Sweet Danger (14 page)

‘Rather a sordid argument, don't you think, Lugg?' Mr Campion's tone was enquiring.

Mr Lugg was not abashed. ‘You can talk,' he said. ‘You always could. And what does it amount to? A lot of poppycock. 'Igh-sounding, I grant you that. 'Igh-sounding poppycock. I've looked after you like a perishing nursemaid for never mind 'ow long, and I know you. 'Ave we bin up against Peaky Doyle's boss before? No. That's why we're 'ere to-day; stop me if I'm wrong. I'm all for loyalty and doin' the job, but I don't ask for trouble. Let me go and get out the car and we'll all go back to town.'

‘An indecent revelation of a nauseating mind,' observed the Hereditary Paladin judicially. ‘You will now go and clean the car, taking Mr Williams with you. Meanwhile, we shall consider whether we shall keep you here under observation or whether we shall ring up the governor of your old college to see if he has got a vacancy. You can go.'

Mr Lugg's small eyes flickered. ‘Bloomin' fatigues!' he said to Scatty, and they heard his husky confidential remark
to the other man as the two offenders shuffled off down the stairs. ‘If you 'adn't 'ave bin with me you'd 'ave bin for it. 'E trusts me.'

Eager-Wright began to laugh.

Mr Campion affected not to have heard. ‘Peaky Doyle was carrying a gun,' he remarked. ‘Old Lugg might have been killed. You may think it odd of me, but I should have been sorry.'

‘Look here,' said Guffy, whose bewilderment of the night before had not abated with the morning light. ‘I don't understand what's happening at all. I didn't know you knew this fellow Doyle personally, Campion.'

‘We don't know one another well,' murmured the young man deprecatingly. ‘We met in the house of a mutual friend in Kensington. There was a fight going on at the time. Mr Doyle hit me over the head with a life-preserver. It wasn't exactly a formal introduction, but I've always felt we were at least on bowing terms since then.'

‘I'm talking about the letter you said you wrote him,' persisted Guffy. ‘Were you serious last night? You see, I didn't even know he was in the village. Where did you send the note?'

‘That,' said Mr Campion modestly, ‘was rather clever. A pure guess, but it happened to come off. You'd be surprised how it cheered me up. Yesterday afternoon something occurred which gave me the idea.'

‘The only thing that happened yesterday afternoon,' said Amanda practically, ‘was the invitation from Dr Galley.'

‘Exactly,' he agreed. ‘As soon as I received the one I wrote the other, addressed it to Peaky by name, and when we went up to the doctor's house I stuck it on one of the railing spikes where it could easily be seen from the windows. I performed this feat with my natural skill and unobtrusive dexterity and neither of you spotted me. I deduced that Peaky would see that we were all visiting and that therefore the fort would be undefended, and would take advantage of
our absence to reconnoitre. As it happened I was perfectly right.'

‘But why on Dr Galley's railings?' Guffy demanded.

‘Because our friend Peaky is a guest at the house,' said Mr Campion. ‘See how the plot thickens.'

They stared at him, and Amanda was the first to speak.

‘But this is absurd,' she said. ‘I've known old Galley all my life, but he wouldn't protect a man who'd attacked Aunt Hatt – really he wouldn't. He's queer, I know; awfully queer in some things.' Her voice sank a little on the last words, but she controlled it and her final announcement was firm. ‘He just wouldn't do it.'

Mr Campion said nothing but remained where he was, perched on the bench, a more foolish expression than ever upon his pale face.

‘It's the clue that's worrying me,' said Guffy. ‘That verse on the oak bole. I had a thought,' he continued modestly. ‘That diamond, you know, might be just a diamond-shaped piece of glass, a window panel or something.'

Eager-Wright nodded gloomily. ‘I know,' he said. ‘That's the trouble. The house is no longer here. When the message was carved on the oak I imagine no one ever dreamed that it would be destroyed.'

‘Another thing's rather odd,' ventured Mr Campion from the bench. ‘The last two hints in the book of instructions refer quite definitely to sound. You see, “Thrice must the mighty bell be toll'd Before he shall the sceptre hold”; and likewise, “And ere he to his birthright come, Stricken must be Malplaquet drum.” It's the musical element which confuses me. I mean, this snappy lyric may simply be the instructions for the ceremony at the accession party; directions to the local choirmaster and whatnot. It's all very mysterious.'

‘It strikes me as being very mysterious that Peaky Doyle had vanished from the heath this morning and has not yet been heard of in the village,' said Eager-Wright. ‘It looks as
though either his friend came back for him or else there are more people about the place than we know of. Someone must have looked after him.'

Before anyone could offer any suggestions on this subject Aunt Hatt's clear vibrant voice sounded from the floor below.

‘Mr Campion! You have a visitor. Can I send him up?'

Before Campion could reply Mr Lugg's sepulchral tones floated up to them.

‘That's right, ma'am,' they heard him say affably, and add in the more familiar tones he kept for Mr Campion's intimate friends: ‘Step up this way, sir, if you please. Look where you're goin'. Every other step's a mockery. 'Is 'Ighness is givin' audience in the boiler room this mornin'.'

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and presently a head appeared through the trap.

‘Farquharson!' said Guffy, starting forward. ‘Well, this is delightful. Mind that hole in the floor, old boy. Let me introduce you. Miss Amanda Fitton: Amanda, this is Farquharson, an old friend of ours, a charming fellow.'

‘Quite the little society matron, isn't he?' remarked Campion, grinning. ‘What news?'

The new-comer took a copy of
The Times
from under his arm and handed it to the speaker.

‘This morning's paper,' he said. ‘Personal column. Fourth paragraph down. I know one doesn't get the papers till the evening in these country places, so I brought it along. I thought I ought to be on the scene of action, anyway.'

Campion took the paper and glanced at the paragraph. Then he began to read the message aloud:

‘“If A.C., late of Bottle Street, Piccadilly, will call at Xenophon House, W.C.2, on Wednesday at 4.30, the documents we have prepared for him will be ready for him to sign. X.R. & Co.”'

‘Extraordinary way of doing business,' said Guffy.
‘You'll put it off, I suppose? Unless – by jove! it's a sort of code. Good Lord, how amazing!'

‘Hardly a code,' ventured Mr Campion gently. ‘That “documents ready to sign” bit had a certain forthrightness, I thought.'

‘Well, it can't be a trap,' said Farquharson cheerfully. ‘The great insurance offices may be viewed with suspicion in some quarters, but I never heard of them taking in unwary visitors and knocking them on the head.'

Eager-Wright was looking at Campion with interest.

‘Whom will you see?' he demanded.

Mr Campion's pale eyes were thoughtful behind his spectacles.

‘Well, really, I don't know,' he said. ‘But as a matter of fact, I've rather got the feeling that I'm in for a half hour with the boss.'

‘Who is the boss of Xenophon?' said Farquharson, and then as an incredulous expression crept into his eyes he turned to the other man. ‘That's Savanake himself, isn't it?' he said.

Mr Campion nodded. ‘If I've got to see him at half past four I'd better hurry, hadn't I?' he said.

‘MR CAMPION,' SAID
the pale young man with the toothache, ‘Mr Campion. About the papers.'

‘I beg your pardon?' said the beautiful but efficient young woman at the enquiry desk, eyeing him coldly.

‘Campion,' said the young man again. ‘A hot, fiery plant under the jurisdiction of Mars. And I've come about the papers. Large, flat, white things. You must have heard of them. I'm sorry I can't speak more clearly, but I've got toothache. I'll sit down here, shall I, while you ring up about me?'

He smiled at her as well as he could round the enormous pad of handkerchief which he held against his cheek and wandered away from the desk to seat himself on what appeared to be a coronation chair at one side of the tessellated marble hall. Apart from the toothache, Mr Campion's appearance was in keeping with his surroundings. His dark suit proclaimed business, his neatly-rolled silk umbrella good business, and the latest thing in bowlers business in the superlative.

He sat there for a long time, the one sober spot in the welter of magnificence which greeted the visitor to Xenophon House. He was gazing idly at the baroque Italian candelabra in the painted dome above his head and reflecting how much more jolly it would have been if the posturing Loves and gilded
amoretti
had been replaced by lifelike models of the Board of Directors, when a subdued feminine voice in
his ear startled him to attention. It was the young woman from the enquiry desk.

‘Did you say “Campion”, if you please?'

‘That's right. About the papers.'

‘Will you come this way, sir?'

The change in her manner was very noticeable, and Mr Campion followed her through the hall, a person of importance.

A giant lift which Mr Campion innocently supposed to be of solid gold deposited them on a mezzanine floor, where the scheme of decoration had leapt on a century or so and hundreds of impressive persons scurried among furniture of chromium steel and glass.

Mr Campion forgot his tooth long enough to admire this picture of ruthless efficiency and found himself handed over to a soft-voiced, grey-haired man who moved very close when he spoke, as though his business were of some very personal and slightly undignified nature.

‘Mr Campion?' he murmured. ‘Quite.' And then with a gasp, as though he felt his lungs would not contain enough breath for him to finish the sentence: ‘About the papers? Yes? Will you come this way?'

They entered the lift once more and Campion, ever anxious to be affable, smiled wryly round his handkerchief.

‘Two little birds in a gilded cage,' he murmured foolishly.

The man started and glanced at him with such cold shrewd eyes that the fatuous smile faded from the half of Mr Campion's face that was visible, and it relapsed into its usual state of placid inanity.

The other became more deferential than ever.

‘Thank you, thank you,' he murmured. ‘Very kind of you, sir.' And taking a pencil and paper from his pocket, he jotted down a few hieroglyphics.

Somewhat startled, Campion looked over his shoulder.

‘Goldbaum and Cazeners advance two points,' he read.

He was still pondering over this incident when he was ushered out of the lift into a corridor inspired by the neo-Byzantine or latter-day Picture Palace school of thought.

‘Perhaps you would be so good as to wait in here, sir.'

Mr Campion's feet sank into a depthless carpet. His eyes became accustomed gradually to sacred gloom. The door shut noiselessly behind him and he sat down in yet another variety of state chair and found himself looking round a room which had all the marble and mahogany solidity of a reading room at one of the better clubs. Immense oil paintings of the company's liners surrounded the walls. A fireplace as big as a church organ and very like it in design filled the far end of the room, and he gazed over a mahogany table which reminded him of a skating rink and nursed his face.

He had just accustomed himself to living in Gargantua when a sudden draught assailed the back of his neck and the next moment a little sandy man who had quite obviously only brains to recommend him paused at his elbow.

‘Er – Mr Campion,' he said, holding out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. You've come about the papers, I presume. What's the matter with your face? There's nothing so nasty as a nasty tooth. That's right, keep it warm. Does it hurt you much?'

Mr Campion shook his head.

‘Oh, well, that's all right,' said the other. ‘Glad to have you up.'

Mr Campion smiled shyly and sought for some really suitable return for this greeting. ‘Nice little place you've got here,' he said at last, conscious that he had found the
mot juste
.

The other shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly but with a certain pride. He shot Mr Campion a sudden penetrating glance.

‘You saw the ad.?' he enquired.

‘In
The Times
,' said Mr Campion.

The newcomer still hesitated, and Mr Campion felt in his breast pocket.

‘I brought this along,' he said, ‘in case you wanted to see it.'

He placed an ordinary British passport on the table. The little sandy man's face lighted up.

‘Now that's what I call intelligent,' he said. ‘I see you and me'll get along. My name's Parrott – er – two t's, of course.'

‘Of course,' murmured Mr Campion gravely.

Mr Parrott turned over the pages of the passport, glanced at the photograph and then at Campion. He seemed satisfied, for he returned the document.

‘Well, you'd better come along,' he said. ‘The private lift's in here.'

Once again Mr Campion set out on his travels. They skirted the table, Mr Campion trotting obediently behind his guide, and, after traversing quite a considerable distance, came at last to a small door in the panelling which gave this time on to a Tudor lift; the sort of lift, as indeed Mr Parrott pointed out, in which Queen Elizabeth might have ascended had the idea of such a thing occurred to her.

‘You are now going,' said Mr Parrott impressively, ‘into The Suite itself. This is the ante-room.'