Dancers in Mourning (35 page)

‘Oh, is that in the wind?' Campion spoke dully, reflecting that there is nothing so uninteresting as something which has been all-important for a long time and is suddenly outclassed. ‘The publicity's ruined it, I suppose?'

‘It's not the publicity, curiously.' Sock seemed surprised himself. ‘The bookings haven't fallen off as you'd think. In some parts of the house they've even improved. It's the cast. The whole place is a mass of hysteria. I've never seen anything like it. It's the drama in the blood, I suppose. Three-quarters of the chorus passed out after the show last night. We've all had the hell of a time. The new show is nearly as bad. None of them have got a ha'porth of ballast. It's only Jimmy who holds 'em all together, and he looks as if he was going to drop dead at any moment. Have you seen him lately? He's amazing! Takes such
risks
, Campion … I go cold for him sometimes. But he gets away with 'em by sheer personality.'

He sighed and slid further down into the deep upholstery.

‘My car going was the last straw,' he remarked.

Mr Campion made sympathetic noises and his passenger chattered on.

‘I used to leave the old one in the cul-de-sac near the flat. I've got a hovel just off Baker Street, you know, and in this fine weather it saves a garage bill. People are amazingly honest in London, and as I never left anything in it it seemed as safe as houses. Where I made my mistake was that I forgot the state of the old bus. I did the same thing with my new second-hand one, and it was all right for a week, but yesterday, just about four o'clock, I went home to write a bit of copy. It took me a certain amount of time and I didn't come out until seven. Then I found the car had gone. The chap who sells papers on the corner saw a man take it. He just walked over to it, got in and drove off. I told the paper-man what I thought of him, naturally, but he said he didn't like to interfere in case I'd lent it to a friend. I couldn't really blame him. Still, he gave the police a description and they're having a look for it. Meanwhile it's just annoying.'

He was silent for some moments as they negotiated the right-angle turn at the bottom of the hill.

Jimmy told me you were down here,' he said at last. ‘I saw him yesterday for a moment or two. He's a queer bloke. I don't know anyone I admire more, but you've got to know how to take him.'

He paused. There was clearly something on his mind and Campion listened to him beating round the subject with a deepening of that new sense of apprehension which had become habitual with him.

Sock cleared his throat.

‘I used to be rather keen on Eve at one time,' he remarked a little too casually. ‘But she went off me and I rather thought our James frowned on the idea too, so I let it go. She's a sweet kid when you get to know her, and I felt rather sore about it in a vague sort of way. But Jimmy has been damn marvellous to me and I didn't want to muscle in where he didn't want me. After all, I'm not a startling proposition; I know that. I'm only telling you this, by the way, to get over my point about Jimmy.

‘A day or two ago he sent for me and gave me a dressing-down about the girl. He practically asked me point-blank what I thought I was doing to let her escape my manly clutches and who the hell I thought I was to pass up something pretty good. I practically fainted on the spot. He is a funny chap isn't he?'

Mr Campion's face became even more expressionless.

‘He probably feels that she may need a spot of supervision,' he suggested cautiously. ‘Elder brothers go all paternal at times. She's not here now, by the way.'

‘No, I – I thought not.' Sock sounded confused. ‘Besides, she's lost all interest in me, if ever she had any. As a matter of fact, I thought I caught the nasty whiff of “metal more attractive.” She's been pretty hard hit the last week or two. It's y'uth y'uth and the balmy summer air that does it with these 'ere young girls.'

‘Who's your rival?' Campion's question was hesitant.

‘I don't know for certain.' Sock shook a wise young head. ‘I've had a dirty suspicion for some time, but I won't slander the girl, bless her. After all, she ought to draw the line somewhere. I say, Campion! Campion, hold on a minute!'

The last remark was jerked out of him as he swung round in the car and sat staring over his shoulder. Mr Campion pulled up obligingly.

‘What's the matter?'

‘Look!' Sock was kneeling up in his seat, his face ludicrous in its astonishment. ‘Look, I say! That's my bus!'

Campion turned his head and stared at the shabby blue coupé which he had passed on his outward journey. He dropped the car into reverse and ran backward, with Sock hopping on the running-board.

‘The shape caught my eye and then I saw the numberplate,' he babbled excitedly. ‘This is fantastic – incredible! I don't believe it! I bet the ticks have run her dry of oil and seized her up.'

He sprang to the ground as they came to a standstill and ran over to the stranded car. For a moment he stood peering in through the window and then without a word wrenched open the door. Campion saw him bending down, his head and shoulders hidden from view in the dark interior.

The next moment a rug came hurtling out and a cry that was not a scream or a shout, but somewhere midway between the two, escaped its owner.

Sock drew back slowly. His face was livid and his young eyes were horror-stricken. He put his hand over his stomach. Campion sprang from the Lagonda and, pushing past the younger man, peered down into the coupé.

The body lay doubled up on the floor with its legs forced round the controls and its head jammed against the front of the passenger seat. That it was a dead body was painfully apparent. The skull had been battered unmercifully and there was blood on the mat and on the rug.

Mr Campion, who was hardened to such unpleasant sights, peered down into the small dark face.

‘Who is it?' he demanded.

Sock forced himself to look again.

‘I don't know,' he said at last, his lips shaking. ‘I don't know. I've never seen the chap before in my life.'

M
R
C
AMPION
dozed. The night had gone on, it seemed for ever. The wooden arm-chair in which he lay had been designed by a man with definite but erroneous ideas concerning the human form, and he was peculiarly uncomfortable.

It was four o'clock in a scented country dawn, with a world astir in the fields and a light, exciting wind shivering through the leaves.

In the room in which he sat, on the iron mantelshelf below the fly-blown tariff of licences obtainable from His Majesty's Revenue Officers, a round tin clock ticked with a shudder a second.

From the local superintendent's office next door came sounds that had gone on all through the night, voices and footsteps, slow country intonations and the brisk, clipped abbreviations of the town, chair-legs scraping on wood and solid boot-heels clattering on uncarpeted boards.

The phone bell alone was silent and everyone in the police station, including Mr Campion, who listened even in his sleep, was waiting for that shrill, familiar alarum.

Doctor Bouverie's old Fiat drew up in the quiet street outside with a roar and a grunt and the tempestuous old gentleman heaved himself out of it, bellowed at his sleep-dazed chauffeur, and plunged into the building, the plaid-lined skirts of his mighty overcoat swinging about him like sails in a storm.

His authoritative voice had a penetrating quality and Campion sat up with a jerk. The new, straightforward, bona-fide murder had evidently caught the old man's imagination and the full force of his astonishing energy had been loosed upon its elucidation with a generous disregard for the hour and his own and everybody else's personal convenience.

‘Got down to it at once, don't you know.' The familiar roar percolated through the door panels of the superintendent's room.

‘We must get it cleared up. I can't have this sort of thing in my district. I've been working all night. Stopped for a meal at eight o'clock and went back to it. Sweat's been pouring off me. I had to change and bathe before I came over or I'd have been here an hour ago. Young Dean wanted to give up at one o'clock, but I kept him at it and I think we've got it clear now, between us. Superintendent, lend me a man for a moment.'

Alone in the small front office on the first floor, Campion stretched his cramped limbs and brought his mind round to face the situation once again. When at last he put his head inside the superintendent's door he was confronted by a spectacle which might have been very funny in any other circumstance.

A group of interested police, with Yeo and Inchcape prominent among them, were watching a remarkable performance which was taking place in the centre of the room. A chair had been placed in the foreground and against it sprawled a youthful constable whose head and shoulders were completely covered by the doctor's greatcoat, while the old man loomed above him, spanner in hand, and demonstrated the method of murder with great dramatic effect.

‘The first blow caught him on the vault, Superintendent, just about here.'

Doctor Bouverie brought the spanner down none too gently.

‘That cracked his skull for him, don't you know. After that the man seems to have gone mad. He beat the poor creature wildly. Lost his own head, I should say. Call it blood-lust if you like, but I should be inclined to say terror. Like a trapped horse, don't you know. Kicks itself free, whatever the damage. I'll prepare a full report for you. No time yet. The organs are perfectly healthy – very good indeed. Decent heart, lungs sound, age between forty and fifty, well-nourished, stained hands – get up, my man!'

The final remark was addressed to the constable, who was breathing somewhat stertorously beneath the suffocating coat.

The constable scrambled to his feet and emerged grinning; he was very proud of himself.

The doctor dropped the spanner into his side pocket. His pugnacious old face was stern and alive and his invincible dignity permeated the room. Viewed dispassionately, there was a great deal that was comic about him, but the essence of the man was far from ridiculous. It passed through Mr Campion's mind that this serio-comic element was the very stuff of tragedy. It was the dreadful reality of disaster which took the fun out of funny things, reminding the brain perpetually that something truly frightful had honestly occurred.

Doctor Bouverie turned his head and caught sight of him. He got up at once and held out his hand.

‘Hallo, Campion,' he said. ‘You mixed up in this too? Two corpses within a fortnight and you about each time, yet no possible connexion between the two affairs … that's an extraordinary coincidence.'

The local superintendent, a friendly lump of a man with an old-fashioned police moustache and service boots, caught Campion's eye and winked. He cut in hastily before the younger man could speak to the doctor.

‘How long had he been dead, sir?'

Doctor Bouverie returned to the subject with alacrity.

‘I've been puzzling over that,' he said, his grey eyes as bright as if he had been in the thirties, ‘and I'm inclined to put it at twenty-four hours as a maximum and twelve as a minimum from the time I first saw the body at four o'clock this afternoon. That is to say somewhere between four on Friday afternoon and four on Saturday morning. Can't you find a witness who noticed how long the car stood there?'

Inchcape glanced at the superintendent and, receiving his nod of assent, plunged into the question.

‘We've been working on that,' he said. ‘We've found a man who is prepared to swear that it was not where we found it when he went down to the “Queen's Head” at eight-fifteen on Friday night, but he noticed it standing just where it is now when he returned about half-past ten. He suspected a courting couple and did not look inside. There's no way of telling if the car was driven after the man was dead, is there?'

‘Why not? The man was not moved after he died. I can say that for certain, don't you know.' The old man was fascinated by the puzzle element in the case.

‘Oh yes,' he went on. ‘I can give you clear proof of that. From the way he was lying with his feet round the controls I doubt whether anyone could have driven the machine an inch once he was dead.'

Yeo coughed and the local superintendent turned to him deferentially. Campion noticed that the distinguished visitor from Scotland Yard was being received with proper country hospitality. Yeo addressed the doctor.

‘You're
sure
he was not moved after death, sir?'

‘Perfectly.' The old man's magnificent authority was comforting. ‘As I see it, he was driving the car. His passenger suddenly clapped the rug over his head and set about him. The position of the wounds, all on the left side, and the way the body fell show that quite clearly.'

‘I see.' Yeo was silent and his comedian's face was thoughtful. ‘I don't know this part of the country,' he began, ‘but it seems to me that the road to the town from the spot where we found the body is fairly lonely?'

‘So it is now,' agreed the superintendent. ‘There's not a house on it until you pass the station turning.' He paused. ‘Suppose the murderer took the last train to Boarbridge?' he said suddenly. ‘He could walk down to the station without being seen and there is just that one train after nine o'clock. The station opens at six. I'll send a man down to find out if there was a stranger about then. There's an idea there – a good idea.'

Doctor Bouverie was quite prepared to take an even more active part in the investigations than he had done already, and they had some difficulty in getting rid of him gracefully. It was only when he proposed routing out his old friend Lieutenant-Colonel Beller, the Chief Constable, who had only just been persuaded to go home to bed, that the alarmed superintendent put his foot down.