‘Oh dear !’ He was alarmed. ‘I’d forgotten them. They must be kept right away from this, Amanda. They’re not ready for anything of this sort. This is most shocking to the young. Frightening.’
‘I know, dear. Lugg’s with them. We’ll see to that. Hallo, how did you get on?’
The door shuddering open had admitted three excited people. Two of them, both male, were almost beside themselves with the joyous adventure of getting home through London in a real pea-souper. One of these was six and the other was sixty. The third of the party, who was pale and a little breathless from the responsibility of controlling the others, was a girl. She was eight.
Mr Campion’s heir, Rupert, came in blinking in the bright light. He was a slender six-year-old, red-haired like his mother, and wiry. He had the innate gentleness of his father’s family, but unlike either of his parents he was shy. He went over to his mother now and, leaning across her chair, burst out with his private worry in a husky whisper.
‘The shoe-trees for Aunt Val cost two-and-six.’
‘Oh well, that’s all right,’ said Amanda reassuringly. ‘That only makes you ninepence down to date. That’s not bad, you know, considering the rise in the cost of living.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Certain. We’ll go into the whole situation at the end of the week. Was it fun?’
‘Tremenjous.’ Mr Magersfontein Lugg, breathing heavily in the doorway, was glowing with a good temper foreign to his somewhat lugubrious personality. He was a large globular person, with a vast white face, small beady black eyes, and a drooping moustache. For so many years he had been Mr Campion’s friend and knave, as well as his personal servant, that certain eccentricities which he possessed had long been accepted and forgiven by all who knew them. He wore the formal black clothes and hard hat of an upper servant of the last century, but there the likeness ceased abruptly.
‘I don’t mind minding kids,’ he announced. ‘The little gel saved me from being run over twice.’
The third member of the trio smiled faintly. She was not very tall and not very plump, and her thick straight hair hung down behind her almost to her knees. She was very plainly dressed and as formal as only a child can be, but the blue eyes in her short-nosed solemn face were secretly merry under their heavy lids.
This was Emily, daughter of Mrs Talisman’s second son who had got on in the world and achieved an engineering degree, only to be killed with his wife and a second daughter in Portsmouth in the blitz. Then Emily, who had been a baby at the time, had come to live with her grandmother in the half-basement.
Old Canon Avril often forgot she was not his own granddaughter, and Mrs Talisman brought her up to be worthy of such a distinction, with the result that she might have been a little repressed had it not been for Sam and Mrs Drummock, who prevented all that.
She looked round cautiously. ‘There were fires in the street,’ she said.
‘That’s right. They’ve got the old beacons out at Marble Arch.’ Lugg spoke with tremendous relish. ‘I ain’t seen ’em since I was a nipper meself. Flames shootin’ up into the sky like Guy Fawkes night.’
Rupert regarded him seriously. ‘We got you away, though,’ he observed, ‘and you still have your parcel. Are you going to show it to Mother, or is it a surprise?’
‘Now then, now then, come orf it.’ Mr Lugg’s sallow skin had achieved a dusky redness and his eyes glowered. ‘Be a sport. Remember all I’ve learned you. Don’t nark it.’
Rupert said nothing but his eyes laughed, and he and Emily exchanged a silent joke.
‘It is a surprise,’ deduced Amanda, ‘and I’m glad to know because Mr Lugg’s surprises are better if they’re not sudden.’
‘All right, all right, I’ll tell yer if yer must know. It’s only a bloomin’ Father Christmas mask. I was trying it on to amuse these ’ere kids and the blessed girl be’ind the counter made me buy it.’ Lugg was fighting with a string on his limp package and would have produced his purchase there and then had not a key sounded in the lock behind him in the hall.
‘Oh.’ Amanda got up. ‘Look, Lugg, that’s the boss with Inspector Luke.’
The fat man met her eyes. ‘Inspector Luke, eh?’ he said in quick comprehension. ‘Yes, well, you young ’uns better get along, get your wet shoes orf or something. We don’t want you dyin’ on us, causin’ trouble. Come on, come on, get a move on, can’t yer? Where shall we go? Up top?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Mr Drummock’s busy for us on the phone.’
‘Ho.’ The black eyebrows rose. ‘General mobilization, is it? Very well, we’ll go down to yer Grannie’s, Emily. See what she’s got in her pantry. Perhaps she’ll ’ave another go at teachin’ me to speak proper, pore soul.’
Rupert slid his hand into the vast one. ‘You can if you like,’ he said with the conscious wickedness of one betraying a confidence. ‘You said you could.’
‘Yus, but I don’t like, see? And that was between us. You’re goin’ to get a thick ear. You’re above yourself, that’s what you are. You get more like your pa every day. Come on, Emily, where are yer?’
‘I’m here.’ Her voice sounded from the basement stairs. ‘I’ve put the light on for you. You fell last time.’
They vanished below, leaving the room blank like a stage after a harlequinade, and the old man laughed.
‘How happy they are,’ he said, ‘all of an age. Ah, Albert my boy, come in, come in. Good evening, Chief Inspector. I’m afraid we’re giving you a lot of trouble.’
The greeting stopped Charlie Luke, who had come swinging in behind Campion, filling the room to bursting point by the mere size of his personality, short in his tracks. Suspicion leaped in his bright eyes. He always suspected people wanting to save him trouble. One good stare at the old man appeared to reassure him, and without being in any way discourteous he soon managed to convey that he had seen faces like Uncle Hubert’s ‘befuddled old kisser’ before. He smiled, with a secret quirk of sheer street-boy naughtiness in his twisted lips, only to receive a considerable shock as he found it not only remarked and recognized but also forgiven by the old priest. It was the most complete introduction taking place in a few seconds which Mr Campion had ever witnessed.
The two men shook hands, and after he had greeted Amanda as an old colleague, Luke glanced about him.
‘Where’s Mrs Elginbrodde? Did she get home in good shape?’
‘Yes. She’s upstairs in her own room. I’m afraid I upset her.’ The Canon wagged his head regretfully. ‘This has appeared too.’ He took up the social journal as he spoke and the D.D.C.I. nodded.
‘We saw it at the station. The old charge sergeant sits there reading it, thinking he’s a lord. That’s going to cause a bit of trouble, I’m afraid. Well, it’s an upsetting time, sir. I think I ought to see the young lady, though.’
Amanda rose. ‘We’ll go up. Did you get anything?’
‘A little. Nothing conclusive,’ murmured her husband, who seemed unhappy. ‘Come on, Charles. This way.’
Meg Elginbrodde’s sitting-room, immediately above the one they had just left, was as different from it as could well be imagined. Van Rinn had done the decor for her in the latest lush or Beaton manner, and between the damasked grey walls and the deep gold carpet there ranged every permissible tint and texture from bronze velvet to scarlet linen pinpointed and enlivened with daring touches of Bristol Blue. After a dubious sidelong glance Luke suddenly decided to like it very much indeed, and he favoured it with a good stare round which made him look like a black curly retriever arriving unexpectedly in fairyland.
On an elegant side-table between the windows there were evidences of Meg’s own art, sketches of dresses, swathes of material, samples of braids and beads, and the blue spidery designs from which jewellers work. Since Campion’s famous sister Val had acquired the controlling interest in the fashion house of Papendeik, she had sponsored several young couturiers and Meg Elginbrodde was one of her most successful discoveries.
> The girl herself had been sitting in a small gilt armchair by the fire when they arrived and she rose to greet them. She had changed into a long grey dress which suited her slenderness and flattered the white-gold sleekness of her hair, but she looked an older woman than she had appeared on the station. The emotional experience which she was undergoing had marked her and her muscles were taut and her eyes sombre with new information about herself.
‘Who was he? Did you find out?’ She spoke directly to Luke as if to a friend, and was met by something new in his attitude. He had become wary and inquisitive, and Campion, who seemed nervous of him, hastened to answer.
‘His name is Walter Morrison:
‘Commonly called “Duds”.’ Luke indicated the exaggerated outline of his own clothes by way of defining the nickname. ‘Does that convey anything to you?’
‘No,’ she said slowly, her eyes growing puzzled as they watched him. ‘No. Ought it to?’
‘Not particularly. He’s been out of jail, Chelmsford,’ he sketched in the blank face of a squat building with the flat of his hand, presumably to save himself time, ‘just six weeks. He was concerned in a hold-up.’ He hunched his shoulders and embarked on one of those pieces of description which were peculiarly his own. It was an astonishing performance in many ways. The man talked like a pump, in gusts, using little or no syntax and forcing home his meaning by what would appear to be physical strength alone. ‘It was thug stuff, but they planned it, Duds and another man. One knife between them and half a broken bottle. It was on the corner of Greek Street and Soho Square. Night. V2 time.’ His diamondshaped eyes demanding her cooperation. ‘Remember V2’s? The whole city waiting. Silent. People on edge. More waiting. Waiting for hours. Nothing. Nothing to show. Then, strike a light! Suddenly, no warning, no whistle, wallop! End of the ruddy world! Just a damned great hole and afterwards half the street coming down very slowly, like a woman fainting. Well. It was in that time. These two lay in wait. Dark streets. Quiet. Foreign troops passing. These lads were waiting for a drunk. Two came by at last alone.’
His voice dropped a tone or two. ‘Quietly. Quietly. Up behind … Got yer!’ He finished with a soft but blood-curdling little gulp, and the scene was as vivid and as unspeakably brutal as if it had happened before them. ‘It wasn’t so easy though,’ he rattled on, unaware of a tenth part of the impression he was creating on that gentle civilized company. ‘Bad luck really. Or good. Depends which side you were on. A patrol car ran slap into the fight. Money and valuables had passed so the law was happy. The two were inside and up before the Beak before they knew what had happened to them. Neither was in uniform and there was no traceable sign that either of them was entitled to wear one. They weren’t talking, of course, but their fingerprints were on the files, so they didn’t miss anything that was coming to them. The other man got the full ten years for robbery with violence. But the charge against Duds was reduced to “Assault with intent to rob” and he got the limit of five. He can’t have been a good boy inside in spite of his pretty voice. There was no remission.’
Meg smoothed the silk over her knee and the diamond on her hand winked and trembled. She looked a trifle dazed. It was an effect which Luke’s descriptive methods were liable to produce in the uninitiated.
‘That just makes it utterly incomprehensible,’ she said softly. ‘Is that all you know about him?’
‘Oh no.’ His intelligence was sharp and he prodded her bewilderment like a carpenter prodding a beam for rot. ‘From nineteen thirty-two to nineteen forty he was in and out of prison for various offences, larceny, demanding with menaces, assault. After that he vanished, might have died, for nearly five years, which suggests that he was being taken care of by the Army. He might have done well in it. That did happen.’
‘Did he serve with Martin Elginbrodde at any point?’ demanded Amanda, her cool voice deliberately conversational in the tension.
‘We haven’t established it.’ Luke met her eyes and flashed a question at her which she either could not or would not recognize. ‘He says he never heard of him, naturally. His story is that he’s an actor by profession. That probably means he once went on the stage for a spell. He gave the name of a provincial management and we’re checking on that now. It won’t get us far, or – ’ he peered at Meg again, ‘will it?’
‘He certainly had a most professional moustache,’ murmured Mr Campion with uneasy lightness.
Meg raised her head. ‘How did he explain the moustache?’
‘Oh, said he used to wear one but lost it in stir, and didn’t like to turn up among his pals without one.’ The D.D.C.I. spoke in a new light voice, with a careful clipped accent. He also twisted his body slightly and immediately the absent Duds was recalled to the mind’s eye. ‘He gave his present address, which is a well-known lodging house just over the river, and we were able to check on that at once. After we let him go …’
‘You let him go!’ Meg looked at him in amazement and he stiffened.
‘We couldn’t hold him, ma’am.’ He sounded scandalized. ‘We can’t hold a man because a lady thinks she recognizes him as her husband.’
‘But he ran away.’
Luke opened his mouth but checked the retort just in time. He glanced hopefully at Mr Campion, who did his best to explain.
‘If the police arrest a man they’re bound to bring him before a magistrate as soon as possible,’ he said gently. ‘That’s the law the wars are fought for nowadays. Habeas Corpus and all that. This man Morrison hasn’t even been proved to have got himself photographed in a false moustache and plagued you with copies of it, but even if he had I doubt if the act would constitute nuisance. That was why we hoped he’d speak to you. Once he had asked for money or uttered threats, some point in his performance would have appeared.’
She shook her head wonderingly and Luke exploded.
‘We were only within our rights in marching him off for questioning because the chump ran away,’ he announced inelegantly. ‘If he’d raised his hat and wandered off we could hardly have stopped him. The courts can be very mind-my-wig when they begin on the subject of police persecution of the marked man.’ He threw in a brief but vivid impression of some legal dignitary who possessed a commanding manner, a throat infection, and a small but obtrusive corporation. ‘However, we’re on to the blighter now. He knows we are and – ’
The trill of the telephone bell on the landing outside cut him short. Meg had sprung up at its first hesitant note. Her movement was unconscious, as was also her glance at the French clock on the mantelshelf. The golden hands showed the time as a few minutes before seven, and in the silence everyone remembered that Geoffrey Levett had promised her to telephone at five. Meanwhile a firm flat Midland voice was speaking in the passage outside.
‘Hallo, hallo. Aye, it is. But no, no, you can’t speak to her. I’m sorry.’ The tone was patient but utterly uncompromising. ‘Oh yes, I’ve got your name. I’ll remember. Yes, she has seen it. Aye, it was indeed a great shock. Someone playing the go-at. Not in good taste. No, I quite agree. Good-bye.’
The phone rang off and the tiny sound was followed by a bellow which would have carried across a playing-field. ‘Meg, lass!’
‘Yes, Uncle Sam?’
‘The Dowager Lady Totham, Park Street. Seventeen going up.’
‘Thank you, darling.’ She sighed and reseated herself. ‘That’s been happening all the time. Sam’s keeping a list. I do hope Geoff doesn’t keep finding this number engaged. I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, what were you saying?’
Luke stood looking at her. His hands were in his pockets, his jacket hitched back into a flounce behind his narrow hips. His shoulders were flat and wide and his dark face glowed with the half-ferocious, half-condoning knowingness which was the essence of the man. He had clearly made up his mind to come clean.
‘Mrs Elginbrodde,’ he demanded bluntly, ‘just how well did you know that husband of yours when you married him?’
Mr Campion’s face became misleadingl
y blank and Amanda looked up, her brown eyes surprised and wary. They were hostile to Luke, and he was aware of it and used to hostility.
‘Well, you see how it is,’ he went on, taking the room into his confidence. ‘Now I’ve had a talk with Duds I see he’s a smooth piece. Nice voice. Plausible. May have come from a good home, as they say. May easily have had a very good war record.’
Canon Avril, who had been sitting very quietly in the darkest corner of the room, leant forward.
‘If you’re asking if he had ever had any serious illness or nervous trouble, we don’t know,’ he remarked. ‘I hadn’t known him from boyhood and when his grandmother wrote me from France she did not mention anything of the kind. He was introduced here by a young nephew of mine soon after the war had started. Then, when he returned from the Middle East we saw a lot of him. I thought he and Meg were young to marry, but then life was shorter in those days. Youth is relative, after all.’
The D.D.C.I. hesitated, but his sophisticated eyes smiled at the old man.
‘As long as you satisfied yourself about the chap, sir,’ he said, ‘as long as you did check up on him – ’
‘Check up?’
Luke sighed. ‘Neither Mr Campion nor I ever met Mr Elginbrodde. Today we questioned a man called Duds Morrison. There are five years in Morrison’s life which from our point of view are unaccounted for, and it was during those same five years that Elginbrodde met and married your daughter. I’m just making quite sure they’re not the same man.’
Meg gaped at him. In her amazement she let the murmur of the telephone outside pass unnoticed.
‘But I saw him too.’
Luke regarded her stolidly. ‘I know you did,’ he said, and added with an irritable gesture which destroyed his official manner, ‘you’re human, aren’t you?’
‘But of course.’ To everyone’s astonishment the Canon got up and, coming down the room, took his daughter’s hand. ‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘This young man must make sure of that, Meg. Good gracious me. No good purpose is ever served by discounting the possibility of sin.’ He made the word sound familiar if not downright homely.
The Tiger In the Smoke Page 5