‘Well, Jimmy,’ she said, ‘don’t you know me?’
Sutane stared at her, and at his side Campion caught some of his horrified surprise.
‘Eva,’ he said.
The woman laughed and raised her glass to him. She would be drunk again in a very little while.
‘Little Eva herself,’ she said. ‘Come to see the last of the poor old girl for old times’ sake. Things had changed, hadn’t they, for her and me – and you, too, old boy. You’re doing very well for yourself, aren’t you? West End manager and everything …’
She had not raised her voice, but because she was the only person in the room who seemed to have something definite to say to anyone everybody listened automatically. She became aware of the silence and turned on them with a swing that was just a little too sudden. Those immediately behind her looked uncomfortable and began to talk hurriedly to each other. The woman returned to Sutane.
A little later in the day she would be grotesque and disgusting, with exaggerated movements and blurred, drivelling speech but now there was only the promise of these things. She came a little closer.
‘I suppose you couldn’t use a bright little soubrette who knows the ropes?’ she murmured and smiled with sudden bitterness when she saw his involuntary expression. ‘That’s all right, Jimmy boy, I’m only kidding. I couldn’t walk across a stage these days. I’ve gone to hell. You can see that, can’t you?’
She laughed again, and seemed on the brink of further confidence. Sutane interrupted her. He was as nearly flurried as Campion had ever seen him.
‘Where are you living now?’
‘With my old Mama – old Emma, you remember her.’ She was easily diverted and ran on in the same confidential way, as though she were telling secrets. ‘We’re in a slum in Kensington. You’ve forgotten that kind of life. D’you remember you and Chloe and me and Charles on the boat going over? That was a good time – years ago.’
She paused and Campion kept his eyes studiously on the wall opposite him because he knew that Sutane was looking at his face. The woman continued:
‘Poor old Chloe! I never thought she’d beat me to it. I’m the one who ought to be in my grave. I’m not safe out alone nowadays. I shouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t brought me along. He’s a nice boy to look up her old pal and bring me along to see the last of her. He’s going to take me back, too. He’s got to or I shan’t get back. There he is, over there. Little Benny Konrad. I’d never seen him before. Nice of him, wasn’t it?’
Her weak, indeterminate voice trailed away and she laid a flabby hand in a tight discoloured kid glove on Sutane’s wrist.
‘So long, old boy,’ she said and gave him once again her odd, bleary smile with the nauseating dash of coquetry in it. ‘We’ll have a drink to the old days some time perhaps?’
The remark was barely a question, but amid the bitterness and defeat in her voice a little flame of hope quivered and died and she smiled to herself. She went away, the crowd parting for her as she blundered towards Konrad.
Sutane rattled the money in his pockets, glanced sharply at Campion, who did not look at him, and prepared to make the initial effort towards escape.
‘Campion, we’d better go,’ he said softly. ‘Come on.’
Mr Campion followed him with a curious unwillingness. As they approached Mrs Pole there was a momentary diversion. The maid reappeared in the doorway holding a florist’s envelope above the heads of the visitors. It was a sensible enough precaution, since the crowd was very thick, but it gave her entry an air of triumph which was incongruous. She reached her mistress as Sutane and Campion came up and they overheard her breathless message.
‘Boy just brought these ’M. Said order bin delayed. Would you please excuse?’
Mrs Pole took the frail package and tore it open in a ponderous irrevocable fashion which she seemed to find compatible with her tragic rôle. A large bunch of purple violets fell out on to the floor and the daughter stooped to retrieve them, blushing painfully. Mrs Pole discovered a card in the debris of the envelope and read from it aloud:
‘Chloe from Peter – “That perfect likeness” –’
The quotation puzzled her and she repeated it, turning the card over as if she expected to find a clue to its meaning upon the other side. Frustrated, she shrugged her plump black shoulders and dismissed the mystery.
‘Somebody who knew her, no doubt,’ she said. ‘She had a lot of friends. What a pity these came so late, or they might have gone with the others. Put them in water for me, Joannie. If I have time I’ll take them down to the grave tomorrow. What a lot of flowers she’s had! Wherever she is I’m sure she’s pleased. Must you go, Mr Sutane? It was very kind of you to come. I know she would have liked to have seen you all here. Poor, poor girl!’
Sutane shook hands with her and murmured a few eminently suitable words. Campion, who was not without grace himself, admired his elegant and comforting ease.
As they struggled out of the door the daughter of the house panted behind them, clutching Peter Brome’s bouquet.
They had passed the straggling group of sightseers outside the iron gate, had seen them nudge each other and stare at Sutane with studiously blank faces, and they were half-way down the broad, hot road to the taxi rank before Uncle William caught them up. He was blowing gently and still flourished a crisp white handkerchief as he appeared between them.
‘Don’t blame you for forgettin’ me,’ he said. ‘Distressin’ experience. Glad to get out myself. Terrible situation if grief was genuine, but more bearable than this. Not so embarrassin’. Haven’t felt so damnably indecent since I was a child at the same sort of function – better class, of course.’
The final observation was in the nature of an aside, a placatory offering to some past relative, no doubt.
Sutane did not speak at once. He was striding along, his head thrust forward and his hands in his pockets. His face was sombre and Campion was very much aware of his thoughts.
‘Ghastly,’ he said suddenly. ‘Ghastly. It didn’t even make you wish you were dead. We’ll take that cab over there. Campion, I want you. Don’t clear off.’
He spoke with his old nervous authority which it was only possible to disobey and not to ignore. Mr Campion climbed into the cab after Uncle William, feeling that he was making a great mistake.
As they settled down Uncle William produced an old-fashioned cigar-case and solemnly presented them each with a half corona.
‘This is the time for a risky story,’ he remarked unexpectedly. ‘Must get back to normal. Pity I can’t keep the things in my head. Still, we can wash our hands of that affair now. That’s over. Done our part. Done it well. Goin’ to take you both to my club. Won’t take a refusal. Don’t often make use of it, but it’s still there. The one place you can get a drink at this hour.’
It was a difficult journey back to the city. Campion was anxious to escape and yet strangely loath to make a definite move towards that end. Sutane was silent and moody and Uncle William alone appeared to have a practical aim in view.
They went to his club finally, which was in Northumberland Avenue, an extraordinary institution which seemed at first glimpse to be a cross between a cathedral and the old Café Royal. In a dark corner of the lounge they sat sipping whisky and soda, conversing only very occasionally and then in whispers.
Sutane left to telephone to the theatre where Swing Over was in production, and before he went he looked at his host meaningly.
‘He’s got it into his head you’re goin’ to run away,’ murmured Uncle William. ‘Bundle of nerves, poor feller. Glad you turned up. Never doubted you would, after my letter. Pathetic business. Had to square up and face it. The silly woman brought us a lot of trouble. Thought she would the first time I saw her. What did you think of my enclosure?’
‘From the bird’s nest?’
Uncle William nodded, his pink face serious.
‘Yes. Rum go. Startled me, don’t mind admittin’ it. May be nothin’, but i
t struck me. Voice in one’s ear, as it were. Out there alone in the woods … nothin’ about but greenery and sunny air. Touch of the romantic in my nature, you know. Always has been.’
In response to this final confidence Mr Campion kept silent. There seemed to be nothing he could say. The old man put down his glass.
‘Been thinkin’ about it,’ he said. ‘Prepared myself to find it was a servant-girl romance. Thought I’d thrash it out just the same in case it wasn’t. It’s still there. Had another look at it this mornin’, but the writin’ is nothing to go by. Badly formed, scribbled in pencil, might be woman’s, might be man’s. It’s not Linda’s.’
Mr Campion sat up with a start.
‘Of course not.’
Uncle William’s bright blue eyes grew wide and he shot the younger man an unexpectedly shrewd glance.
‘Nothin’s impossible,’ he said. ‘Got to be prepared for every thin’ in this world, that’s my experience. I examined her hand very carefully and it’s a peculiar sort of calligraphy. You’d know it anywhere. Squarish stuff. Well, not bein’ able to take the note away, thus raisin’ the alarm, I put my brains to it, Campion. These are my deductions. First of all from the matter. You remember the phrase? – good. Well, from the matter, it’s either a very young man or a woman. Women in love will write any thin’. Known it to my cost. Great argument against teachin’ women to hold a pen at all. Men are more cautious. Inherent in ’em. Boys are different again. When love seizes a boy it makes a silly young jackass of him. Follow my argument, Campion?’
‘Perfectly. The tree was right in the grounds, you say?’
Uncle William sighed.
‘See I’m too long-winded for you,’ he said regretfully. ‘Had it worked out. Long and the short of it is, think it’s Eve. She’s the age.’
‘Eve? Whom to?’
‘That’s the point.’ Uncle William wagged his head. ‘Shall have to keep my eye on the tree.’
He paused and his bright eyes were contemplative and kindly.
‘Poor little girl,’ he said. ‘May have nothin’ to do with the business we’re investigatin’ at all, except that it accounts for noises in the garden at night, and footprints in the mornin’. Still, we’ll respect her secret.’
Mr Campion considered Eve Sutane.
‘Sock,’ he said aloud. ‘Even Konrad.’
‘Girl’s demented if she’s writin’ love-notes to Konrad. Loses my sympathy.’ Uncle William’s whisper was hearty. ‘May be anyone. Secret love affair is very attractive at that age. Maybe there’s a feller among the neighbours. Can’t rule out anyone – grooms, gardeners, anyone …. I remember my sister Julia, the stout one – you met her over that dreadful affair of Andrew’s – yes, well, she, you know – oh dear me yes! There was a great row about it at the time. Cried herself ill, poor girl. I was packed off back to school; never got the full story. Mothers were more like mothers in those days.’
His voice rumbled and died.
‘Leave this to me,’ he whispered as a nearby old gentleman glowered at him. ‘If it’s important I’ll ferret it out. If it isn’t, I can keep my mouth shut, I hope. Delicate affair, best in my hands.’
He looked down at his plump bear’s paws and folded them. Campion smiled.
‘You and Blest can manage this thing between you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go now. Sorry I haven’t been of any more use.’
Uncle William took him by the sleeve.
‘No, my boy,’ he said solemnly. ‘Believe I’ve got a glimmer of your difficulty, but a soldier can’t desert his post, a lawyer can’t desert his client, a gentleman’s got to meet his engagements. Speakin’ like man to man now, you understand. Old stuff, I know. Made a lot of fun of these days, but still holds good. Jimmy here is a decent feller in trouble. Don’t know what it is but feel it just the same. More trouble than I thought. Think of him. Decent feller. Bein’ worried. Frightened. Driven perhaps to doin’ things he wouldn’t normally think of doin’. Your commission is to get him out of it. Put things straight for everyone. Speakin’ personally, there’s my show to think of. If anythin’ happens to Jimmy I go back to Cambridge and retirement … a damned dull life for a man who’s tasted a bit of the real thing for the first time at sixty. But I’m not harpin’ on that. I’m thinkin’ of everyone and I’m thinkin’ most of you. Dear decent feller. Remind me amazin’ly of myself as a young man. Don’t let yourself down, my boy. Ah! there’s Sutane ….’
17
AT NINE o’clock at night Campion and Sutane were still together and still acutely embarrassed by each other’s presence. It had been an uncomfortable evening. Uncle William had watched over Campion and what he considered was Campion’s duty with all the faithful obstinacy of a bobtail sheepdog and had only consented to go when the departure of the last train for Birley became imminent.
He left them in the Savoy Grill and padded off, pausing in the doorway to cast an admonishing glance at his older friend. Sutane’s eyes, which were dark without being bright, narrowed and a faint smile passed over his crooked mouth.
‘Lovable old boy,’ he observed. ‘The ass par excellence.’
Campion nodded absently. The moment which he had seen approaching all day with relentless, unhurried pace had now arrived. He wished he had not been so abominably weak but had made his escape immediately after the funeral.
He did not want to hear Sutane’s confession. He did not want to pledge his word to a secrecy upon which he had already decided. It was all over as far as he was concerned. Chloe Pye was safely buried and he did not want to know definitely how she had died.
Sutane glanced at his wrist.
‘I want to go down to the theatre if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I didn’t play on the day of the funeral. It seemed to be the sort of gesture that was expected of me. It gives me an opportunity to see what Konrad makes of the show. He won’t have the wheel turning, of course. We didn’t want him to make a fool of himself or break an ankle.’
The final remark, a very human touch of weakness which had escaped him in spite of himself, embarrassed him as soon as he had made it. He laughed and his unhappy, intelligent eyes were apologetic. Campion experienced a warm wave of liking for him which he resented, feeling it exasperatingly unfair.
They went to the theatre, postponing the evil moment for yet another twenty minutes. Konrad was on the stage when they stepped into the back of a box. He and Slippers were in the midst of the ‘Leave it to Me’ number in the first act. The house was friendly and well fed, but disappointed to miss Sutane, and so much mass regret made a cool, heavy atmosphere in the great auditorium.
Campion watched Konrad with interest. He was technically sound, skilful, and eminently satisfactory to look at, but his exhibition was not inspired. No personality came out over the footlights to grip the attention of the silent watching throng and force its sympathy. There was no ecstasy. The irresistible and final appeal was not there. The magic had departed. There was no light in the lantern.
Slippers was her flaming self, but her small light was not fed and strengthened by her partner. Rather he took from her, revealing the frail quality of her little gift.
The man at Campion’s elbow sighed. It was an expressive sound, mainly of regret but containing a definite underlying hint of satisfaction.
‘It’s not there,’ he said softly. ‘I knew it. He knows it, poor beast.’
The roar as the curtain descended drowned his voice. It did not come from the stalls or the circle, both of which gave a kindly if not enthusiastic hand, but from the pit and gallery, which seemed to be at least partially inhabited by a deliriously excited throng. The noise was prodigious and it went on too long. Slippers and Konrad took two calls. Konrad was shy and boyish before the curtain. His smile of gratified surprise was modest and ingenuous. The stalls gave him an extra hand because of it.
As Sutane glanced up at the dark gallery a glimmer from the stage caught his face. He looked worried but not annoyed.
‘That damned
claque again,’ he said. ‘How very silly of him. He can’t afford it, you know.’
They stayed to watch the curtain rise again on the Alexandra Palace scene, with the chorus in high boots and roller skates assisting Rosamund Bream and Dennis Fuller to enact a travestied version of the now famous ‘Leg o’ Mutton Escapade’ from Uncle William’s memoirs.
During the garter business, that piece of inverted humour amusing to the audience only because it was funny to them that their fathers should have considered it funny, Sutane touched Campion’s sleeve and they went backstage.
There were a few surprised nods of recognition as they passed down the corridor, but no one stopped the great man, and when he closed his dressing-room door behind them his mood had not altered.
‘Look here,’ he said, motioning his visitor to a chair and glancing round for a cigarette box to offer him, ‘I owe you a sort of explanation.’
‘No,’ said Campion with a firmness which surprised himself. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve been afraid you were going to come out with something, but frankly I don’t think it’s necessary.’
He paused abruptly.
The other man was staring at him. Since meeting Sutane in private life Campion had almost forgotten his better known stage personality, but now he was forcefully reminded of it.
Here in the theatre Sutane was his remarkable, magical self again. Once more he seemed a little larger than life, with all his many physical peculiarities exaggerated and his restless, powerful spirit pressed down into the dangerous confinement of packed explosive.
‘My dear chap,’ he said, ‘you’ve got to listen to me.’
He swept aside some of the miscellany on the dressing-table and perched himself on the cleared space. One foot rested on the seat of the chair and he kept his long expressive hands free to emphasise his words.
‘When I said I’d never met Chloe Pye before she came into The Buffer I was lying,’ he said abruptly.
It occurred to Campion irrelevantly that the dramatic intensity of the words was not lessened by his histrionic skill.
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