The Beckoning Lady (28 page)

“I think I shall drive them down there now. It's after three and we promised to be early. You'll follow, will you?”

“I don't know.” Luke was trying not to appear surly. “There's a lot to do. The Chief Constable is in a flap. He can't very well go down there, socially of course, and the Press are nagging him. We got some more names and addresses out of the Inland Revenue office with a great deal of difficulty. They're hopping mad, of course. It's very bad luck on them. He was off their strength. However, we shall have to make a thorough check. We did a few this morning. It's a miserable job.”

Mr. Campion hesitated. “I had a sort of idea,” he ventured at last. “It's a very long shot.”

“Long shots are getting me down.” Luke spoke with uncharacteristic bitterness. “I'm sorry, guv'nor, but if I could only get a single blessed fact which would stand up for ten minutes I could sew the thing up and get out of here.”

The cry was too vehement altogether. He flushed angrily and returned to his typewriter.

“I may be along to give it the once-over if I can get through this lot,” he said briefly. “South will be there.”

Mr. Campion turned away. He was not offended but his idea was still too insubstantial to impart. So much depended on anything Lugg could dig up from the chemists' shops of the district.

Once again as he passed the posy caught his eye.

“I know where I've seen that extraordinary arrangement before,” he observed, surprised into incaution. “On a piece of antique French tapestry. It's in the Victoria and Albert, I think, on top of a little coffer. In the fifteenth century they used to make them as wedding—” He broke off abruptly. He was not usually so gauche.

“I hate the damned thing,” said Luke.

After a while Mr. Campion drove his wife and son away. They were exquisitely tidy and slightly overawed by their own elegance. Amanda's shantung suit and small straw hat were spit-new, and Rupert had never worn such elegant white flannels before, so they bowed to people they knew as they passed them in the road, and addressed each other formally as they commented on the weather and admired the well-known view.

Meanwhile, in the dining-room at the Mill, laborious work went on for a long time. Luke let the telephone ring for a minute as he finished a sentence, but he signed to the sergeant that he would take the call himself, and presently rose and wandered out to it.

“Hullo. Is that you?” Prune's ridiculous voice was unnaturally subdued.

“It is.” What with controlling his breath, fighting back fury, and preserving what shreds of dignity remained to him, Luke succeeded in sounding stagy. “Can I help you?”

“Aren't you coming to fetch me? It's terribly late.” Luke had never been murderously angry with a woman in all his life before. Blind unreasoning rage consumed and almost choked him.

“Why didn't you telephone before?”

“Ought I to have? Your mother said that the one thing one must never do is to . . .”

“Oh, you saw her, did you?” Luke was hunching himself over the telephone as if he was preparing to squeeze into it. His normal vitality was coming back. The little brass ornaments on the mantelshelf over the fireplace began to vibrate at the sound of his voice.

“Yes. My dress wasn't done, so I stayed there the night.”

“At Linden Lea?” Luke, who had the most vivid recollections of the upheaval which had preceded the week-end visit of an aunt way back in 1936, was astounded.

“Yes. I was asked so I jumped at it. I was going to get in at Brown's, but your mother said . . .”

“Where are you now?”

“At the Rectory, waiting. The Revver and Mama have gone on, ages ago. I'm all ready. I've locked up, I've—”

“Wait.” Luke glanced first at his shoes and then at his nails. “Wait. You're there alone, are you? Stay exactly where you are.”

“Of course I shall. I've been waiting . . . I say Charles, I've got the necklace.”

“What necklace?”

“
The
necklace. The jade. The one your uncle brought from Shanghai. Your mother gave . . .”

“She gave?” Luke nearly hung up, he was so relieved. “Listen,” he roared into the telephone, “listen . . .”

“I
am
listening.”

“All right then. Don't move.”

“Very well. But Charles, there's one thing I must know. What is our attitude towards this murder business?”

“Our attitude?”

“Yes dear, ours,” Prune said patiently. “Ours. Ours. The official attitude of the police.”

“Hold on. That is, ring off,” said Luke, hanging up. “Stay where you are,” he said to the telephone and went back into the room for his jacket. “You'll carry on then, will you?” He addressed the sergeant absently. “None of this stuff matters a damn, you know. The whole centre of
the thing is down there at The Beckoning Lady. I don't quite see the set-up yet, and it may be a most unfortunate mess, but it can't be helped. The only thing to do is to plunge straight in and—er, sew it up. Stay here. I'll get you relieved later.”

The younger man was looking at him curiously. He was something to see, standing there preening himself like a great black tomcat, his bright eyes gleaming and an obstinate curl at the corners of his mouth. He set his tie straight in the mirror, settled his cuffs, and grinned.

“Leave it to me,” he announced and went out, only to return immediately for the posy, which he took out of the glass and wrapped in his handkerchief. He looked the sergeant firmly in the eye. “I shall need this,” he said.

In the cool silence under the willows, where there was no breeze, the water had slowly penetrated into the billowing skirts which had supported the body and it had begun to sink by the feet. At the same time, a further mass of rushes and sodden blossoms from the trees had swept downstream to join the rest, and because the body was tilted had slid half under it, making a pillow for the dark head. Meanwhile the original dam, never very strong, was straining under the new weight and its hold on the roots was gradually giving way. About five in the afternoon the final tendril holding the tangle broke under the gentle pressure, and very gently the whole terrible burden began to move slowly towards the opening where the leaves ended and the sun shone on a bank of yellow irises further down. . . .

EDGING HIS WAY
adroitly through the crowds on the lawn, Tonker came up behind Minnie at last and slid an arm round her.

“It's all right. Poppy's arrived,” he said hoarsely. “Leo locked her in, but she climbed out of the window and changed in the car, the gallant old trout. She's safe behind the bar, pouring it all over old Tudwick, who is just her cup of tea. Wally has stopped biting his nails and is taking nourishment, so that hurdle's past.”

“Oh how good of her.” Minnie was still using her social vocabulary, but as ever her gratitude was sincere. “Dear Poppy, how like her and how very sensible.”

Tonker grinned wickedly. “Locked her in, eh? That's a bit much, isn't it?” Above his high-buttoned blazer his freckled face and deep blue eyes were gay. “It shows you what some marriages are like. He's standing on his dignity as Chief Constable. Fantastic old buzzard.”

Minnie regarded him blankly as the significance of the move dawned upon her.

“Oh Tonker, how frightful! Oh dear, I'd forgotten.”

“Then go on forgetting,” he said doughtily. “Everybody else is. It's going with a bang. Fang is looking for you, by the way. Don't forget your own pictures. I saw some very distinguished-looking birds in the barn. I don't know 'em, so I suppose you must. Now then, don't flap. No hurry. Gosh, have you seen Prune?”

“Prune?”

He laughed. “I see you haven't. You must. I wouldn't have believed it.” He paused abruptly as he caught sight of the posy in her hands. “You've got one of those things. A lot of the girls have. Where did you get them?”

Minnie turned the flowers over. “Old Harry. They're rather formal and nice, don't you think?”

Tonker looked at the bouquet dubiously. “I suppose so,” he said. “Yes, well, why not? I say Minnie, I suppose that bridge is perfectly safe?”

“The wherry? Oh yes dear, does it look all right?”

“Very good. But there's a lot of grass and leaves and stuff collecting against one side. I suppose that can't be helped.”

“No.” She was apologetic. “No, I don't suppose it can. There are always odds and ends floating by in the river. People expect that. Is it bad?”

“No. Nothing to worry about. Everything's wonderful. The champers is excellent and I'm glad to see some intelligent child, Annabelle as a matter of fact, has had the sense to set herself up in a soft drink bar. The ice cream was a brainwave too. Who thought of that?”

Minnie looked startled. “Do you know, I don't know. I've been noticing it. Everyone seems to be eating it. There must be gallons of it.” She was looking round her with swift preoccupied eyes, watching for the lost young woman or the odd man out. “Things just happen at a party like this. It's very nice. Tonker, there are two people I don't know, looking at you, just over there by Agnes Glebe.”

Tonker turned his head. “Ah yes indeed. Be seeing you.” He sailed away, hand outstretched, smile delighted, and Minnie was claimed at once by a very elegant young man who had carried his elders' most recent fashion for aping the modes and manners of their grandfathers to the alarming point of growing exactly like one of them. He had been designed by Charles Dana Gibson as a foil for a young woman who had vanished, and he looked therefore a little lonely in his loose-jacketed masculinity.

“Mrs. Cassands, I've been sent to fetch you,” he said, taking her firmly by the hand. “There is a very distinguished gathering in your studio. That is over in the barn there.”

Very cold blue eyes were looking into hers and she controlled a rising panic. It was thirty-five years since she had been confronted by this sort of dominant male, and then he had been elderly.

“They want you to explain your remarkable picture.” He eyed her again. “They like it very much, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“What picture?” Minnie demanded, her mind's eye making a lightning review of the canvases on show, and pausing guiltily at the portrait of Little Doom.

The young man lowered his voice. “The modern one.”

“The
modern
?” In a flash of intuitive divination Minnie remembered Tonker's unexplained absence before breakfast. She had not glanced at the pictures since. The young man continued to hold her hand in a compelling grip.

“I think you must come along,” he said.

“My word yes.” Minnie spoke grimly. “I think I'd better.”

As they ploughed through the crowd, the young man gripping her elbow so that she should not escape, he made an enquiry in a tone whose studied casualness belonged to other eras besides the turn of the nineteenth century.

“There's a girl here. I think her name is Prune.”

Minnie raised her head. “Was she alone?”

“Er—no,” he said sadly, “no, she wasn't.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lawn Mr. Campion was standing talking with a knot of old friends.

“Why do these ridiculous parties of old Tonker's
go
?” said the woman who was Mrs. Gilbert Whippet and had once been Janet Pursuivant, Sir Leo's only daughter, with genuine bewilderment in her voice. “Daddy's heartbroken he can't be here. It's some sort of business, I don't know what. But Tonker really is extraordinary about these do's. You never know when he's going to have one. He doesn't actually invite anybody. There are no servants at all. And yet everybody turns up including, really, the most amazing people. Look at that man over there, for instance. And it's
always
a fine day.”

“It always seems fine,” said Mr. Campion, smiling fondly at her because he was so grateful that she had not married him. “And that man is your father's Superintendent.”

“Oh well then—” She was a little pettish because she knew quite well what he was thinking, and although she was very fond of her husband, who was an even vaguer edition of the same type, she held it ungallant of him to be happy too. “Oh well then, consider
those
people. Who on earth are they?”

“Look at the light on those trees,” said Mr. Campion hastily, turning her attention in the opposite direction and lowering his voice discreetly. “Those are two of the wealthiest men of the year, Mr. Burt and Mr. Hare and their ladies. And the man with the crushed face is a very influential person called Smith. I shouldn't worry about them. They're virtually gate-crashers.”

Janet could not forbear a well-bred peep. “He doesn't look happy, anyway,” she said contentedly. “In fact he doesn't even look bored. He looks sick. Perhaps they're being difficult. They look as if they're thinking of buying the place.”

“Some people are always thinking of buying whatever they're looking at,” murmured Mr. Campion. “Is Gilbert here?”

“Yes. Gilbert Whippet, Chairman of the M.O.L.E.” A wraith in pale smoke colour emerged from some point just behind Campion's left shoulder and proffered a limp hand. “I'm here. I've been here all the time. Wouldn't miss it for worlds. I say Campion, have you seen Prune?”

“Not today. Why?”

“I don't know. I only wondered.” Whippet was blethering, as usual, and Mr. Campion restrained an impulse which dated from his first meeting with him at Totham School, to tread firmly on his foot to keep him from wandering away. “I only wondered,” he repeated. “She used to be such a dull girl.”

“She's still a dull girl.” Mr. Campion spoke with unwonted bitterness.

“Oh no, my dear fellow.” Whippet conveyed what was for him passionate excitement. “Oh no, I don't agree with you. You're wrong there.”