Sweet Danger (5 page)

‘Look here,' said Guffy, ‘what exactly are we looking for? This may seem rather a trite question to you, but it's been worrying me.'

Campion apologized. ‘I'm sorry,' he said with genuine contrition. ‘I ought to have explained this before. There's three things without which the Powers-That-Be don't consider they could possibly get a favourable decision at the Court of The Hague. The first – it's rather like a fairy story, isn't it? – is the crown which was made for Giles Pontisbright in the reign of Henry the Fourth. He had it made by Italian workmen, and the only description of it we can get is a rather fanciful affair in a manuscript in the British Museum. I'll read it to you.'

He sat down on the bed again and took a slip of paper from his note-case. He began to read, the archaic words sounding even more strange in his precise voice.

‘“
Three drops of blood from a royal wound, three dull stars like the pigeon's egg, held and knit together with a flowery chain. Yet when a Pontisbright do wear it, none shall see it but by the stars
.”'

As he finished reading he eyed Guffy gravely through his enormous spectacles.

‘It sounds very difficult, doesn't it?' he said. ‘That bit about it not being visible when it's on, for instance. Besides, those ancient crowns weren't one of those red-plush bowler-hat affairs with festoons of jewellery. They made 'em almost any shape. Well, then, that's that. Our next little problem is the charter. That's written on parchment, which, according to the stationery bills of the time, must have been either one-half or one-quarter of a whole sheepskin. It's written in Latin, of course, bears Henry the Fourth's seal and his mark. I don't think the fellow could write. And the third
treasure, is, as it should be, the most important of all, and simply consists of Metternich's receipt for the money in 1814. Heaven knows what that looks like. So, you see, we're going to have fun.'

Guffy's pleasant round face flushed. ‘It's rather jolly, though, isn't it?' he said. ‘I mean, I rather like it. Who's got the Pontisbright manor house now? I ought to know that part of the country well, but I can't even remember having heard the name before.'

Mr Campion met Farquharson's eyes and grimaced. ‘That's where we come up against another snag,' he said. ‘There's no longer any house at all. When the title lapsed the old Countess, who was the only member of the family left, simply sold up everything, lock, stock, and barrel. The entire place was dismantled and sold piece by piece, until nothing but a hole which had contained the foundations was left. It was one of the great acts of vandalism of the Victorian era.' He paused. ‘Not very helpful, is it?'

‘But the garden,' persisted Guffy. ‘This fellow Peaky Doyle distinctly mentions the garden.'

‘Oh, the grounds are still there, we believe,' put in Farquharson. ‘Not kept up at all, you know, but still there.'

‘But isn't there anyone even remotely connected with the family living in the place? In the dower house, or somewhere?'

‘There's a mill,' ventured Eager-Wright. ‘That's inhabited by the family of a man who made an unsuccessful claim to the title just before the war. He was killed in France afterwards, and the family consists of a few kids, I think, but we're not sure about that. You think we ought to go down there, Campion?'

The tall fair young man in horn-rimmed spectacles nodded.

‘I think so. After all, as far as we know Peaky Doyle and his friends are the only people who are interested in this affair besides us, and in our present position with nothing
definite to lay hands on, let us go and see what the other fellow's got.'

‘Now that's sensible,' said Mr Lugg with the sublime confidence of a man who cannot conceive a situation when his opinion is not useful. ‘Only all I say is, find out first 'oo you're up against. And if it's you know who I mean, leave it alone.'

Mr Campion ignored him. ‘Look here, Farquharson,' he said, ‘in your position as Equerry-in-Chief, I wonder if you'd mind making all the necessary arrangements? Pay our bills and give notice and see we leave to-night.'

‘To-night?' expostulated Mr Lugg. ‘I've got an appointment to-night. I don't want to leave a bad impression in the place. People get talkin' and it might look funny.'

His further expostulations were cut short by a discreet tapping on the outer door. He ambled off to open it, still protesting, and returned a moment or so later to announce that Monsieur Étienne Fleurey was desolate, but could he have a word with Mr Randall?

Guffy went out in some surprise and was still more astonished to find the little man himself standing on the threshold. He was pink and apologetic, and Guffy, who realized the blow to his dignity which he must have suffered by being forced to attend to anything personally, regarded him enquiringly. The manager could hardly speak.

‘Monsieur Randall, I am prostrate with regret. You will accompany me?'

He led the young man into an unoccupied suite farther down the corridor and closed the door with every show of caution. Having satisfied himself that he could not be overheard, he presented a shining face to his visitor which was adorned with such an expression of woe that all Guffy's sympathies as well as his curiosity were aroused.

‘Monsieur, the situation in which I find myself is, as you would say, putrid. I am annihilated. My world has come to an end. It would be infinitely better if I were dead.'

‘That's all right,' said Guffy, not knowing quite what else to say. ‘What's up?'

‘The unspeakable imbecile who complained,' Monsieur Fleurey continued, tears in his eyes, ‘he has gone. He has departed, crept out of the hotel like a veritable odour, but that is not all. Circumstances which I dare not divulge, circumstances which you, my dear Monsieur Randall, will as a man of honour understand and respect, machinations of fate over which I have no control, compel me to insist that the man Smith return anything which he may have taken – no doubt in some perfectly pardonable error – from the room of this
canaille
whom we all so justifiably detest.'

‘I say,' said Guffy, trembling between a sense of guilt and a desire to help, ‘this is going to be rather awkward, isn't it?'

‘Awkward? Never in my career have I experienced such a sense of embarrassment such as now overwhelms me! But what can I do? I tell you my entire life, the fortunes of my hotel which are my very existence, depend upon the recovery of a certain' – Monsieur Fleurey gulped – ‘a certain letter which the man Smith doubtless suspected was one of his own.'

Guffy made up his mind. Apart from the fact that the little manager appeared to be on the verge of hurling himself weeping at his feet, Mr Randall had very strong ideas concerning the ethics of Mr Lugg's escapade.

‘Look here,' he said, ‘I imagine there's been some mistake. Suppose in about fifteen minutes or so you search the room occupied by Sniff – I mean your late client. You never know with letters. They slip behind beds, or get tucked under carpets, don't they?'

Monsieur Fleurey's little bright brown eyes met the Englishman's for a second. Then he seized Guffy's hand and wrung it.

‘Monsieur Randall,' he said with a gulp which he could not quite repress, ‘you are a veritable hero. The – how shall I say? – the pineapple of your race.'

Guffy went back to the royal suite and delivered his ultimatum. Mr Lugg was inclined to be truculent, but Campion was instantly obliging.

‘That's rather a good idea on the whole,' he said. ‘You slip out and throw the letter behind the bed, Lugg. After all, we've read it. Don't be a fool.'

When the big man had gone off grumbling on his errand he turned again to Guffy.

‘I shouldn't think many things would arouse our friend Étienne so thoroughly, would you?' he said slowly.

‘Rather not. The poor fellow seemed on the verge of suicide.' Guffy was still amazed.

Mr Campion moved over to the telephone. ‘Little Albert has had one of his rare and illuminating thoughts,' he said, and put through a call to Paris.

After some moments' rapid conversation in French with some oracle in the capital, he hung up the receiver and faced the trio. There was a curious expression in the pale eyes behind the spectacles, and for the first time that day a faint tinge of colour on the high cheek-bones.

‘That was my good friend Daudet of the Sûreté,' he said. ‘He knows everything, although this question was simple enough in all conscience. It occurred to me that the only thing that could produce such a state of hysteria in the good Fleurey was the fear of losing his job, of relinquishing the eminent position he has worked so hard to attain. I enquired of Daudet the name of the proprietors of this hotel, and he tells me that this, the Mirifique at Nice, and the Mirabeau at Marseilles are owned by the Société Anonyme de Winterhouse Incorporated. And that interesting little combine, my pretties, is chairmaned and practically owned by that beautiful soul Brett Savanake. D'you know, I really think things are going to begin.'

‘
ACROSS THE FACE
of the
East Suffolk Courier and Hadleigh Argus
, Fate's moving finger writes, and not very grammatically either,' said Mr Campion cheerfully to Guffy, who sat beside him in the back of his venerable Bentley thirty-six hours later.

Lugg was driving, and by his side Eager-Wright dozed peacefully.

Campion glanced at the paragraph in the local newspaper they had bought on the way down which had occasioned his remark. Its headline, ‘Mysterious Attack in Suffolk Village', had caught his attention, and he re-read the few words below for the fourth or fifth time during the journey.

‘Miss Harriet Huntingforest, a resident of Pontisbright, near Hadleigh, Suffolk, has been the victim of a remarkable attack by an intruder yesterday, who entered her house and ransacked it without removing anything of value. Miss Huntingforest, who surprised the intruder, courageously ordered him out of the house, but was brutally felled to the ground, which rendered her unconscious. The only description of her assailant with which Miss Huntingforest can furnish the local police officer is that he was of unusual height and the possessor of an extraordinarily pronounced widow's peak.'

‘Pretty, isn't it?' he said, handing the paper to Guffy. ‘That's a sort of sign and portent, a direct message from Providence to say, “Albert, you're on the right track.”'

‘It's extraordinary,' said Guffy. ‘I'm glad I came with you. Since Farquharson has had to stay behind to hand in
his report, I feel the Court of Averna would be a bit depleted without me. I see myself as a sort of Watson with a club.'

Mr Campion shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don't know whether it's going to be that kind of a party, unfortunately,' he said. ‘Although I don't know what on earth Peaky Doyle's up to, beating up old ladies. Still, we must wait to find that out until we get there – if ever.' He glanced round him at the desolate country through which they were passing as he spoke.

The scenery was growing more beautiful and more rural at every mile. Once they had left Framlingham the loneliness was extraordinary. They seemed to have travelled for miles without seeing a soul. Plump little white houses were hidden among great overblown trees; even the fields seemed to have become smaller, and the flint roads were dusty and in places extraordinarily bad.

Just as he had finished speaking, at a particularly confusing five-way cross, Lugg pulled up the car and turned an exasperated face to his employer.

‘Now where are we?' he demanded.

‘How far have you been driving blind?' countered his employer mildly.

Mr Lugg had the grace to look startled. ‘I was relying on you,' he said bitterly. ‘I thought you'd sing out if I was going wrong. I didn't expect you to sit there like a dummy while we see England first. When I've bin in doubt I've bin taking the road to the left; and I've bin in doubt since we left Ipswich.'

‘At that rate,' said Mr Campion affably, ‘we ought to be just approaching it again. There's a map in that pocket by the side of you, Guffy. As for you, Lugg, you hop out and have a look at the signpost.'

Still grumbling, Mr Lugg obeyed, and came back a moment or so later with the information that the two roads on their right both seemed to lead to a place called Sweethearting,
they were headed for Little Dunning, and had apparently come from Little Sweffling.

‘There's nothing but a boy scout mark to show where that road leads to,' he added, pointing to the remaining way. ‘Probably the poor bloke 'oo wrote the signpost didn't know and 'adn't got the energy to go and see. Shall we go and 'ave a look?'

‘Boy scout mark?' enquired Campion, and as Lugg's great flail of a hand indicated a gate which led into a ploughed field on their right, the young man rose slowly and, climbing out of the car, went over to examine the sign chalked upon its surface.

He was so long away that Guffy, his curiosity aroused, went to join him and found him looking down at a round patch on the wood where the old and dirty surface had been scraped away. In the centre of the white wood thus displayed was a mark in red chalk. It was carefully made and consisted of a cross surmounted by a cedilla.

Mr Campion was frowning. ‘How extraordinary!' he said. ‘It must be a coincidence, of course. Ever seen that mark before, Guffy? It's probably the most ancient symbol in the world.'

Eager-Wright, who had now joined the group, looked puzzled.

‘I have seen it somewhere before,' he said. ‘What is it? A tramp sign?'

Campion shook his head. ‘No. It's most odd.' There was a new inflexion in his voice, and they regarded him with interest. He stretched out his hand and rubbed the chalk gently. ‘It's a perfect example of the ancient God-help-us mark,' he said slowly. ‘Frankly, my dear old birds, you've no idea how ancient it is. It's probably the sign that the Children of Israel chalked up on their doors in times of persecution. The Ancient Britons used it when the Norse pirates swept down upon them. At the time of the Black Death you could find it on practically every door and house
wall. The last time I saw it, it was scribbled upon a piece of corrugated iron in a devastated area in France after the war. You can never tell where it's going to turn up. It isn't an appeal to a Christian god, even. The symbol of the cross is much older than Christianity, of course. Usually this thing is found in terrorized districts, rather than in places where the danger has already struck. It's a sort of – well, it's a fear sign. It's very remarkable to find it here.'