The Beckoning Lady (19 page)

At that moment a shadow fell over the stone and they turned to see Superintendent South coming back, his little box in his hand.

“I forgot to ask the lady,” he said, twinkling at Campion. “Look ma'am, have you ever seen this bead before?”

Minnie peered into the box and her eyes were sharp and interested. Presently she took up the bronze bead and held it in the palm of her hand, while she turned it over with an exploring finger.

“Why yes,” she announced with great satisfaction. “Where did you get that? Don't lose it. We must put it back. That's off Tonker's party waistcoat.”

“
YES, WELL, THERE
the waistcoat is,” said Emma Bernadine, holding her sticky hands well away from herself. “Don't bring it near the table, for goodness' sake, or I shall get icing all over it. Small Fry, get out of here darlings. Go and help Minnie shell peas.”

The inner kitchen appeared to be a sea of small coloured cakes, and the three men, determined in their official capacity but as human beings acutely aware that they were in the way, stood back against the inner door.

Rupert and the twins, jammy-faced and excited, scrambled off the floor and herded into a corner, where they stood hesitating, hoping to be forgotten.

“Be off!” Emma was harassed. A wisp of dark hair had escaped her white head-dress and she dared not touch it but had to keep blowing it out of her eyes.

“Many happy relations,” Rupert ventured softly, but something had gone wrong with his spell, for so far that day he had had no success with it.

The twins, who were more practical, put the inevitable retreat to account. Blue Drawers gave one hand to Rupert and took a cake with the other, while Yellow Drawers took two cakes. All Rupert had to do was to open the door to the back kitchen. Emma was still talking.

“That's the only beaded waistcoat in the house, or in the county for all I know,” she was saying, as the children trooped off shedding crumbs. “It's genuine Victorian beadwork and you can see for yourselves that it's never been worn. I bought it at a sale of work in the village, and brought it home in my shopping bag just as it was, half done. Miss Knipp turned it out. It was made by her grandmother who died before it was finished. I left it in
the cloakroom to get ready for the party. It's to be a surprise for Tonker. And it's hung where you found it for quite six weeks.”

Superintendent South, who had been with Luke into the small square room beyond the wash-basins to find the garment, now carried it over to the light. Both police officers were a little at sea, for beside the usual country house paraphernalia of gardening boots, guns, and golf clubs, the cloakroom at The Beckoning Lady had yielded a large red false beard hanging on a hook, a cavalry sword, a racing crash helmet, and a small black human skull which had proved after some excitement to be part of an articulated skeleton such as can be found in most art schools.

The waistcoat, which had been on a hanger hidden under an oilskin cape, was an impressive affair of tan watered silk, embroidered in a bold masculine pattern of acanthus leaves in bronze, black and white beads. But the embroideress of long ago had never seen her work in use, for the sheets of notepaper which she had used to protect the pattern as she finished it were still tacked in place, and only the final quarter-inch or so remained to be done. The button-holes were made, but as yet there were no cat's-eyes to correspond with them. Where the pattern remained to be finished the beads were loose.

South turned it over and finally hung it against his chest for a moment, before comparing it with the bead he carried about. There was no possible doubt about the similarity. He glanced at Luke, who shrugged his shoulders, and the Superintendent returned the waistcoat to its hanger.

“I should like to see the gentleman actually wearing that tomorrow,” he remarked, “so perhaps we won't borrow it after all. These beads seem to be all over the place. Ohman could have picked one up anywhere.”

“Little Doom probably tried the waistcoat up against himself just as you've done,” said Emma. “It's the sort of impudent thing he would do.”

“Impudent?” Mr. Campion fastened on the word hastily, lest relations became strained. “That's a new word in connection with Little Doom.”

“Is it? Then the only person you've discussed him with is Minnie, and one doesn't have to be three detectives to tell that.” Emma began to beat up a bowl of icing as though she disliked it personally. “I expect she simply told you what a help he was, and how he took a load of worry off her shoulders. No one else found him anything but a menace.”

Her powerful forearm rested for an instant and she pointed a dripping spoon at South.

“That man was one long prying nose,” she announced. “Hasn't it occurred to you all that we're taking your inquisition remarkably calmly? Don't you think it peculiar that we're all getting on with our work and letting you poke about as if you were nothing out of the ordinary? Well, let me tell you you're not. We're used to this sort of thing. We have it every day. We're not surprised to open our kitchen doors and find that someone has undone the stove to see how much fuel we're burning. We're not astounded to be asked who we've telephoned or why, or where the half-bottle of gin that was on the sideboard last week has gone to, or if the new piece of soap in the cloakroom was really necessary. That's the kind of insane life we've been leading, and the reason for it is that Minnie let the little brute into the house and then daren't get rid of him. If he really is dead, I tell you I'm more than glad. I'm hysterical with joy.”

Luke made a sudden movement but a hand like a band of steel closed over his arm and he was forced to keep silent as a little sigh escaped the Superintendent.

“Jake was the only person who treated him with any intelligence,” Emma continued, her round face flushed and her eyes bright. “He started on Jake and Jake threw him on the hive, and that was the last we saw of him in our cottage. Tonker hid from the man and Minnie encouraged him. Minnie always feels that if she suffers she'll be
lucky, that her work will sell, or get better, or something equally idiotic.”

“Oh I don't know,” murmured Mr. Campion. “I think Minnie felt she'd like a visible irritant.”

Emma laughed bitterly. “This way we all shared it, certainly,” she said. “Do you know, he actually came and timed me working on those rooms upstairs? Oh, he
did
enjoy his little bit of power.”

South was beaming. “You ought to stop and have a cigarette,” he said, feeling in his pocket and looking hopefully at Campion. “You've been working too hard. It's not worth it. When did you see this difficult gentleman last? Do you remember?”

“I haven't spoken to him for some months. We weren't on speaking terms.” Emma waved Mr. Campion's cigarette-case away and continued to beat the icing. “I saw him last week on Thursday afternoon, some time between four-fifteen and four-thirty.”

“Did you though?” Luke came back into the enquiry with a rush, and the force of his personality lit up the kitchen and silenced the busy spoon. “How do you know the time so exactly?”

“Because,” said Emma, looking at him critically for the first time, and responding suddenly to something she saw in him, “my husband and I were in our cottage listening to Mrs. Dale's Diary on the radio, as we always do at four-fifteen. We
like
it,” she added defiantly.

“Do you? So does my mum.” Luke was beaming at her, his eyes alive and bright and his dark face friendly. “So does
his
wife, I'll bet,” he added, with a ferocious grin at South. “You were listening, were you? That's all right. Your husband didn't tell us that. Come to that, he didn't tell us much.”

“Jake doesn't admit he likes it,” said Emma.

“I know.” Luke was happier. “He just happens to be doing something quiet in the room when it's on. That's natural enough. You saw Little Doom?—this name is going to get me into trouble, I can see that. It'll sound well if I
come out with it in court. You saw Little Doom while you were in your cottage listening to Mrs. Dale? Where was he?”

“Haring down the drive, apparently for his life,” said Emma calmly.

“Away from the house?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone behind him?”

“No, not a soul. I watched to see. He was all right too. I mean there wasn't any—he wasn't hurt.”

Luke turned enquiringly to Mr. Campion and the thin man answered his unspoken question.

“He wouldn't have got very far with the injuries I saw. How do you feel about that. Superintendent?”

Fred South shook his head. For once he was not laughing. His comic face wore an expression which was almost thoughtful.

“Was he running away or running to, ma'am?” he said at last. “It's a different kind of run.”

Emma did not answer. For the first time her hard brightness had wavered and there was a lot of colour in her face.

“I—I don't know,” she said at last.

“Were you surprised to see him?”

“Surprised to see Little Doom? I wouldn't be surprised if I saw him coming down the chimney or up out of the copper! I noticed him particularly that day only because it was unusual for him to be on the drive. As I said, he avoided our cottage after the hive incident, and the donkey didn't like him. But I wasn't surprised. In the normal way he came down the footpath from the village, crossed the lane, and took the path across the meadow by the barn to the front door. I didn't see him arrive, and I was in the cottage all day, so since he left his portrait in the barn, probably he came the way he usually did.”

“But left running down the drive?” said South.

Luke was frowning and she took up the palette knife with which she had been spreading the icing and drew a rough plan for him on a slab of sponge cake.

“Look,” she said, “this is the map of the place. It's like an arrow in a bow. The lane is straight and the drive is roughly a half-circle on one side of it. It is a very big half-circle, and inside it there is a meadow and the barn and various other outbuildings. Our cottage is down here, about twenty yards from the lower gates. That's the bow. The footpath from the village is the arrow. It meets the lane in the middle of the half-circle and one can go on into the meadow and along by the barn. Got it? From our cottage we can't see anyone approaching the house by the barn, because of the hedge and the bank between us and it.”

“Wonderful,” said Luke, putting out his hands for the cake, “we'll take it with us.”

“I should say so!” Emma was laughing, her temper restored, and the tapping at the door which led into the back kitchen continued for some seconds before anybody noticed it.

The new arrival proved to be the village constable, a large elderly man, very red and profoundly uneasy. He stooped automatically as he passed through the doorway, as he who habitually wears a helmet must, and looked from one to the other of the plainclothes men anxiously.

“Could I have a word with you gentlemen in private?” he enquired in a slow, deep, wondering voice. “I've come up against something.”

Luke and South followed him at once but Mr. Campion, seizing the opportunity, lingered.

“Emma,” he said with the unconvincing carelessness of the would-be borrower, “do you know if there's any dormital in the house?”

“Dormital? I should hope not.” She ceased her work to look at him. “Never take that, sweetie. If you happen to mix it with alcohol it's death, just like that. Or so they say.”

“Really?” he enquired mendaciously. “How do you know?”

“Know? The papers have been full of it, or they were
last winter. I don't believe you townees read any more. It's the same as that stuff that ends in sodium. I thought they'd stopped it being sold. I don't suppose one would kill you if you had a drink some time during the same day, but take a couple or so and an ounce or two of whisky, especially if you're one of these people whose livers are a bit brown round the edges anyway, and you go out like a light. What do you want that sort of filth for? If you ran about a bit in this air you'd sleep all right.”

“I see,” he said, sounding deflated. “I only thought Uncle William might have had some.”

“William? Good heavens, he wouldn't have had any within a mile of him.” Emma's glance was concentrated on the pale green glue she was spreading over a cake. “William was petrified of that sort of filth. I used to help Dinah to get him to bed when Minnie had to go to London, and you never heard such a set-out as he used to make over the pluminol which the doctor left him. I told him he'd have to take the best part of a box before it hurt him, but he didn't believe me. Poor old boy, he did so want to live. Wasn't it a shame?”

“A beastly shame,” said Mr. Campion with more feeling than he had intended. “And so is this other business,” he added hastily.

“Little Doom?” She shrugged her shoulders. “It will be, if it rots up the party. Albert, for heaven's sake don't let them spoil my party. I just couldn't bear it. I mean it. It's an Orphan's Outing for me. I shall die if anything stops it. They seem all right, those men. One of them is a bit sensational, isn't he? Glowing with it. Who's the lucky girl?”

Mr. Campion sighed. “Prune,” he said.

“Prune?” She was appalled. “Oh no,
not
hopeless love.”

“'Fraid so. Forget it.”

“I shall try to. Jake calls her the Snow Queen. I call her the Marble No-Bust. She's no earthly good to that chap. He's alive.”

“So far,” said Mr. Campion sadly, and went off to find the others.

He came out into the yard just in time to see Amanda standing on the drive talking to a curious gnarled figure whose earth-coloured garments had such a quality of stiffness that the whole man seemed to be made of old wood. They did not appear to be saying very much, but the way they stood suggested the wordless communication peculiar to the countryside. As Campion stepped out of the house the old person moved off in the direction of the barn meadow, and Amanda turned her head towards her husband, who had paused in astonishment. For after he had touched his forehead, one of Old Harry's thumbs had turned upward in a gesture both modern and explicit.