Coroner's Pidgin (33 page)

Suddenly he stopped the car, still some distance from
The Red Queen's
mock Tudor towers.

“I say, Campion,” he demanded, “do we have to go to this ropey old pub? I've got a date with an actress.”

Mr. Campion sat up as the car began to turn.

“That's a good idea,” he said, “come to think of it I've got to catch a train.”

It was morning, sunny and cold and promising, when Mr. Campion left the tiny station which could offer him no conveyance, and walked down the lane with the high hedges on either side. For the first time for many years he was feeling hopelessly nervous for purely social reasons.

He turned at the water-mill, and took the wooden bridge. Before him the woods of the park clustered dark and friendly. He followed the rosy wall built in serpentine waves for strength, and would have turned in at the iron gates where the stone griffins kept guard had he not been stopped by a sentry. This solid stranger in battle-dress was not impressed by Mr. Campion's story.

“Not without a pass, sir,” he said firmly. “I can't help it, not whoever you are.”

Mr. Campion repeated his name. “But it's my house,” he said.

“Not now, sir. It's an Alandel supplementary aircraft factory now, and without a pass you can't come in.”

“But Alan Dell is my brother-in-law,” protested the
home-corner helplessly. “My wife lives in the old chauffeur's cottage, that's it over there. You can see the roof. Look.”

“I'm sorry, sir.” The sentry appeared genuinely regretful, “but it can't be helped. Write to the management, state your business fully, and if everything's in order you'll get your pass in a day or so, no doubt.”

The lean man in the horn-rimmed spectacles turned away. He walked on, still following the road which ran along by the wall, until he came to the corner where the bank rose high. There he paused and looked up anxiously. It was all right. The beech still hung long arms to the wiry grass. He swung himself over even more easily than he had done thirty years before, and dropped lightly on to what might well have been the same heap of rotting leaves with the same exciting aromatic smell. From where he stood he could just see the house far away on its carefully chosen eminence, looking like a dolls' house or a detail from the background of an eighteenth-century portrait, but he was not near enough to observe all the changes there. He noticed the tremendous activities in the drive, and the two new roofs rising up in a flourish of camouflage from behind the west wing caught his attention, but he did not go closer to look.

Picking his way carefully among the trees he found the narrow path which led through the rhododendrons. It took him by graceful and leisurely stages to a wicket gate and a clearing beyond, where a little house stood with its back to him.

Mr. Campion opened the gate, crossed the vegetable patch and, skirting the cottage wall, turned on to the little grass lawn which had a muddy path running through it. There he stopped abruptly, an intense emotion, three parts honest embarrassment overcoming him.

There was a person not yet three upon the path; he was white-haired and was wearing sun glasses. At the moment he was squatting by a puddle, one discarded sandal firmly clasped in his hand.

His preoccupation was a simple one. He was trying to fit the shoe into an imprint recently made by it in the mud.

As Mr. Campion came up to him, he raised his head from
his task and stared upward, and for a time they stood looking at one another in amazement.

A girl with red hair and a wide mouth came out of the cottage and joined them. She was brown and slender, and her green dress was formal and a little old-fashioned.

“Hello,” said Amanda, “meet my war work.”

‘Spending an evening with Campion is one of life's pure pleasures'

Saturday Review

Campion's glorious summer in Pontisbright is blighted by death. Amidst the preparations for Minnie and Tonker Cassands' fabulous summer party a murder is discovered and it falls to Campion to unravel the intricate web of motive and suspicion with all his imagination and skill.

‘Miss Allingham's strength lies in the power of characterisation'

New York Times

‘Ms Allingham has a strong, well-controlled sense of humour and is never dull'

Times Literary Supplement

The secrets of the respected publishing house of Barnabus Ltd stretch back many years, but when one of the directors is found dead, locked in the company's strongroom, it's time for Albert Campion to set to work puzzling out the mysteries.

‘One of her best . . . vivid and witty'

New York Times

‘The queen of crime writing's golden age'

Daily Telegraph

In a masterpiece of storytelling, Margery Allingham sends her elegant and engaging detective Albert Campion into the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths. And if poisoning were not enough, there are also anonymous letters, sudden violence and a vanishing coffin. Meanwhile the Palinodes go about their nocturnal business and Campion dices with danger in his efforts to find the truth.

‘Allingham's characters are three-dimensional flesh and blood, especially her villains'

Times Literary Supplement

‘Margery Allingham has worked her way up to a worthy place among the tiny hierarchy of front-rankers in the detective word'

Tatler

Amateur detective Albert Campion is summoned to Cambridge to assist the Faraday family with a mystery. He must untangle a web of family resentments and discover the truth behind the disappearance of one of the Faraday cousins, vanished without trace one Sunday morning after church, only to be found dead in a secluded stream. Campion must unravel a chillingly ingenious plot, strewn with red herrings, to get to the real secret of the Faradays.

‘Miss Allingham is one of the few writers who can deal with art. Both her passions and her patterns are beautiful, accurate and serene'

Daily Telegraph

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Epub ISBN: 9781448138005

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Published by Vintage 2006

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Copyright © 1945 Margery Allingham Ltd., a Chorion company. All Rights Reserved.

Margery Allingham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

None of the characters in this book is a portrait of a living person nor did the incidents here recorded ever take place.

First published in Great Britain in 1945 by William Heinemann

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099492788