Dancers in Mourning (23 page)

‘No, you don't,' said Campion aloud, and with such a wealth of feeling that the club servant who had approached him on silent feet stepped back in astonishment.

The message proved to be a summons from ex-Inspector Blest, who had called at the flat in the hope of catching Campion before he started for the country and had been re-directed by a caretaker to the Junior Greys. Campion went to the telephone unwillingly, but Blest was in tenacious mood and would have none of his excuses.

‘What on earth are you playing at?' he demanded, his tone aggrieved and suspicious. ‘Why the high-and-mighty all of a sudden? Stubbed your toe on your own dignity? I want you, Mr Campion. I want you to take sights. I'd like your opinion. I would really. It was your idea in a way. Listen … I've found him.'

‘The accomplice?' Campion betrayed an unwilling interest.

‘I don't know yet. One thing at a time.' Blest was irritated. ‘I've found the secretary of the bike club. His name is Howard and he works in a wholesale chemist's in the Hampstead Road. I met him last night. He'll be at the “Three Eagles” in the Euston Road about twelve. I'll get him going and you drop in casually about half past. I want you to look at him. What's the matter with you? On to something else?'

Campion, who was finding himself unduly jumpy, disliked the quick curiosity in the last question and capitulated.

‘Half after noon, then,' Blest repeated. ‘Don't put on your best clothes, you know. It's not exactly a palace. So long. I'm relying on you.'

He rang off, and at twelve twenty-five Campion descended from a bus in the Tottenham Court Road and walked down towards Euston.

The young man deep in conversation with Blest in a corner of the ‘Three Eagles' was disappointing. Considered as an accomplice of the elegant Konrad he was unlikely to the point of being absurd. He was a large carelessly-dressed person with a very clean neck and collar and very dirty finger-nails. His face was raw from exposure to the wind and conveyed somehow that it was cast from an inferior design on which no time or thought had been expended, while the fact that his head was almost shaved to the crown, where a limp, greasy layer of thick hair lay like a roof, did not improve his appearance.

He had a loud, aggressive voice with considerable force of character behind it, and at the moment he was riding his hobby-horse hard.

‘It's the game, that's what matters to me,' he was saying, conscious of the virtue in the statement but none the less sincere for all that. ‘It's all honorary with me, you know. I don't take a penny of the club funds, and wouldn't, not if they asked me. It's the road I like. You see things awheel. Get to know the country you was born in. You come into your rightful heritage, that's what I say. Besides, it's so cheap! A chap like me can afford it.'

‘I agree with you,' said Blest heartily and, catching sight of Campion, introduced him as a Mr Jenkyn. ‘Haven't seen you about lately,' he added mendaciously. ‘Mr Howard here is secretary of the Speedo Club – cycling. Heard of it?'

Mr Howard paused to remark on his pleasure at meeting Mr Jenkyn and hurried on with his confidences to Blest.

‘Even the name's amateurish,' he went on, taking up his harangue at the point where he had left it. ‘See what I mean? Speedo …. It's a slang word, isn't it? To my mind that strikes the note of the whole outfit – not quite the article. If we was a proper club we could affiliate ourselves to one of the big outfits and there's benefits in that. Records and championships and that sort of thing, with decent prizes to compensate you for your trouble. As I was saying to some of the chaps last Saturday, what are we now? What
are
we? A blasted publicity organisation for a chap who isn't a real enthusiast. If he was a real wheel-lover it would be different. If he was keen on the game any one of us would be pleased and proud to do him a bit of good. But when he comes down by train and gets tired out by a thirty-five-mile spin, then you're apt to ask yourself, aren't you?'

‘You certainly are,' agreed the ex-Inspector. ‘You'd like to change things a bit, I daresay?'

Mr Howard drank deeply from his tankard and his small green eyes narrowed.

‘I could resign, myself, and join one of the big clubs,' he said, ‘but then I shouldn't be a secretary – not for years, anyway – and I like organising. It satisfies you if you've got it in you. Besides, if you can see the way to work really difficult things like runs and club dinners and sight-seeing tours and you haven't got the authority it gets on your nerves to see someone else doing it badly.'

He spoke feelingly, and Blest nodded his complete agreement.

Stimulated by a second pint Mr Howard spoke again.

‘If we called ourselves by a proper name – the Merton Road C.C. or something like that – and got rid of our stage associations we could be one of the finest, smartest little clubs in London,' he said with sad conviction. ‘As it is, what happens? Where are we going? Our real tiptop-liners are leaving us for clubs with more scope, while a handful of older members who like to get round the stage-door run this bloke's publicity stunt for him. They get free passes for the show – we all do, I admit that – but I'm a cyclist. I like fresh air and the road under me.'

He paused and refused the cigarette Campion offered him, explaining that smoking was bad for his wind.

‘They've given him a presentation machine,' he said in a burst of confidence which he obviously considered indiscreet but was unable to control. ‘Silver-plated and all slap-up. I did the collecting because I was asked to and I'm good at collecting. I've got the gift, I like it. But I don't approve of it. I think a silver-plated bike is silly. I think if the other clubs get to hear of it they'll laugh at us – and rightly so. That's the kind of thing that irks you. If you're a first-class man awheel, well up to any amateur standard, you don't want to feel that every other user of the road privately feels that your club is nothing but a pack of pansies on bicycles. It's degrading – degrading. I'll get my own way in the end, but it's taking time. There's a lot of snobbery to fight. There's a posh flavour about anything connected with the stage and some of the silly beggars fall for it. I'm very nice to Konrad when I see him, though I don't like him personally. In the finish he'll drop out of sight and we'll get on with making a first-class job of the club.'

At this point Mr Campion bought another round and the conversation became general. Mr Howard was consumed by his enthusiasm for his chosen sport, however, and returned to it almost at once.

‘He's useful in a way, of course,' he admitted. ‘He's got influence. An article like this, now, needed writing, you know. It was time it was said.'

He pulled a folded evening paper from his coat pocket. It was the first of the fuller editions and contained a short topical article on the magazine page with the heading: ‘Murder on the Roads: A Cyclist's View. By Benny Konrad, President of the Speedo Cycle Club.'

Blest skimmed through it, with Campion reading over his shoulder. It was a bright little essay written with deliberate intolerance and printed to provoke correspondence. Cyclists were briefly mentioned, but the danger of the speeding motorist was the main argument.

‘It's come at a good moment,' said Mr Howard, replacing the paper in his pocket. ‘There's thousands of us chaps on the road, every one of us with our lives in our hands. These motorists just kill us. They can't see us half the time. This article could have been much stronger, but I don't suppose the Editor would stand for it. He's got to think of his advertisers. Still, it's come after that business in the paper yesterday where Jimmy Sutane ran down some poor girl and killed her. Did you see the bit? Konrad is in the same show as Sutane and their names are linked together. I expect that's why he wrote this and the paper, noticing the connexion, printed it. That's how they work these things. Anything topical. That's the motto of the newspapers.'

They finished their beer and went out into the sunlight, where they parted from Mr Howard. Blest glanced after his jaunty figure and sniffed.

‘Well, that's not
him
,' he said, ‘is it?'

Mr Campion agreed. ‘No,' he said thoughtfully. ‘No, that's not the accomplice. A trying lad in his own way, no doubt, but not a dirty little tick. There's nothing underhand about our Mr Howard. Konrad doesn't seem to be too popular with him, does he?'

The ex-Inspector grunted.

‘If you ask me, young Mr Konrad won't be too popular in other quarters this afternoon,' he said. ‘He's employed by Mr Sutane, isn't he? What the hell does he think he's playing at, coming out with an article like that? He couldn't have written it in the time, of course. That's something they've had by them. But he must have authorised the use of his name. They probably read it to him over the telephone.'

Campion frowned. ‘I don't think there's much in that,' he said with more hope than conviction. ‘After all, there's very little actual connexion …'

‘Don't you believe it!' Blest interrupted him. ‘That's an example of the association of ideas. There's whole campaigns of advertising run on that principle. You know and I know that Sutane has done nothing reprehensible and there's no mention of his name in that article. But who reads a newspaper accurately? – one in a hundred. The average half-interested person sees one day that Sutane has been in an accident in which a woman has been killed, and the next day he sees “Murder on the Road” by Benny Konrad. The name “Konrad” makes him think of the name “Sutane” and the last thing he heard in connexion with it. The two ideas are put together in his own mind. It's child's play. I had it all explained to me once.'

‘He'd hardly dare do it deliberately,' said Campion slowly.

‘Maybe not.' Blest was vigorous. ‘But whatever it was it wasn't tactful. If you ask me, Master Konrad is shouting for trouble and I shouldn't be at all surprised if he got it.'

Campion looked at him aghast, a certain little chain of incidents returning to his mind.

‘Oh no,' he said vehemently. ‘No.'

Blest cocked an eye at him.

‘You've got something up your sleeve,' he said. ‘I've noticed it all the morning. But don't trouble to tell me. I shall know sooner or later. This is only the beginning of this business. I can feel it in my bones.'

Mr Campion sighed and his lean face looked suddenly drawn.

‘You're wrong,' he said, but added heavily after a pause, ‘or at least I hope to God you are.'

My dear Campion
– Uncle William's cramped hand fluttered crazily over the page.
Since your rather extraordinary desertion I have stuck to my post, gathering up such odd scraps of information as have come my way. I have no doubt that you know what you are up to and have some very good reason for going off in this remarkable manner. I shall be glad to hear it when we meet in the near future. Let me say now that I have absolute faith in you, as I have always had, and I am perfectly sure that you are well equipped to bring to a satisfactory solution all the little difficulties with which we now find ourselves beset.

This house is not a very happy harbour at the moment, I am afraid. Konrad's bicycle is still in the cloakroom, I noticed this morning, so I suppose we still have a visit from him hanging over our heads. This depresses Linda, I fancy, for she seems a little less her usual laughing self.

Eve is a curious girl. I used at one time to have a light sure hand with a woman, but I confess I can make but little of her. She has some secret; I am sure of it. Such long hours alone, brooding are not natural in a girl of her age. In nineteen-twenty (you will remember you asked me to inquire particularly into that date) she was one year old and lived with her dear mother in Poole, while Jimmy was away on the Continent. Afterwards she was sent to a convent school in the West Country, her mother dying when she was eight. From that time the good nuns looked after her until two years ago, when her brother conceded to her request that she might attend an art school in London. She has finished there and now there is some talk of her continuing her studies in Paris. From what I remember of that city it seems hardly the place to send a young girl to alone, but I have no doubt it is greatly changed. The war saddened but purified. A pity if true in the case of Paris, but there you are.

To returns to the girl. Her lassitude puzzles me. At seventeen one should be up and doing, straining at the leash, the blood boiling in the veins, but she is not really anxious to continue her art work and speaks of it without great enthusiasm. I shall hammer away at her, gently of course, but at the moment she remains an enigma.

Jimmy returns here each day and is growing rapidly more and more distraught before my eyes. Sometimes I feel it is only his work and his indomitable courage which keep him going at all. Young Petrie flits in and out in a newer car, his own having gone to perdition long past its time, and Richard Poyser, a type I cannot bring myself wholly to trust, has visited us once. He was here to lunch and seemed very excited over a foolish article which some wretched newspaper fellow persuaded young Konrad to set his name to. I read it and confess I saw nothing in it, but both Poyser and Jimmy seemed to think it unfortunate, of course one is apt to forget that Art is a hard taskmaster, and when a man like Jimmy is suffering from overstrain ‘how easy is a bush supposed a bear', as my immortal namesake says.

Squire Mercer, with typical callousness and what I think I may allow myself to call d—d selfishness, has flown to Paris to attend some function but is expected to return before the end of the week, if not in time for the funeral.

The only happy people here are the child and your man Lugg. He is shaping as well as can be expected and appears to have become devoted to little Sarah, whom he insists upon calling ‘the young Mistress', an appellation which seems to afford them both great pleasure. I fancy I detect a note of derision in it at times, but she seems to have grown very fond of him in this short time, which speaks well for the kindness of his heart, a virtue which, in my opinion, must much more than outweigh any other shortcomings.