Murder Most Merry (70 page)

“I’ve had bad luck lately,” the Superintendent said seriously. “Too much. It won’t help my memoirs if I go out in a blaze of no-enthusiasm.”

“You’re thinking of the Phaeton Robbery,” Mr. Campion suggested. “What are you calling your memoirs?
Man-Eaters of the Yard
?”

Oates’s mild old eyes brightened, but not greatly.

“Something of the kind,” he admitted. “But no one could be blamed for not solving that blessed Phaeton business. Everyone concerned was bonkers. A silly old musical star, for thirty years the widow of an eccentric Duke, steps out into her London garden one autumn morning leaving the street door wide open and all her most valuable jewelry collected from strong-rooms all over the country lying in a brown paper parcel on her bureau in the first room off the hall. Her excuse was that she was just going to take it to the Bond Street auctioneers and was carrying it herself for safety! The thief was equally mental to lift it.”

“It wasn’t saleable?”

“Saleable? It couldn’t even be broken up. The stuff is just about as well-known as the Crown Jewels. Great big enamels which the old Duke had collected at great expense. No fence would stay in the same room with them, yet, of course, they are worth the Earth as every newspaper has told us at length ever since they were pinched!”

“He didn’t get anything else either, did he?”

“He was a madman.” Oates dismissed him with contempt. “All he gained was the old lady’s housekeeping money for a couple of months which was in her handbag—about a hundred and fifty quid—and the other two items which were on the same shelf, a soapstone monkey and a plated paperknife. He simply wandered in, took the first things he happened to see and wandered out again. Any sneak thief, tramp, or casual snapper-upper could have done it and who gets blamed?
Me!
”

He looked so woebegone that Mr. Campion hastily changed the subject. “Where are we going?” he inquired. “To call on her ladyship? Do I understand that at the age of one hundred and forty-six or whatever it is she is cohabiting with a Brig? Which war?”

“I can’t tell you.” Oates was literal as usual. “It could be the South African. They’re all in a nice residential hotel—the sort of place that is very popular with the older members of the landed gentry just now.”

“When you say landed, you mean as in Fish?”

“Roughly, yes. Elderly people living on capital. About forty of them. This place used to be called
The Haven
and has now been taken over by two ex-society widows and renamed
The
Ccraven
—with two Cs. It’s a select hotel-cum-Old Ducks’ Home for Mother’s Friends. You know the sort of place?”

“I can envisage it. Don’t say your murdered chum from The Humdinger lived there too?”

“No, he lived in a more modest place whose garden backs on the CCraven’s grounds. The Brigadier and one of the other residents, a Mr. Charlie Taunton, who has become a bosom friend of his, were in the habit of talking to Sampson over the wall. Taunton is a lazy man who seldom goes out and has little money but he very much wanted to get some gifts for his fellow guests— something in the nature of little jokes from the chain stores, I understand; but he dreaded the exertion of shopping for them and Sampson appears to have offered to get him some little items wholesale and to deliver them by six o’clock on Christmas Eve—in time for him to package them up and hand them to Lady Larradine who was dressing the tree at seven.”

“And did you say Sampson actually did this?” Mr. Campion sounded bewildered.

“Both old gentlemen—the Brigadier and Taunton—swear to it. They insist they went down to the wall at six and Sampson handed the parcel over as arranged. My Inspector is an experienced man and he doesn’t think we’ll be able to shake either of them.”

“That leaves Kroll with a complete alibi. How did these Chipperwood witnesses hear of Sampson’s death?”

“Routine. The local police called at Sampson’s home address this morning to report the death, only to discover the place closed. The landlady and her family are away for the holiday and Sampson himself was due to spend it with Girlski. The police stamped about a bit, making sure of all this, and in the course of their investigations they were seen and hailed by the two old boys in the adjoining garden. The two were shocked to hear that their kind acquaintance was dead and volunteered the information that he had been with them at six.”

Mr. Campion looked blank. “Perhaps they don’t keep the same hours as anybody else,” he suggested. “Old people can be highly eccentric.”

Oates shook his head. “We thought of that. My Inspector, who came down the moment the local police reported, insists that they are perfectly normal and quite positive. Moreover, they had the purchases. He saw the packages already on the tree. Lady Larradine pointed them out to him when she asked after you. She’ll be delighted to see you, Campion.”

“I can hardly wait!”

“You don’t have to,” said Oates grimly as they pulled up before a huge Edwardian villa. “It’s all yours.”

“My dear Boy! You haven’t aged any more than I have!”

Lady Larradine’s tremendous voice—one of her chief terrors, Mr. Campion recollected—echoed over the crowded first-floor room where she received them. There she stood in an outmoded but glittering evening gown looking, as always, exactly like a spray-flecked seal.

“I
knew
you’d come,” she bellowed. “As soon as you got my oblique little S. O. S. How do you like our little hideout? Isn’t it
fun!
Moira Spryg-Fysher and Janice Poole-Poole wanted something to do, so we all put our pennies in it and here we are!”

“Almost too marvelous,” murmured Mr. Campion in all sincerity. “We really want a word with Brigadier Brose and Mr. Taunton.”

“Of course you do and so you shall! We’re all waiting for the Christmas tree. Everybody will be there for that in about ten minutes in the drawing room. My dear, when
we
came they were calling it the Residents’ Lounge!”

Superintendent Oates remained grave. He was startled to discover that the dragon was not only fierce but also wily. The news that her apparently casual mention of Mr. Campion to the Inspector had been a ruse to get hold of him shocked the innocent Superintendent. He retaliated by insisting that he must see the witnesses at once.

Lady Larradine silenced him with a friendly roar. “My dear man, you can’t! They’ve gone for a walk. I always turn men out of the house after Christmas luncheon. They’ll soon be back. The Brigadier won’t miss his Tree! Ah. Here’s Fiona. This is Janice Poole-Poole’s daughter, Albert. Isn’t she a pretty girl?”

Mr. Campion saw Miss Poole-Poole with relief, knowing of old that Oates was susceptible to the type. The newcomer was young and lovely and even her beehive hair and the fact that she appeared to have painted herself with two black eyes failed to spoil the exquisite smile she bestowed on the helpless officer.

“Fabulous to have you really here,” she said and sounded as if she meant it. While he was still recovering. Lady Larradine led Oates to the window.

“You can’t see it because it’s pitch-dark,” she said, “but out there, down in the garden, there’s a wall and it was over it that the Brigadier and Mr. Taunton spoke to Mr. Sampson at six o’clock last night. No one liked the man Sampson—I think Mr. Taunton was almost afraid of him. Certainly he seems to have died very untidily!”

“But he
did
buy Mr. Taunton’s Christmas gifts for him?”

The dragon lifted a webby eyelid. “You have already been told that. At six last night Mr. Taunton and the Brigadier went to meet him to get the box. I got them into their mufflers so I know! I had the packing paper ready, too. for Mr. Taunton to take up to his room... Rather a small one on the third floor.”

She lowered her voice to reduce it to the volume of distant traffic. “Not many pennies, but a dear little man!”

“Did you
see
these presents, Ma’am?”

“Not before they were wrapped! That would have spoiled the surprise!”

“I shall have to see them.” There was a mulish note in the Superintendent’s voice which the lady was too experienced to ignore.

“I’ve thought how to do that without upsetting anybody,” she said briskly. “The Brigadier and I will cut the presents from the Tree and Fiona will be handing them round. All Mr. Taunton’s little gifts are in the very distinctive black and gold paper I bought from Millie’s Boutique and so, Fiona, you must give every package in black and gold not to the person to whom it is addressed but to the Superintendent. Can you do that, dear?”

Miss Poole-Poole seemed to feel the task difficult but not impossible and the trusting smile she gave Oates cut short his objection like the sun melting frost.

“Splendid!” The dragon’s roar was hearty. “Give me your arm, Superintendent. You shall take me down.”

As the procession reached the hall, it ran into the Brigadier himself. He was a large, pink man. affable enough, but of a martial type and he bristled at the Superintendent. “Extraordinary time to do your business—middle of Christmas Day!” he said after acknowledging the introductions.

Oates inquired if he had enjoyed his walk.

“Talk?” said the Brigadier. “I’ve not been talking. I’ve been asleep in the card room. Where’s old Taunton?”

“He went for a walk, Athole dear,” bellowed the dragon gaily.

“So he did. You sent him! Poor feller.”

As the old soldier led the way to the open door of the drawing room, it occurred to both the Superintendent and Mr. Campion that the secret of Lady Larradine’s undoubted attraction for the Brigadier lay in the fact that he could hear
her
if no one else. The discovery cast a new light altogether on the story of the encounter with Sampson in the garden.

Meanwhile, they had entered the drawing room and the party had begun. As Mr. Campion glanced at the company, ranged in a full circle round a magnificent tree loaded with gifts and sparkling like a waterfall, he saw face after familiar face. They were elder acquaintances of the dizzy 1930s whom he had mourned as gone forever, when he thought of them at all. Yet here they all were, not only alive but released by great age from many of the restraints of convention.

He noticed that every type of headgear from night-cap to tiara was being sported with fine individualistic enthusiasm. But Lady Larradine gave him little time to look about. She proceeded with her task immediately.

Each guest had been provided with a small invalid table beside his armchair, and Oates, reluctant but wax in Fiona’s hands, was no exception. The Superintendent found himself seated between a mountain in flannel and a wraith in mauve mink, waiting his turn with the same beady-eyed avidity.

Christmas Tree procedure at the CCraven proved to be well organized. The dragon did little work herself. Armed with a swagger stick, she merely prodded parcel after parcel hanging amid the boughs while the task of detaching them was performed by the Brigadier who handed them to Fiona. Either to add to the excitement or perhaps to muffle any unfortunate comment on gifts received by the uninhibited company, jolly Christmas music was played throughout, and under cover of the noise Mr. Campion was able to tackle his hostess.

“Where is Taunton?” he whispered.

“Such a nice little man. Most presentable, but just a little teeny-weeny bit dishonest.”

Lady Larradine ignored the question in his eyes and continued to put him in the picture at great speed, while supervising the Tree at the same time. “Fifty-seven convictions, I believe, but only small ones. I only got it all out of him last week. Shattering! He’d been so
useful
, amusing the Brigadier. When he came, he looked like a lost soul with no luggage, but after no time at all he settled in perfectly.”

She paused and stabbed at a ball of colored cellophane with her stick before returning to her startled guest.

“Albert, I am terribly afraid that it was poor Mr. Taunton who took that dreadful jewelry of Maisie Phaeton’s. It appears to have been entirely her fault. He was merely wandering past her house, feeling in need of care and attention. The door was wide open and Mr. Taunton suddenly found himself inside, picking up a few odds and ends. When he discovered from all that fuss in the newspapers what he had got hold of—how well-known it was, I mean—he was quite horrified and had to hide. And where better place than here with us where he never had to go out?”

“Where indeed!” Mr. Campion dared not glance across the room at the Superintendent unwrapping his black and gold parcels. “Where is he now? Poor Mr. Taunton, I mean.”

“Of course I hadn’t the faintest idea what was worrying the man until he confessed,” the dragon went on stonily. Then I realized that something would have to be done at once to protect everybody. The wretch had hidden all that frightful stuff in our toolshed for three months, not daring to keep it in the house: and to make matters worse, the impossible person at the end of the garden, Mr. Sampson, had recognized him and
would
keep speaking. Apparently people in the—er—underworld all know each other just like those of us in— er—other closed circles do.”