Look to the Lady (22 page)

‘What'll happen to them?' said Mr Campion.

‘I've been thinking that out.' The Professor's face was very kindly. ‘The parson down here is a very decent old man. His name's Pembroke. He and I get on very well together. He's a scholar, but a man who hasn't let the teachings of the spirit blind him to a knowledge of the world. I'll see him about these two. Maybe something can be done for them. They want looking after, and they must be looked after. Lands sakes! If Mother had seen that woman it might have scared her out of her wits. I guessed more or less what was coming, but it gave me a turn.'

‘A turn?' said Mr Campion. ‘I was dizzy before we'd finished. Poor old Lugg! One more shock like that and he'll sign the pledge. I wonder why Mrs Munsey took so much trouble to rearrange Lady Pethwick's body?'

‘Instinct again,' said the Professor. ‘That old woman scarcely thinks. She works by instinct and superstition. There's an old belief that if you leave the dead with their eyes wide open they watch you ever after.'

They had reached the lattice gate at the end of the garden by this time. ‘We'll keep most of this story to ourselves,' he remarked.

‘Of course,' Mr Campion agreed. ‘I'll collect Penny and go back to the Tower.'

There was a fire in the library when they went in, and a scratch meal appeared upon the table. Beth and Penny were burning with excitement, but their hollow eyes and pale cheeks betrayed that their vigil had not been without its terrors. Beth kissed her father.

‘Golly, I'm glad you're back,' she said. ‘When it got so late Penny and I were afraid the ghost had decamped with you. Did you find anything?'

The Professor contented himself with a very brief outline of the story.

‘It was simply an old woman wandering around trying to frighten folks so her son could do a bit of poaching,' he said, accepting the coffee she handed to him with gratitude. ‘Nothing to get alarmed about.'

‘Mrs Munsey?' said Penny quickly.

The Professor raised his eyebrows. ‘What gives you that idea?' he murmured.

‘It sounded like her,' said Penny cryptically.

‘It sounds rather flat to me,' remarked Beth, a tinge of disappointment in her voice. ‘If you'd seen the things that we've
imagined
sitting up here alone you'd have a different tale to tell.'

Mr Campion rose to his feet. ‘I think, Penny,' he observed, ‘you and I had better get back to the Tower. To come to lunch and stay till breakfast next morning is not quite the article. Lugg will be shocked. His book of etiquette considers over-long calls definitely low.'

Penny agreed readily. ‘I'll come at once,' she said, and in spite of the Professor's protestations they gently insisted on returning.

The Professor shook Campion's hand in the hall. ‘You can leave all this to me,' he murmured. ‘I'll see to it.'

As they passed out of the garden Penny turned to Mr Campion suspiciously. ‘Now,' she said, ‘out with it. What really did happen?'

‘Undue curiosity in females should be curbed on all occasions as the evidences of it are invariably distressing to the really well-bred,' said Mr Campion morosely. ‘That's in the etiquette book, too. Page four. It's illustrated.'

‘How dare you behave like this,' said the girl with sudden spirit, ‘when you both came in looking as though you'd been through hell fire together? Mrs Munsey, was it? Did she go for Aunt Di of her own volition, or did someone put her up to it?'

Mr Campion eyed her speculatively. ‘It wasn't nice,' he said. ‘Even Peck's dog was shocked. It was frightened to death and kept howling about the place like an old lady at a wake. The Professor was strong and silent, of course, but Mrs Munsey's sartorial efforts blanched even his cheek. We took her to her residence, whereupon she told my fortune, in a rather pessimistic vein, I thought. Then we shook hands all round and came home. There you are, there's the whole story, hot from the horse's mouth.'

‘All right,' said Penny, ‘I'll find out all the details. You needn't worry.'

‘I bet you will,' said Campion with contempt. ‘Beth will worm the lurid story from her poor doting father, and you two, little Annie Mile and little Addie Noid, will gloat over them together like the two little nasties you are.'

Penny was silent for some time.

‘Anything about The Daisy?' she ventured at last.

Mr Campion shot a quick glance at her. ‘I say,' he said. ‘I forgot I'd told you about that. Look here, Penny, this is deadly serious. By the bones of my Aunt Joanna and her box, swear to me that you will never breathe a word about The Daisy to a living soul, especially not to Beth and her father. Because although Mrs Munsey gave your aunt the scare that killed her, It was The Daisy who engineered the whole thing. I don't think murder was intended, but … I don't know!

There was an unusual earnestness in his face and Penny, regarding him steadily, was surprised and a little flustered to see an almost imploring expression in his eyes.

‘Promise,' he repeated.

‘All right,' she said ungrudgingly. ‘You found out something, then?'

Campion nodded. ‘It may or may not be important,' he said. ‘Frankly, I hope it isn't.'

Penny did not reply, but walked along beside him, her hands clasped behind her and her yellow head bent.

‘I say,' he said suddenly, ‘when I had a word with your father yesterday to assure him that Val would be home for his birthday the day after tomorrow he didn't say anything about the general procedure. What usually happens on these occasions?'

Penny considered. ‘It was a great day, years ago, I believe,' she said dubiously. ‘The family was quite wealthy in my grandfather's time, you know. Mother used to tell us that on Father's twenty-fifth birthday they had a terrific set-out with a Church service, theatricals, a house party, and a dance for the tenants in the evening. Daddy had to keep out of the fun, though, because of the midnight ceremony of the Room, when his father and the chaplain initiated him into the secret. Of course,' she said quickly, ‘we don't talk about that.'

‘I see,' said Mr Campion slowly. ‘I suppose they dispense with a chaplain these days?'

‘Well, we haven't got a private chaplain, if that's what you mean,' she said, grinning; ‘although old Mr Pembroke, the vicar here, had rooms in the east wing when Father was away at the War. That was when we were children. I think he'll dine with us on the birthday night. There won't be any other celebrations, partly because we haven't got much money, and also because of poor Aunt Di. Of course,' she went on, ‘I dare say you think Father has been rather curious about this whole terrible business – the way he's kept out of it all – but you can't possibly understand about him if you don't realize that he is a man with something on his mind. I mean,' she added, dropping her voice. ‘I wouldn't say this to anyone but you, but the secret absorbs him. Even when he thought the Cup was missing it didn't seem to rouse him to frenzy. You do follow me? That's why he's so odd and reserved and we see so little of him.'

She paused and looked at Campion appealingly. The young man with the pale face and absent air turned to her.

‘I'm not nearly the mutt I look,' he said mildly.

A wave of understanding passed over her face. ‘I believe you and father are pretty thick,' she said. ‘Usually he loathes strangers. Do you know, you're quite the most remarkable person I've ever met?' She looked up at him with all the admiration of her age showing in her young face.

‘No vamping me,' said Mr Campion, nervously. ‘My sister – her what married the Squire – would be ashamed of you.'

‘That's all right,' said Penny cheerfully. ‘I haven't got any designs on you. I think Val and Beth are heading for the altar, though. Val seemed to have got over his anti-woman complex with a vengeance last time I saw him.'

‘You'll be a danger,' said Mr Campion, ‘in a few years' time. I'll come and sit at the back of the church when you're married and weep violently among all the old maids. I always think a picturesque figure of that sort helps a wedding so. Don't you?'

Penny was not to be diverted from the matter in hand.

‘You've got something on your mind,' she said.

She linked her arm through his with charming friendliness.

‘In the words of my favourite authoress: “Is it a woman, my boy?” Or aren't you used to late hours?'

To her surprise he stopped dead and faced her. ‘My child,' he said with great solemnity, ‘in the words of the rottenest actor I ever heard on mortal stage: “
The man who raises his hand against a woman save in the way of kindness is not worthy of the name.
” Which is to say: “Don't knock the lady on the head, Daddy, or the policeman will take you away.” This is the most darned awkward situation I've ever been in in my life.'

Penny laughed, not realizing the significance beneath the frivolous words. ‘I should give it her,' she said, ‘whoever she is. I'll stand by you.'

Mr Campion permitted himself a dubious smile.

‘I wonder if you would?' he murmured.

—

‘'E
RE
, wake up, sir. Inspector Stanislaus Oates, 'imself and personal, on the phone. Now we shall 'ave a chance of seein' that lovely dressin'-gown o' yours. I've bin wondering when that was comin' out.'

Mr Lugg put his head round the door of his master's room and spoke with heavy jocularity. ‘'E's bin ringin' you all day,' he added, assuming a certain amount of truculence to hide his apprehension. ‘There's a couple o' telegrams waitin'. But I didn't like to rouse yer. Let 'im 'ave 'is beauty sleep, that's what I said.'

Mr Campion bounded out of bed, looking oddly rakish in the afternoon light. ‘Good Heavens,' he said, ‘what's the time?'

‘Calm yerself – calm yerself. 'Alf-past four.' Mr Lugg came forward bearing a chastely coloured silk dressing-gown. ‘Pull yerself together. You remind me o' Buster Keaton when you're 'alf awake. Brush yer 'air before yer go down. There's a lady 'elp what's taken my fancy 'anging on to the phone.'

Mr Campion bound the dressing-gown girdle tightly round his willowy form and snatched up his spectacles.

‘What's this about phoning all day?' he said. ‘If this is true I'll sack you, Lugg.'

‘I've got to keep you alive. My job depends on it,' observed his valet sententiously. ‘Staying out all night ghost 'untin' ain't done you no good. You look like an 'arf warmed corpse as it is. That's right – knock me about,' he added, as Mr Campion brushed past him and pattered down the stairs to the side hall where the phone was situated.

The chubby little servant girl, evidently a captive to the charms of Mr Lugg, was clinging to the receiver, which she relinquished to Campion. She stood back and would have remained at a respectful distance, if by no means out of earshot, had not Mr Lugg waved her majestically kitchenwards.

‘Hallo,' said a faint voice at the far end of the crackling wire, ‘is that you? At last. I was on the point of coming to you. I'm terribly sorry, old boy, but they've got it.'

Mr Campion remained silent for some moments, but in response to a sharp query from the other end of the phone he said weakly: ‘Oh, yes, I can hear you all right. What do you want – congratulations?'

‘Go easy,' came the distant voice imploringly. ‘It was a most ingenious stunt. You'd have been sunk yourself. About two o'clock this morning a whole pack of drunks got hauled into Bottle Street Station, and about thirty of their friends arrived at the same time. There was a terrific fight, and the man on duty on your doorstep joined in, like a mutt. In the confusion someone must have peeled up your stairs and raided the flat. I've been trying to get on to you ever since. What have you been doing? Dabbling in the dew?'

In spite of the lightness of his tone it was evident to Mr Campion that his old friend was desperately worried. ‘We're doing all we can,' came the voice, ‘and some more. Can you give us a line?'

‘Half a minute,' said Mr Campion. ‘What about young Hercules?'

‘Oh, Gyrth? That's half the trouble,' whispered the distant voice. ‘They knocked him on the head, of course, but the moment our man on the roof dropped through the skylight he pulled himself together and shot down after his property. Frankly, we can't find him. There was a free fight going on in the street, you see, and you know what a hopeless place it is. We've rounded up the usuals, but they don't seem to know anything. We've got a dozen or so of the rowdies too. Clever men most of 'em. Have you got anything we can go on?'

Mr Campion considered. He was now fully awake. ‘Have you got a pen there?' he said. ‘Listen. There's two whizz-boys, Darky Farrell and a little sheeny called Diver. They may or may not be concerned, but I've seen them in the business. Oh, you've got them, have you? Well, put them through it. Then there's Natty Johnson, of course. The only other person I can think of is Fingers Hawkins, the Riverside one. How's that?'

‘A nasty little list.' The far-away voice spoke with feeling. ‘Righto, leave it to us. You'll stay there, will you? I'll ring you if anything happens. We're pretty sick up here, of course. They're a hot lot; all race-gang people, I notice.'

‘That had occurred to me,' said Mr Campion. ‘Don't get your head bashed in for my sake. Oh, and I say, Stanislaus … kiss that Bobby on the door for me.'

He replaced the receiver and turned wearily away from the instrument to come face to face with his aide, the sight of whom seemed to fill him with sudden wrath.

‘Now you've done it,' he said. ‘If we muck this whole thing up it'll be directly due to your old-hen complex. Bah! Go and keep mushrooms!'