, up – down –’
Sock gave him a long speculative glance.
‘Comfort Konrad,’ he said gravely. ‘It suits you. You ought to adopt it. You’ve got a distinct streak of the Puritan, haven’t you, Konnie?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure.’ Konrad spoke carelessly but there was a dissatisfied expression on his face, and he looked like a girl who is not quite certain if she has been complimented or attacked. He went on with his exercises.
‘The Press is friendly, then?’ Sutane was clearly unaware that he had asked the question three times already.
‘They’re just as they always are, bless ’em.’ Sock spread out his long, unexpectedly fine hands. ‘More interested than usual, of course. It’s a funny thing,’ he added with conscious naïveté, ‘that I should have spent the best part of my life getting you into the news and the last few months keeping you out of it.’
Sutane allowed a brief grin to twist his mouth.
‘Yes, it’s a two-edged sword,’ he said, and put his head down on his arms because Miss Finbrough had decided to ministrate to his neck muscles.
Suddenly, however, he looked up, shrugging away from her vigorous fingers.
‘Oh, I got an invitation card,’ he said, ‘last night. I forgot all about it. It’s in the inside pocket of my jacket, Sock, old boy. In the bedroom next door, if you don’t mind.’
Sock grimaced as he got up.
‘You shouldn’t have gone,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t seem so frightfully important now, though. Whom did you get it from?’
‘Councillor Baynes of Merton Road.’ Sutane mimicked the arch refinement of his erstwhile guest. ‘He was just delighted to oblige. Oh dear me, yes, indeed. Just delighted. He kept everything, every scrap of paper that ever came into the house, and if I’d just wait a moment he was sure he could produce the ticket. Yes, there it was, just as it came to him, envelope and all. Oh dear, dear, dear, wasn’t that lucky? Such a ple
asant afternoon. Such a distinguished house. Could he ask me to wait and see Mrs B.? She was just changing her dress.’
It was a flawless caricature, as broad as it was cruel. The Councillor was re-created before their eyes. Almost they saw his moustache quiver.
Everyone laughed except Konrad, who protested primly that unconscious vulgarity was too depressing.
When Sock returned with the invitation card Sutane left his couch to join the group round the publicity man, and Campion caught a glimpse of Miss Finbrough’s face over his shoulder. She was furious. Her bright blue eyes were hard and her lips compressed. Sutane ignored her.
‘Look, Campion,’ he insisted. ‘Does it tell you anything at all?’
The young man in the horn-rimmed spectacles eyed the proffered papers dubiously. Neither the card nor the envelope was in any way remarkable. They were both of the type somewhat mysteriously called ‘cream laid’, and either could have been purchased from any stationer’s in the kingdom. The blanks on the printed ‘At Home’ card had been filled in by hand in green ink and the calligraphy was a fair specimen of the standard hand taught in the schools of some years ago. It was round, flowing and astonishingly devoid of character. The printed ‘R.S.V.P.’ had been cancelled with a single stroke and the postmark on the envelope was the familiar but unhelpful Central London stamp.
‘I’m afraid there’s only the handwriting,’ he said at last. ‘The odd thing is it doesn’t seem to be disguised at all. No one recognises it, of course?’
‘No one I know,’ said Sock decisively. ‘I know several people who write rather like it but none exact.’
Konrad giggled. ‘It’s a woman’s,’ he said. ‘One of your pretty ladies is turning nasty, Sutane.’
Jimmy turned and regarded him coldly for a moment, and presently Konrad got down to his exercises again, his face hot and his eyes sulky.
Sock continued to study the card.
‘The green ink does make me think of a woman, I don’t know why,’ he admitted. ‘Although the whole silly trick was a bit feminine, wasn’t it? Know anyone who writes like this, James?’
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