Cargo of Eagles (19 page)

‘I doubt if he'll tell you that,' said Morty. ‘But he's open to flattery and he likes the sound of an educated voice. You might try demonology as an opening gambit.'

The poet was not at the inn when they enquired. He had gone out shortly before sunset and Dixie was unhelpful.

‘He took what he calls his staff with him.' she explained. ‘It's a tall walking stick. That means he's going to walk for miles and it could be two in the morning before he's home. I don't know what he gets up to but sometimes he has a little drink on the way, so he may go as far as Firestone or Nine Ash. I hope he doesn't get caught—it's going to pour in a minute or two.'

She was right. The storm arrived in a flurry of wind with a swift opening tattoo of rain which gave way to a solid downpour. Custom at the inn dwindled rapidly at the first sign of a pause and before the official closing hour the two men had the
bar to themselves. Somewhere above them a door banged and Dixie put her head on one side.

‘He's home,' she said. ‘He may have been back some time. If you must see him, Mr Kelsey dear, go up to his attic. But knock. It's his private den and he considers himself off duty when he's there.'

The long low room under the roof was only unexpected because of its location. The sloping ceiling ran almost to the floor and the space was reduced by bookcases between the dormer windows which made the chamber alternately narrow and wide. Wishart sat at a table heavy with books and papers at the far end, a single green shaded reading lamp emphasising the craggy lines which scarred his face from nose to chin and formed an intricate tracery about his eyes and forehead. A scholar in a scholar's setting: only the upward glow of light gave his dignity a touch of theatre. A bottle of brandy faced him and there was a glass in his hand. He did not rise as they came in but gestured vaguely towards the shadows. His voice, deep as the G string of a cello, was glutinous and slurred.

‘There are chairs,' he said and swayed dangerously as if he might slip sideways. ‘Anything on them can be treated as d-detritus—sweep it away. You are late visitors for the country. Do you bring news or shall we sit and tell sad stories of the death of kings? Or speak of cabbages? Ling was no king—nearer a cabbage if the truth were told. But he is dead. Abominably, stupidly dead. Told his last lie, cadged his last drink. Will we consider him for an overture and so work to a conch . . . to an Emperor.'

Morty glanced significantly at his companion.

‘Tomorrow, perhaps?'

‘No,' said Campion. ‘Tonight.'

He took out the letter, unfolded it and placed it in the pool of light.

‘Intelligence from London, Mr Wishart. I think you should pull yourself together and read it very carefully. We want your opinion.'

The poet's head with its impressive mane of grey hair weaved uncertainly over the paper. Then he shook himself and groped in a pocket for a metal case from which he produced a pair of steel rimmed glasses. He read the letter slowly, holding it at varying distances to keep the words in focus. Finally he replaced it on the table and peered from Campion to Morty over the top of the lenses.

‘This came to you today?'

Morty nodded. ‘You had one, you told me, last week. Now this. Mr Campion thought you could help.'

The old man gave a long shuddering sigh. He had clearly received a shock which was totally unexpected and the effect was sobering. Drained of colour, his face could have been carved in ivory.

‘What can you tell us. Mr Wishart? Have you no opinion to offer?' Mr Campion spoke gently but there was no kindness in his tone.

The man at the table rounded on him. ‘Tell you? I can tell you that it is cruel, that it is ugly, that it is the work of a sadist or a lunatic. What more do you wish? It is meant to frighten. I find it frightening. Is that what I am to say?'

‘But different. You have seen one at least of its predecessors. Does nothing strike you?'

It was some time before Wishart answered. He had begun to drum on the table with long dark ribboned fingers. Finally he picked up the tumbler which had been perched on a pile of books, took it half way to his lips and replaced it without drinking.

‘Mr Campion,' he said at last. ‘You are trying to make a point, or so I suppose. You are proceeding with nods and becks but there is no wreathed smile. You ask for enlightenment. Now I ask you a question: who am I to ease your burden of ignorance? I have already given my advice to this young man and he has chosen to ignore it. I wish no part of his troubles. They are nothing to me.'

‘But I'm afraid they are.' Mr Campion was persistent. ‘I
think you know just where the difference lies and that is why you are a frightened man. This letter breaks a pattern—doesn't it?—a pattern which you understand. This letter is not a malicious piece of libel but a direct threat. I do hope you follow me.'

Wishart pushed back his chair and straightened his shoulders.

‘You are talking in riddles. I don't know you, sir, or I might suspect that you hoped to spring a trap. You have the bland air of eminent counsel dissecting some wretched incompetent in a witness box. Given a chance you would become hectoring. At this hour my senses may be impaired but I am not totally blind. I may see through a glass . . . but not darkly. I see with tolerable clarity, in fact. Tolerable clarity . . . tolerable. . . . I also behave with as much tolerance as I can muster. What the devil are you getting at?'

Mr Campion accepted the challange.

‘I'll tell you,' he said. ‘Dr Jones and her friends have received a round dozen of letters, all of them originating from somewhere in this district even if some were posted in London. They fall into groups. Each group suggests a type of writer—a disappointed venomous old woman—a man with some knowledge of what could damage a medical reputation—a canting religious hypocrite and so on. The police are interested because they are thinking in terms of conspiracy. I am interested because these letters suggest forgery. I think they are exercises in caricature—the work of a single dilettante.' He waited to let the words sink in.

‘You enjoy little essays in forgery, don't you, Mr Wishart? Think of your Cambridge friends, Colquhoun, Middlemass and Swinstead. Three dull men and all of them rich. Yet each of them produced an unlikely volume with remarkable literary qualities—very flattering to their vanity. I wonder who really wrote
Mosaic to Machine
or
Mandragora Days
or
Oh, Mr Cromek
? Odd books to keep on your shelves, Mr Wishart, yet there they are right behind your head sitting next to
the fifth volume of Georgian Poetry in which you figure.'

For a long minute the old man stared towards Campion looking through and beyond his visitor. He was still gripping the table with both hands and the muscles around his right eye had begun to twitch. Shocked and ill at ease, Morty watched from the shadows. Wishart broke the tension by picking up his tumbler and emptying it at a gulp.

‘I do not understand you,' he said flatly. ‘And I do not propose to try. You force your company upon me and you make sly references to my friends. You accuse me by inference. Very well. I deny any part of the slander. Now go. Get out whilst I still have a hold of my temper. Go! Go!
Go!
'

Campion shook his head.

‘Not just yet. We have a point to settle between us. I'm not concerned with the original letters because I rather think there won't be any more of them. But if I'm wrong and there
is
a recurrence then I shall dig deeper, I shall ask questions about years in your life which ought to be forgotten. It—er—it could be extremely embarrassing, don't you think? Jonah Woodrose wouldn't care for it either.'

Wishart frowned in an effort to focus his eyes. ‘Jonah?'

‘Yes, Jonah Woodrose. These letters were his idea, I fancy, at the start. His pressure at your elbow. Your execution, your inventive skill. There was even a touch of his style in some of them, but I don't suppose he appreciated that subtlety.'

Campion's tone was quiet, almost conversational. Wishart did not respond for some time but sat immobile with bowed head until the silence in the room was oppressive. Suddenly he seized the paper on the table before him and crushed it fiercely.

‘This is not my handiwork. I deny your right to say so. I deny every part of your accusation. I could never have written this in a thousand years. You cannot hold me responsible.'

Mr Campion sighed. ‘Oh, but I don't,' he murmured. ‘This is by a new hand, someone who has decided to take over from
you. Someone who is not your partner or your master. Have you any idea who it is? Jonah knows. I think Mossy Ling knew. It is possible that Hector Askew stumbled on the truth. Have you heard from James Teague lately, or Target Burrows, Mr Wishart?'

The poet shook his head. His voice had become a whisper and the fire had left him. He looked old and exhausted.

‘Teague . . . Burrows. They are dirty words hereabouts. It's twenty—no, nearer thirty years since I saw either of them. Now they or their ghosts are walking again. Mossy Ling said he saw a ghost and suddenly he is dead. Whatever Jonah saw was real enough to frighten the living daylights out of him. I saw him tonight but he told me nothing. Nothing at all, except that he'd had enough. He knows when he's beaten. But you'll get no answers from him if you cross-question from here to eternity. As for myself I know nothing of any value so I can neither help nor hinder in whatever mischief is afoot. In any case I am too full of years—perhaps that is why I have been left alone.'

Morty at least was convinced. The nerves around the poet's eye continued to twitch, emphasising his age and underlining the unease he was not attempting to hide. His face was still ruggedly handsome but it was the mould of an actor accustomed to playing strong roles caught in a revealing moment of weakness. It invited pity but not sympathy.

Yet he had fenced very neatly, making no sort of admission, giving no fact or hint which could be held against him. He sat very still for some time and then as if jerking himself back to reality took up the bottle and poured out three fingers of brandy. The voice was steady now.

‘I shall not court a rebuff by asking you to join me. We each of us have our own touchstones against . . . calamity. This is mine.'

Campion stood up. ‘Just one other question before you apply your remedy, Mr Wishart. You know this area down to the last puddle. Give me an expert opinion. Could a man hide
here for a fortnight and not be seen? A man must eat, drink, sleep soundly. Could it be done without friends?'

The old man took a long, reflective drink. Finally he shook his head.

‘I've given some thought to that. The answer must be no. The police have been very active, poking their noses into cellars, which are very rare hereabouts since the land is only just above sea level, and exploring every shed and barn in the place. There are no priest holes that I know of and even an undiscovered hay loft presupposes an accomplice. Teague had a few real friends, rascals and mountebanks like himself, but most of them are dead and the remainder are gone long since. Jonah Woodrose is certainly no longer among them. As to his women—and there were several of those—the survivors are middle-aged by now and more likely to betray than to hide. Burrows was a shifty, foul mouthed bully who made nothing but enemies whilst he lived amongst us. Every man would play Judas to him given the chance.'

‘Yet their ghosts are walking, as Mossy Ling remarked.'

Wishart drank again. ‘You're such a clever theorist. Mr Campion, that I marvel you don't answer your own question. Where would a sailor man hide—a man who knew the coast better than any chart?'

‘At sea, presumably.'

‘Just so. At sea. There are three out of work tramps lying up in the main channel, each with a couple of men aboard to watch the riding lights. A paying guest would never be found if you searched all day. Not that I commend the idea to you. Burrows has a very odd sense of humour as I recall. It would amuse him to watch a man drown.'

SERGEANT THROSTLE HAD
a number of questions on his mind but the one which lay uppermost was a question of demarcation. During his patient and astutely professional enquiries he had unearthed a number of family secrets but at every point he found himself tempted to follow leads which beckoned far beyond the orbit of his official instructions. Somewhere in the untidy ragbag of facts, rumours and personalities lay a thread which must bring him to the truth about Hector Askew, but each likely strand, if judiciously pulled, led to an area in which he had no authority. Superintendent Gravesend, reappearing briefly after Sibling's misadventure, had decided that it was not related to the main enquiry but was the work of tearaways from London and, in Saltey at any rate, a matter for the County police.

He had returned to London leaving the field uncomfortably clear. Throstle, who found his disapproval of his chief's methods deepening into a cordial dislike, was suspicious of any facile diagnosis. Every event of the past ten days had convinced him that the motive for Askew's murder could not be simplified into a single sentence. As he said himself, he was not a member of the Coincidence Club and there were too many apparently unrelated happenings in the village for his peace of mind. But the common factor, if there was one, eluded him.

He now sat in the neo-Georgian police station at Nine Ash in a pleasant green and white office which still smelt of paint, a pile of folders on the table in front of him, awaiting the arrival of Inspector Branch of the local C.I.D. with whom he had made an appointment. The idea of the conference had considerable merits from Throstle's standpoint for the old man
who was due for retirement at Michaelmas was less touchy in matters of protocol than the rest of his colleagues and indeed was the only one to whom his heart warmed.