More Work for the Undertaker (25 page)

He was so excited that he had not heard the persistent tapping at the door. It was suddenly opened and a delighted, if inopportune, Clytie White appeared on the threshold. Unaware that she had arrived at a moment of crisis, she stood looking in at Luke, half anxious, half ecstatic. She was in all her glory. A skin-tight bodice revealed the charm of her young bosom. A mighty skirt spread out in exaggerated folds. A spotted scarf tied in a doubtful bow made her look like a dressed-up kitten, and a modern boater sat squarely and fashionably on her newly dressed hair.

‘Well?' she demanded, and her voice was breathless.

Charlie Luke paused in his flight to duty. Campion had never respected him more. He stood surveying her earnestly, his eyes narrowed, the whole force of his pile-driver personality concentrated on her problem.

‘I tell you what,' he said at last. ‘Take off the scarf and I'll take you to the pictures Sunday.'

WHEN CHARLIE LUKE
finally returned it was morning on the day of Miss Evadne's revel. Campion was still in bed, but not asleep.

He had awakened with a query. It had been thrown, complete and vital, by his subconscious mind in sleep, and the more he considered it the more obvious and elementary it became.

He saw by his watch that it was close on a quarter to seven. At the same time he became aware that the house was not only stirring, but that some upheaval was taking place. He slid into a dressing-gown and opened his door, to meet an offensive of strange odours which suggested that Miss Jessica had been cooking again. He paid little attention to it, for on the other side of the landing Miss Roper was smacking Charlie Luke's face. She was as angry as a disturbed sitting hen.

Charlie Luke, grey with weariness but still remarkably good-tempered, picked her up by the elbows and held her kicking a foot or so from the floor.

‘Come on, Auntie,' he said, ‘be a good girl or I'll have to send a real policeman with a helmet to you.'

Miss Roper let herself grow limp and he set her down, but she still barred his way.

‘One of your young men has been with him all night, and Clarrie and I have had a dreadful morning with him. Now he's asleep and you're not to wake him; he's an ill man.'

‘I bet he is, but I've got to see him.'

Renee caught sight of Campion, whom she hailed as a deliverer.

‘Oh, ducky,' she said, ‘make this stupid boy see a little reason. The Captain's had an accident. He doesn't often do it, but when
he does it's enough to kill him. Charlie's got a crazy idea he's been writing anonymous letters, which is one thing he wouldn't do, that I will say for him – though I could wring his wicked old neck for him this minute. I've got him to sleep and he won't be fit to speak to for hours. Do make him leave him alone. He can't stand, much less run away.'

A dismal sound from the room behind her confirmed her diagnosis and her small brown body fluttered like a bird's.

‘Oh, run along do!' she said to Luke. ‘If he's been up to anything you shall make him answer for it as soon as he's half-way to being himself. I know him. He'd admit to anything now just to get a minute of peace.'

Luke hesitated and she pushed him before her.

‘Oh, I have got a day,' she said bitterly. ‘There's all this to clean up, the boy's coming from hospital at noon and has to go straight to bed, and then there's this damn silly party. Evadne's asked half London by all accounts. Take Mr Luke into your room, Albert, and I'll send you both up a bit of breakfast.'

Another and more violent groan from the stricken warrior made the D.D.I.'s mind up for him.

‘I'll give him half an hour,' he said, and then, catching Campion's eye, raised both thumbs in an expressive gesture. ‘Right on the target,' he said as he closed the bedroom door after them and turned his head away resolutely from the one comfortable chair. ‘I hand it to you.'

Mr Campion seemed pleased. ‘Is the lady in the bag?'

‘In the cells, crying all over the floor.' Luke shook himself expressively. ‘We've had her on the carpet most of the night and now the whole station's wet. Funny thing, she was explicit enough on paper but we couldn't get a word out of her except, “Oh, my God!” for close on three hours.' He yielded to the chair's invitation as he spoke and propped his lids open.

‘Did she admit it?'

‘Yes. We found the paper, the ink and the envelopes, as well as a sample of the disguised handwriting on a bit of blotting paper. But she wouldn't come across until dawn. Just sat there like a bull frog.' He blew out his cheeks, lowered his
brows, and made himself a high-corseted bust with his hands. ‘Then she broke like an egg. We heard all about the dear Captain. He was so helpless and put upon. He touched her heart and moved her to do what she knew she didn't ought, having been brought up very different. How do these old boys do it? Pull out their empty pockets and cry?'

He wriggled himself more deeply into the cushions and made an attempt to keep his eyes at least half open.

‘To do him justice, she's misleading. I don't suppose he had the faintest idea what he was stirring up under that mumbo-jumbo-I-see-all exterior. He probably just rambled on, trying to make himself interesting.'

‘Ah,' said Mr Campion, ‘and how did you get on with her brother?'

Luke frowned. ‘We slipped up over Bloblip,' he admitted. ‘As she opened the front door to us he slid out of the back. We shall collect him in the end, of course, but meanwhile it's annoying.'

‘Was her letter-writing his idea?'

The red-rimmed eyes flickered wide at the new suggestion.

‘I – shouldn't – think so. There was no hint of it. No, I think Psychic Phoeb was just letting out her own stays. That's what's so peeving. Usually in these affairs, once you do get a genuine lead the whole thing comes unravelling out like Auntie's jumper. But this just takes us to an evil-minded old blossom with a schoolgirl crush on the Captain and a grievance against the Doc. He snubbed her, by the way. That sticks out a mile, although all she'll say is that she used to go to him for her stomach, but stopped. He
is
a bit short with hysterical patients, I've heard that before. The whole thing's practically a dead end, isn't it?'

‘I wonder. It's extraordinary she should have been right. She accused the doctor of overlooking a murder and he had. That's pretty good going for mere spite.'

Luke was not satisfied. ‘She got it from the Captain. That's why I want to talk to him myself. He may have said more than he knew. You know how it is when a chap comes pouring out his troubles twice a week. He forgets what he said last time;
you don't. She got the idea out of him. What would Bloblip know about what went on over here?'

Mr Campion did not argue but began to dress.

‘When does Miss Congreve come up before the Magistrate? Do you want to be there?'

‘Ten. And Porky can see to her. She'll get bail. Anything I can do for you?'

Campion grinned. ‘If I might advise it, I should take an hour or two's sleep in my bed. By the time you wake, the Captain may be almost intelligent if not affable. Meanwhile I should like to follow up a night-thought of my own. Where shall I find the local coroner's office?'

The final question cut short Luke's protest. He was too well trained to ask a direct question, but he sat up at once, alert and curious.

‘Twenty-five, Barrow Road,' he said promptly. ‘I've got several chaps released for duty now, though. No need to do your own homework.'

Campion's tousled head appeared through his shirt.

‘Don't give it another thought,' he said. ‘I may so easily be wrong.'

He had breakfasted by a few minutes before nine and he came hurrying down the front steps to find only Mrs Love and her pail barring his way. She wore a sky-blue coif and a white overall for morning, and was gaily arch as usual.

‘Company today,' she shouted, winking a rheumy eye at him and adding in a whisper, which was like a fall of sand, ‘there's a lot coming because of the crime. I say there's a lot coming because of the crime.' She laughed like an evil child, light-hearted mischief in her rosy face. ‘Don't fergit the party. Come back in time. I say come back in time.'

‘Oh, I'll be in long before that,' he assured her, and plunged out into the misty sunshine.

Yet he was mistaken. His call took him far into the morning and its consequence was a series of further visits. These were delicate encounters, demanding all the tact in his not inconsiderable store. Relatives were tracked and questioned, next-of-kin located but not confirmed; but, by the time the setting
sun had achieved a blood-red Apron Street, he came striding down it with new excitement in his step.

His first impression on catching sight of the house was that it must be on fire. The crowd had grown. Corkerdale, reinforced by two uniformed men, was holding the gate and garden walls, while the front door at the top of the steps stood wide and tantalizing. Miss Evadne's conversazione had begun.

Inside, the atmosphere was tremendous. An air of hospitality had been achieved by the simple method of leaving all the doors open. Someone – Campion suspected Clarrie – had fixed an old brass four-pronged candlestick on the flat top of the newel-post. The candles guttered in the draught and there was rather a lot of tallow about, one way and another. But the general effect was not ungay.

No sooner had his foot touched the mat than Renee bobbed out at him from the drawing-room. She was unexpectedly magnificent in solid black, save for a small white silk afternoon tea apron adorned with rosebuds. He thought at first that her histrionic instinct had prompted her to dress up as a stage housekeeper, but her first words corrected him.

‘Oh, it's you, dear,' she said, catching his arm. ‘Thank God for someone with a mite of respectability. I'm the only one in the house who's remembered to put on a speck of mourning. It's not that they're heartless, but they're so busy thinking they don't have time to think, if you see what I mean.'

‘Perfectly. It suits you. You look lovely.'

She laughed at him, the sun coming out in her worried eyes.

‘You wicked boy!' she said. ‘There's no time for that kind of talk now. I wish there were. I say, Albert' – she lowered her voice and peered down the hall – ‘is all this true about the police now knowing who they want and flinging out a net and closing in on them?'

‘I hadn't heard it,' he said curiously.

‘Well, you've been out all day, haven't you? I think you'll find it's right. Clarrie told me not to tell a soul, and I shan't, of course, but there's dozens more police about, just watching, waiting for the word.'

‘What a pity no one gives it.'

‘It's nothing to laugh at, dear. They've got to have proof, haven't they? Oh, I shall be glad when it's all over, however horrible the shock is, and I've had a few. Look at my old Captain! – sneaking out to have his fortune told and play handy-pandy with a – well, I won't demean myself, Albert, but really! – an old haybag. She'd make fifteen of me. She put the fear of God into him by writing the letters. He must have known. He swears he didn't, the old liar, but as I told him, I may have kept my figure, but I wasn't born yesterday.'

She was very militant and utterly feminine. Her eyes were flashing like an angry girl's.

‘Of course he's sick and sorry now,' she said, ‘and one can't help forgiving him, but when he took his dying oath that he didn't even guess it was her until she admitted it, and had the cheek to threaten to post one to Lawrence in the box outside the house, well, I could have given him a fourpenny one! When he found Lawrence was right on the track, he sneaked up the stairs in a blue funk and put himself clean out with a bottle I didn't even know he had. I could kill him, I could really.'

Campion laughed. ‘What are you doing now?' he inquired. ‘Watching to see he doesn't get out?'

‘Ducky, he can't stand!' Her chuckle was barely malicious. ‘He's very penitent, tucked up waiting to be waited on. No, I'm just standing here catching old pals as they go upstairs. It's just to tell them that Clarrie's got a bit of a bar going down in the kitchen. There's a little gin and plenty of beer. You go up and talk for a bit, but don't drink anything, especially that yellow stuff they're serving in the glasses. She makes it with groundsel and it has a funny effect. When you've had enough uplift come down to the basement. I can't have friends treated to nothing when they come to the house.'

He thanked her and smiled down at her with genuine affection. The evening light was streaming through the doorway directly on to her face, picking out the contours of the delicate bones under her wrinkled skin. As he turned to go upstairs his glance travelled through the open doorway of Lawrence's room to the chimney-piece. He stared at it for a moment and then looked at her again, a startled expression on his pale face.

Another knot in the tangle pulled smoothly out as he watched it and her hitherto incomprehensible place in the household was suddenly explained and made rational. He took a chance.

‘Renee, I believe I know why you do all this.'

The moment he had spoken he knew it was a mistake. Her face grew bleak and her eyes secretive.

‘Do you, dear?' There was a warning in the edge of her tone. ‘Don't be too clever, will you? See you in the kitchen.'

‘As you like,' he murmured, and hurried on, well aware that as she looked after him she was not smiling.

HALF-WAY ACROSS THE
wide landing Mr Lugg paused, tray in hand.

‘Care for a baked meat?' he inquired, displaying five water-biscuits on a fine china plate, and turned to jerk his head towards Miss Evadne's room. ‘Old Poisoners' Association beano in there. What 'o! Coffins at eight!'