Dancers in Mourning (20 page)

‘I say, Blest –' he spoke with studied casualness, ‘– I don't know if all this stuff is sound. It's just my honest opinion at the moment and you're very welcome to it. In return I want every scrap of information you can collect about these people, however irrelevant it may seem. And as a favour to me, don't let anyone suspect you're working on them.'

‘Oh?' Blest's interest was revived again and he paused encouragingly. ‘Anything you say,' he added after a moment or so. ‘Anything you say.'

Still Campion did not confide and the detective applied a gentle pressure.

‘Spotted anything big?' he inquired wistfully, something of an elderly Golden Labrador in his expression.

Campion looked up and laughed.

‘Rats in the house,' he said. ‘There's something going on there. Quite a lot I don't understand at all.'

Somewhat to his surprise the ex-policeman understood him instantly.

‘That's a way of putting it,' he said appreciatively. ‘Rats in the house. Lumme, you don't half know when you've got 'em, do you? We had a flat in the City once. Lock the doors, bung up every hole with glass, and yet you couldn't even turn round without feeling something dirty that didn't like you was watching the back of your neck. Rats in the house! You'll be going down again then?'

‘Yes, I think so.' Campion spoke soberly and Blest laid an unexpectedly fatherly hand on his shoulder.

‘Take a tip from an old pro and don't feel it personally,' he said. ‘That's always the trouble with us. We come up against nice people, people we can understand and enjoy a drink with, and then out comes the dirty linen and it gets us down if we aren't careful. Once we start thinking about right and wrong and extenuating circumstances we're sunk. Take it from me.'

He drew back, a little embarrassed by his own homily.

‘Hullo?' he said.

‘Front-door latch. Lugg coming in.'

Campion glanced across the room.

‘He was out gallivanting when I arrived. He didn't expect me before the morning.'

Blest chuckled. ‘You'll get the sack from that chap one of these days,' he said. ‘Quite the aged family retainer now, isn't he? What does he weigh?'

‘Seventeen stone and eight pounds, and proud of it. I'd recognise your little pipe anywhere, Inspector Smart,' observed a sad, thick voice from the hallway. ‘Don't go before I hang me coat up. I'd like a look at your face again. Just to look at it.'

The last words were followed by a minor disturbance which shook the walls a little and Mr Lugg billowed grandly into the room, his large white face wearing an unusually friendly expression.

‘'Ullo,' he said, eyeing his employer with truculent nonchalance. ‘I thought you was stayin' till Tuesday. Got yourself mixed up in a suicide now, I see. People lay theirselves open to somethink when they ask you down for a week-end, don't they? 'E's a 'arbinger of catastrophe,' he added, smiling at Blest. ‘Take 'im to the pictures and someone's took ill behind yer.'

Campion eyed him bitterly.

‘He's a conscious clown,' he said. ‘The life and soul of his pub in the mews. Well, I can rely on you then, Blest, can I?'

‘You can. And thank you.' The ex-Inspector shook hands. ‘So long, Dirigible,' he added, prodding the newcomer. ‘Don't ask me. Look it up.'

He went over to the door, but Lugg was before him, his short arms stiff at the sides of his black coat.

‘This way, sir, if you please,' he said with dignity. ‘Mind the rug or you'll break your neck. Good day, sir … and next time you come 'ere 'ave some gloves so I can give 'em to you like a Christian. So long.'

He closed the hall door and it was some little time before he returned, coatless and undoing his winged collar.

‘That's better,' he remarked, regarding the strip of starched linen. ‘That won't do again. I use one every time I go out nowadays. I was askin' my friends about laundries. Ours doesn't seem any worse than most, if that's any comfort to you.' He opened a drawer in the bureau and looked thoughtfully at its contents.

‘We'll 'ave to buy some new collars,' he said. ‘What do you feel like for supper? I'm 'aving me old tinned 'errings. Per'aps you'd better run out to your club.'

Campion got up. ‘You pack,' he said. ‘I've lent you.'

The ponderous form in the vast black trousers and the tight white shirt remained bent over the open drawer. There was a moment of uncomprehending silence.

‘Wot?' said Mr Lugg at last.

‘I've lent you. You're to be Mrs Sutane's butler – God help her – for a day or so, until she can get another man.'

Mr Lugg straightened his back and surveyed his employer with steady dignity. His small black eyes were cold and unfriendly.

‘You're barmy,' he said. ‘I'm no butler. I'm a gent's 'elp.'

‘Well then, learn a new trade.' Campion took out his wallet and studied the card he had taken from it. ‘I'm going out now and when I come back I want my things packed for a week and yours too. Not in the same bag. Have them at the foot of the stairs and be waiting yourself. We're going down to the country tonight.'

‘Country?' echoed Lugg in a voice of mutiny. ‘Butler in the country? You're snuffing round another crime, I suppose? I wish you'd drop this private narking of yours. You're getting old for it, for one thing. It's not smart any more. It's old-fashioned and in most people's opinion rather low. I'm sorry to 'ave to tell yer like this but that's 'ow I see it. My friends think you're very vulgar to allow ourselves to get mixed up with crime. Crime's gorn back to its proper place – the gutter – and I for one am glad of it.'

He was silent for a moment or so and evidently decided on the other tack.

‘I was goin' to suggest we travel, you and me,' he said.

‘Travel?' Campion was temporarily detracted from his own hasty preparations.

‘Mr Watson's gent is goin' on a sea trip on 'is yacht,' murmured Mr Lugg with crafty casualness. ‘A very refined type of person one meets, he says, and the motion of the boat is not disturbin' after the first day or so.'

His employer regarded him with distaste.

‘You make my flesh crawl,' he said earnestly. ‘When you were a ticket-of-leave man –'

‘'Ere – 'old 'ard!' Mr Lugg became both human and reproachful. ‘Be a gent! Some things we don't bring up if we're decent. I'll do anything you ask me in reason, you know that, but I don't 'ave to be blackmailed into it. I'm glad to see you do look a bit ashamed. You had ought to.'

‘I was going to say that in those days I found you infinitely more attractive,' said Campion, gathering up the shreds of his dignity.

‘More shame on you, then.' Lugg was not suppressed. ‘I've bettered myself, my lad, and don't you forget it. What's this noo silly idea of yours now? I'm to take a job as a butler and keep me eyes peeled, I suppose? That's not very nice in itself, is it? – getting into people's houses and nosin' about. It's a low, mean sort of trick
and
an old one. Still. I'll do it for you. I'll be obligin'. I'm to be a detective.'

‘You're to be a butler,' said Campion coldly. ‘An ordinary butler. You're to do your work and to give satisfaction. And believe me you won't have time for anything else. Now for heaven's sake shut up and get on with the packing.'

He moved towards the door. Mr Lugg sat down heavily.

‘It's madness,' he said. ‘You've never seen a real butler: I 'ave. You're lakes! Where am I goin'?'

‘White Walls, where I've been staying. It's a big house with a lot of people in it. The Sutanes own it. Jimmy Sutane, the dancer.'

‘Oh, the Sutanes …' said Mr Lugg, and his small black eyes became crafty. ‘There's somethin' chick about the stage,' he added unexpectedly. ‘Per'aps I'll come after all. I don't mind what I do so long as it's not common. Right you are, I'll pack. It'll mean wearin' a coat all day, I suppose?'

‘It will. And it'll mean keeping your mouth shut.' Campion's tone was final. Lugg sighed.

‘All right, Cocky,' he said. ‘I'll do you credit. Where are you orf to now?'

Campion glanced at the card in his hand.

‘To call upon a lady.'

‘Reelly?' Lugg was sarcastic. ‘Give 'er my love!'

‘I can't,' said Mr Campion. ‘She's dead.'

Lugg guffawed. ‘Take 'er some flahs then, smarty,' he said. ‘And stay out fer a bit. I've got to 'ave my meal before I pack.'

T
HE
warm air, foetid with the vapours from the canal, came gustily down the wide road, bringing with it a cloud of stinging dust and the rustle of paper and prematurely-fallen leaves on the pavement.

Through the vase-shaped pillars of the balustrade the gleam of grey-and-gold water was visible and below, on the tow-path, a horse plodded, its feet heavy on the clay.

The tall houses, their stained sides and chipped stucco hidden in the lamplit half-light, rose up with all their original Georgian symmetry and only the brightly lighted scenes within their many uncurtained windows betrayed their descent in the social scale of an unfaithful city. It was all very quiet and homely and forgotten.

Campion found the number he sought and pressed open the elegant but unpainted gate. The hall door under the square porch with the pillars stood open and a single dusty bulb within cast a grudging light upon worn dark oilcloth and patched, buff-painted walls.

The lower windows were in darkness, but from somewhere far above a wireless set whimpered, its programme maddeningly just out of earshot.

Campion pulled the bell and at the far end of the hall, at the foot of a short flight of stairs, a square of bright light appeared, only to vanish again immediately. He waited and after a time the door opened once more and crisp footsteps came hurrying towards him.

The woman was not entirely unexpected, in type at any rate. She was small and brisk, her hair elaborately dressed in an old-fashioned style and her silk dress enlivened at neck and elbows with little bits of white lace. Mr Campion took his courage in his hands and threw away his discretion.

‘It's about Miss Pye,' he said. ‘Could I have a word or two with you?'

He was lucky. He knew it the moment he had spoken. She came out to look up at him, and the light from the street lamp opposite the gate fell upon her face, showing it to be small and shrewd, with bright eyes and a turned-up nose which had been much admired in the nineties.

‘Why, yes,' she said, glancing behind her with the gesture of a conspirator. ‘Come along to my kitchen. We shan't be disturbed there.'

She took his sleeve and pulled him after her, her skirts rustling as she hurried.

‘There,' she said as they came into a neat little room, bright in spite of its utilitarianism. ‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable. It's not very swanky but it's cosy and clean.'

She had a pretty laugh with a catch of real gaiety in it, and her friendliness contained the whole art of the hostess.

‘I don't know who you are,' she said, smiling at him, ‘but you seem a nice boy. Did you know Chloe? Poor girl, what a finish! And she thought she was on velvet …. Have a drop of stout? It's all I've got in the house at the moment. Nonsense! You will. Of course you will.'

She bustled over to the dresser and, looking at her in the uncompromising light, he judged her to be about sixty, but alert and very pleased with herself and not, at heart, much older than she had ever been.

The panel over the shelf above the range was papered with stage photographs, and as she turned with the glasses she caught him looking at them.

‘There I am, on the left,' she said. ‘The one with the saucy little bow. Don't pretend you've heard of me, because you haven't. You were in crawlers when I was kicking my heels about. Renée Roper, that's the name. Don't worry – I never came to the West End. I did my dirty work on tour. Now what's all this about Chloe, poor girl? You were a boy-friend, I suppose?'

Mr Campion hesitated.

‘Well, not exactly. I knew her very slightly, as a matter of fact. But I was interested in her and I wanted to know more about her.'

‘She doesn't owe you money?'

Her intelligent eyes became suddenly hard and he hastened to reassure her.

‘Oh no,' he said. ‘Nothing like that. Frankly, I've got no business to come to you at all. But the fact is, she had something I wanted to know about and –'

‘Don't tell me any more.' The woman leaned across the table to pat his arm. ‘I understand. All her things are going to those terrible relations. And you've got a wife. So if there was a letter or two from you lying around it might be very awkward. Don't go into it, my boy. You're not the first good-looking youngster who's come to me in the same sort of trouble, I can tell you. I'll take you up to her room in a moment and you can have a look round. I can't do it for a minute or two, so finish your drink. Don't you say a word to anybody, mind, because if that woman Pole got to hear of it I'd never have a moment's peace.'

Mr Campion looked embarrassed. It was hardly the story he would have thought of himself, but in view of all the circumstances it seemed cavalier to refute it.

Renée Roper mistook his silence.

‘They'll be there if they're not destroyed,' she said and added, a practical touch overlying her good humour, ‘if I know Chloe they will be there. I won't say a word against her now she's gone, poor thing, but we weren't exactly old pals. She rented my little box-room at the top of the house when she was away and usually when she was in London she took my first floor duo. Very nice it is. Practically a bathroom as well.'

‘Have you known her long, Mrs —?'