Dancers in Mourning

by Margery Allingham

  ‘Konrad never complained to you of anyone except Sutane?’

  Yeo was stolidly impervious to the gibbering face so near his own.

  ‘No. No one but Sutane.’ The old man stood biting his thin lips, his prominent eyes starting and vindictive. ‘Sutane was killing him in spirit, stifling him and devitalising him. But I don’t want to hear anything more about it. It upsets me. The tragedy has happened and the poor boy is dead.’

  He walked back to the great Italian chest in the corner and picked up his violin. Yeo took his leave.

  They were shown to the door by a respectable elderly charwoman who fitted the messenger boy’s description of the woman who had dispatched the garlic bouquet.

  As they came away they heard the quavering strains of a little air of Puccini’s rendered atrociously.

  Yeo walked along in silence for some minutes.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ he said at last. ‘I saw it at once. You can see how that monkey business round the theatre came to happen, can’t you? Konrad was eaten alive with jealousy, transposed it in his mind, as they all do, and he and Siegfried egged each other on until they had to break out into action or burst.’

  Campion nodded. The action had been typical, he reflected; little sporadic eruptions of weakness, petty, absurd and infuriating.

  Yeo laughed.

  ‘The old devil wasn’t mentioning his brush with Blest, was he?’ he said. ‘You’d think an experience like that would teach him to keep his mouth shut, but I thought it wouldn’t. He is an old woman and no mistake! Oates can’t stay in the room with him, but he makes me laugh. There’s nothing vicious about him. He’s just a bundle of old fancy-dress and always has been. Why don’t you accept Mr Sutane’s invitation and go down to White Walls, Mr Campion?’

  The suddenness of the question had its desired effect and took Campion off his guard.

  ‘Because I don’t want to,’ he said.

  Yeo sighed.

  ‘Think it over,’ he advised. ‘You could be very useful to us on the inside like that. See here, these are my last words. You don’t think Mr Sutane is the man we want and I can’t see why on earth he should be any more than anyone else. It’s to his interest to have the thing cleared up quickly because we’re going to keep at it if it takes us from now until eternity, and we’ll ruin him before we’ve finished. We can’t help ourselves. So whose hospitality will you be abusing? Think it over …’

  Mr Campion walked about London for nearly four hours. The complete privacy of a sojourn among four million total strangers was comforting and the exercise soothed him.

  As he came up the quiet, dignified street to the Junior Greys the evening sun picked out the colours at the windows of the solid grey-white buildings and the air was pleasant and full of the quiet laughter of a London after work. He began to feel free again. The gnawing, shameful preoccupation with Linda which had been at first amusing and then shocking and finally downright terrifying was now battened down, banished part to some far-off corner of his mind and part to a spot somewhere at the base of his diaphragm.

  He felt responsible again and his own mind’s master.

  There was a message waiting for him with the club porter. It was brief and mysterious, without being particularly disturbing. The caretaker at Bottle Street had phoned to ask if he would call in at the flat the moment he returned. Because it was so near, barely three streets away, he went round at once and hurried up the familiar staircase, fumbling in his pocket for his key.

  As he came to the foot of the final flight he paused abruptly, his new-found peace scattered as the battens were burst upward and all the mental and emotional confusion of the past ten days took possession of him once again.

  Linda Sutane, who had been seated on the topmost stair just outside the door, rose wearily to her feet and came down to meet him.

  21

  AS CAMPION stood balancing his lean body, his heels on the kerb and his shoulders braced against the high mantelshelf, he looked at the girl seated in his wing-chair and made the disturbing discovery that the progress of an affair of the heart does not cease at the point where the two parties are separated, resuming its course when they meet again, but rather continues its relentless progress slowly and inexorably all the time, whether the participants are together or apart.

  Linda Sutane looked smaller than he had remembered her. Her black suit with the pleated white collar was a Lelong, and the hat perched on her sleek hair gave her a new air of sophistication which he liked and found somehow comforting.

  She had followed him into the flat without speaking and had seated herself without glancing about her. Her silence had demoralised him and he stood looking at her, his hands in his pockets, wishing that she would speak and put the ridiculously disturbing meeting on some concrete basis of reality at least. At the moment he felt he was suffering from an hallucination with the added disadvantage of knowing very well that it was not one.

  She glanced up at him and he saw that her small face was white and stiff, and her honey-coloured eyes dark with worry.

  His heart contracted suddenly and painfully and this, the final emotional straw, turned the wheel right over and he felt gloriously and freely angry with her. The whole monstrous imposition of love confronted him and he boiled at it.

  ‘Well,’ he said spitefully, ‘this is very nice of you.’

  She drew back into the chair and tucked her feet up under her so that it contained her entirely. ‘Uncle William thought you would come to help us if I asked you myself, so I came to find you.’

  She spoke with an unusual ingenuousness, and he saw that she was ill at ease and received an unworthy satisfaction from the discovery.

  ‘But, my dear lady,’ he said, ‘if there was anything I could do, believe me I should be wandering round your delightful garden, badgering your servants, leaping about from flower-bed to flower-bed with a reading glass and generally behaving like the complete house-trained private tee. But as it is, I really don’t see how I can impose myself upon you. What can I do?’

  She stared at him.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ she said.

  The suddenness of the direct attack defeated, or rather deflated, him. He fumbled for a cigarette-case and offered it to her. She shook her head in refusal but did not take her glance from his face. She looked hurt and puzzled and reminded him irritatingly of Sarah.

  ‘We’re in dreadful trouble,’ she said. ‘The police come every day. Do you know about it? What they think about Konrad?’

  ‘Roughly, yes.’

  ‘Yet you won’t do anything?’

  For what was probably the first time in his life Campion ceased to think during an interview. There are occasions when the intellect retires gracefully from a situation entirely beyond its decorous control and leaves all the other complicated machinery of the mind to muddle through on its own.

  Since he was a highly-bred product of a highly-civilised strain his natural instincts were offset by other man-implanted cultures and taboos, and the result of the war between them was to make him, if inwardly wretched, outwardly a trifle insane.

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I’ll hold the whole blithering universe up for you. I’ll stop the whole dizzy juggernaut of British police procedure for you if you want me to. I’m all-powerful. I’ll wave a little wand and we’ll find it all isn’t true.’

  For a moment she wavered maddeningly between anger and tears and finally crept further into the depths of the chair, to sit looking out at him like a wren in a nest.

  ‘How is Lugg?’ said Campion. ‘And Uncle William? And the helpful Mercer? Sock, too, and Poyser and Miss Finbrough? You all have my most sincere sympathy and if I were a first-class magician I’d put the clock back a month or so, say to the beginning of May, with the greatest of pleasure for you. As it is, however, I’m not the man you thought me. God bless my soul, I’m not the fairy queen after all.’

  He was concentrating on making her angry. It seemed to have become the only impor
tant thing in life.

  ‘I’m a cad at heart,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I can’t work the oracle and miracles are beyond me. You see, there are quite a number of other powerful spells at work – the porter’s wife, for instance.’

  He was very much alive now and laughing. The vacuity had vanished from his face, leaving it lean and pleasant. He had taken off his spectacles and his pale, long-sighted eyes were darker and sharper than before.

  Linda nodded to him gravely as if he had imparted a secret to her which she had already known.

  ‘Come down with me now,’ she said and held out her hand to him.

  He looked at the hand, shooting it a sharp, quick glance which took in everything there was to notice about it: its shape, its texture and the very faint blue veins under the golden skin. A colt in a field looks in the same way at the skip of feed held out to entice it.

  He turned abruptly and went over to the cocktail cabinet.

  ‘Let us drink and discuss this,’ he said. ‘A White Lady?’

  He was a long time over his preparations and she watched his thin, muscular back and the short, fine hairs at the base of his skull.

  ‘The rats are right in the house now,’ she said in a small, quiet voice behind him. ‘We shall have to see them soon. It’s like being besieged by ghosts. Jimmy’s insane with worry and everybody’s different. I thought it was only in the house, but now I’m beginning to find the whole world’s like it. I thought you’d like to help.’

  ‘I would,’ he assured her lightly. ‘If I could I’d come beetling down like a homing chipmunk. You see, it’s the size of the thing which discourages me so. Have you noticed that about murder? It goes by compound interest. Two are twice as bad as one and three are three times as bad as two. I may run round and muck about with the insides of motor-cars in a little case of dubious suicide, but when I see such a quantity of carnage I know when I’m beaten. I knew a mongrel whippet once called Addlepate. He’d take on any bullpup single-handed, but he gave one look at the bullpup ring at a country show and raised his eyebrows and walked away. I sympathised with him. I’m like that myself. Your cocktail, lady.’

  She took the glass and set it down untasted. He found her bewildered expression unbearable and so he did not look at her.

  ‘If you found out the truth and told I wouldn’t blame you,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know. It might be a howling cad’s trick to tell. Things like that sometimes happen,’ he said and laughed.

  She turned her face into the upholstery of the chair and he paused abruptly and stared at her, his eyes wretched. There was a long silence and in it he was acutely aware that he was in his own familiar room and that she was in it too and no right thing there.

  He took the handkerchief from his breast-pocket and dropped it lightly on to her hand.

  The movement roused her and she took it up and looked at it.

  ‘You’re very hard,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that. Incredibly hard.’

  ‘Solid rock,’ he agreed. ‘Granite. Beneath the superstratum of mud you come to stone. The ghastly monotony is relieved here and there by occasional fossilised fish.’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s been very – very interesting,’ she said, and climbed out of the chair.

  She smiled at him, her brown eyes shining.

  He did not echo it. His face was pinched and grey.

  ‘Did you come by car, or may I take you to the station?’

  She moved close to him and looked up at him, her face working.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ she said. ‘That’s really why I came. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m alone down there with them all and I’m physically frightened. Don’t you see?’

  Mr Campion stood staring down at her with his arms hanging limply at his sides. Presently he lifted his chin and looked over her head. His expression was blank and introspective.

  ‘All right,’ he said with sudden brisk decision. ‘We’ll go now. This is my full responsibility, remember. It’s nothing to do with you at all. Both your husband and the police have asked me to make an investigation and I’ll try to do it. That’s all. But I’m afraid —’

  He broke off and she prompted him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Afraid the time may come when you will think I’m a pretty low-down sort of tick, Linda, my sweet,’ said Mr Campion gravely.

  22

  ‘EASE it,’ said Mr Lugg through the door. ‘Put yer back into it. Ee-ease it. Don’t git excited and don’t be frightened. I’m ’ere. I’ll let you out if you can’t do it, but come on – try. Don’t be a little wet.’

  The long corridor which ran from east to west throughout the whole top floor of White Walls was silent save for his earnest injunctions and Mr Campion, who had been looking for him ever since his own arrival, was confronted by a monstrous back view of that vast familiar form.

  ‘Steady – steady now! I can ’ear it goin’.’

  The white arc of a bald head appeared over a much greater arc of broadcloth tail-coat, like an up-ended crescent moon, as its owner applied a great ear to the panels of a door. There was a grunt of regret.

  ‘Lorst it …. Never mind. Try again. You’ll never do it if you don’t try. Take the pin out. ’As it lost its shape? Wot? Well, square, you snufflin’ little chump! I showed you. Got it? Now then, in she goes. Quietly! – quietly! You don’t want to rouse the ’ouse. ’Ere she goes – ’ere she goes …. That’s it. Now then –’

  The ominous scratching at the door-lock ceased as with a triumphant click the bolt shot back and the door slid quietly open, to reveal a flushed and excited Sarah with a bent hairpin in her hand.

  ‘Done it!’ she screamed, dancing round the old man like a demented puppy. ‘Done it! Done it! Done it!’

  ‘Shut up.’ Lugg let out a friendly blow at the side of her head which would have felled an ox and mercifully missed its half-hearted objective. ‘Don’t bawl the place down. You’ll get us ticked orf again. No need to go orf like a gin palace on a Saturday even if you can pick a lock with anyone twice yer size. Now, there’s something useful I’ve learnt yer, only don’t advertise it. That’s the kind of trick you want to keep under yer ’at – see? ’Ullo …’

  The final utterance was in the nature of a warning. They both stiffened and Mr Lugg’s beady bright eyes rested coldly upon the thin form at the far end of the corridor.

  Campion came forward.

  ‘Lugg, what are you doing?’

  ‘Amusin’ the child.’ Legg was truculent and casual. ‘I’m a nursemaid now. Didn’t they tell you?’ He looked down at his pupil and winked. ‘Run along now, Miss Sarah,’ he said with travestied formality. ‘Nuss will no doubt be a-searchin’ of for you. You do not want to cause her any anxiety? I thought not. We will continue our ’obby later on. Go on, get out. Beat it, there’s a good kid.’

  Sarah squeezed his hand and slipped the hairpin into his coat pocket.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Lugg,’ she said with rehearsed dignity. ‘That was most int’resting.’

  She walked off sedately, only breaking into uncontrollable giggles when the new-comer had been safely passed. Campion waited until she was out of earshot and spent the time surveying his only real responsibility with a chilly interest guaranteed to inspire shame.

  ‘You think you’re a damn fine sort of a fellow, I suppose?’ he said at last. ‘A sort of ministering boy-scout, bringing a little dusty sunshine to a misunderstood child?’

  Lugg sniffed to convey that he was not impressed.

  ‘I’m very fond of my fellow-creatures,’ he said. ‘Besides, you never know when a simple little wrinkle like that might come in useful. Every kid ought to learn ’ow to pick a lock. She’s a helpless, noisy little bit. She’s bound to come up against it some time in ’er life. I’m preparin’ of ’er for it. I’m doin’ ’er a bit of good. You lay orf. I like ’er. She’s all right.’

  ‘She reminds you of yourself when you were a child, no doubt?’ inquired Mr Campion a
ffably.

  Lugg looked down over a highly-coloured career to some distant hotbed in the slums of Canning Town.

  ‘No,’ he said seriously. ‘Not reelly. She’s simple to what I was. It’s the bringin’ up what does it. Well, you’ve turned up at last, ’ave you? About time, too. I’ve ’ad a room ready for you for a week. Come on. I’ll show it to you now you are ’ere.’

  He waddled down the corridor with Campion behind him.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, flinging open the door of the chamber immediately above the small music-room. ‘Mr Benjamin Konrad’s late apartment. The last gentleman ’oo slept in ’ere was blown to Buenos Aires. ’Ope you’ll be comfortable.’

  Campion walked through the chintz-hung room and stood looking out over the wide garden, misty in the twilight.

  ‘Well?’ he inquired over his shoulder. ‘Noticed anything of value about this business?’

  ‘No. I’m keepin’ right out of it.’ Lugg heaved a leather suitcase on to the bedspread and began to pitch out its contents. ‘You didn’t think to bring me a shirt or two, I don’t suppose?’ he said. ‘I’m right away from civilisation down ’ere, you know.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Leave those things alone. Pull yourself together. You can’t have been going about in a trance. You must have noticed something. What have you been doing?’

  ‘What I was asked — bein’ a butler.’ Lugg sounded smugly satisfied. ‘You lent me to the lady as a butler and a butler I’ve bin. It’s not my line, but I’ve made a job of it and in a way I’ve quite enjoyed it. The servants are well under my thumb and in my spare time I do my best to amuse the kid, ’oo I like. Give me a year or two with that kid and I’ll make somethink of ’er. She’s got the makin’s of a first-class little tough. I’m very strict, you know. No swearin’. Nothin’ unladylike. She’s give me a few tips, too. If there’s somethink I don’t know and don’t like to lower meself by askin’ the servants, I mention it to ’er, and if she don’t know either she gits it out the nurse. It’s mutual.