More Work for the Undertaker (20 page)

He was getting over his fright and reasserting himself. The difference between this story and the last was subtle but inescapable. There was now none of the carefree ease of improvisation. Campion felt he was probably telling some sort of version of the truth.

‘I was just settling down to my meal when Mr Grace knocked, and as I knew the family I got up at once, put on my black coat, took my measure and went over,' he continued. ‘Mr Grace said he'd rather not come upstairs, but there was nothing surprising in that. Often people won't take you up, even when it's someone they know well. On the other hand, some enjoy it. It's temperament. Anyhow I wasn't surprised when he left me on the stairs. “Leave it to me, sir,” I said. “I'm not likely to niake any serious mistake of identity.” That was my little joke but 'e didn't see it. Anyway, I went up alone, all quiet and respectful, for we tread as light as we can. I hesitated in the doorway, just to make sure, and there he was – washing up.'

‘Mr Lawrence Palinode?'

‘Yes.'

‘In Miss Ruth's bedroom?'

‘Yes. There was the dead lady covered with a sheet, and there was her brother – cool, but nervous, if I make myself plain – with every mortal cup or glass or spoon the room contained out on the old-fashioned wash-stand. He was dipping the last one into the jug as I came in and he swung round like a shop-lifter when he heard the door. The next moment he was very polite and kindly, but of course I'd seen him. As soon as
I was alone I took a look at what he'd been up to. Quite clean, they were, spread out all along the marble. It was quite open.'

He sounded mildly indignant.

‘Is that all?'

‘The whole truth, sir. I thought it was significant.'

‘Have you told anybody else?'

‘No one. That's a lesson I learnt at my father's knee. “Undertakers don't talk no more than their clients”; that was 'is motto. Of course when the ex'umation order came along I thought to myself, but I didn't speak. It's some time ago, and it's only my word against his, isn't it?'

This was very true. Campion was digesting the information and its probable worth when Jas rose.

‘Could I offer you a glass of anything? Mr Luke says I drink embalming mixture, but that's only 'is idea of fun.'

‘No, thank you. I'm just going.' Campion got up a little too quickly. His sudden movement startled the old man and he glanced sharply across the room to the corner immediately behind his guest.

Campion was too old a bird to look at once, but as he resettled his chair tidily under the table before following his unprotesting host towards the door he glanced casually at his side and received the shock of the day.

There was a grandfather clock in the alcove beside the range and next it, flattened between it and the wall, not four feet behind his chair a man was standing. He was completely motionless and deep in the shadow, and must have been there throughout the entire interview.

Campion went on out of the door which the undertaker was holding open for him. His step was light and brisk, his face misleadingly blank. His host felt fairly certain that he had noticed nothing unusual.

However, as he hurried across the road, nodding to the dapper figure of Mr James, the bank manager, who saluted him graciously with a furled umbrella, he turned up his collar and prepared to push through the small crowd of sightseers which had begun to collect outside the front gate
of Portminster Lodge. He was particularly thoughtful.

That polished skull and wobbling blob of a lower lip had been distinctive, and he gave his full attention to the hitherto neglected ubiquity of Mr Congreve.

‘
ALL RIGHT. DON'T
say another word. I'm going. I've had it. You've taken me wrong and I've had it.'

Mr Campion paused in the doorway from the area just in time to catch the full force of the words. Clarrie Grace was standing half-way across the kitchen in an attitude unconsciously theatrical. He was dressed for travel.

Renee faced him from the stove. She was red and trembling, but even in the height of rage her full eyes were troubled and kindly still.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Clarrie,' she exclaimed, ‘put a sock in it, do! Go if you want to, but don't say I threw you out and don't tell the street about it. There's a crowd outside, I hope you know.'

Clarrie shut his mouth and opened it again. He glanced at Campion and found in him a heaven-sent audience.

‘Love,' he said to Renee, ‘love. Dear, dear, sweet old girl. Have a lick, just a lick of common. I'm only trying to help you. I don't want to see you make a fool of yourself. If you like to think I've interfered, I'm sorry.' And then, at the top of his voice: ‘I think you're damned well barmy, that's all!'

‘That'll do.' She was very crisp and commanding. ‘Don't open your mouth again. You've said quite enough. I shan't forget it, Clarrie. He's making all this fuss, Albert, simply because I told the child I shall ask her boy here. Poor kid! he's got to go somewhere, hasn't he? He's got no home and no money, and they won't keep him in hospital indefinitely. Isn't that just the way to make a girl do a silly thing, to turn your back and leave her with the responsibility like that? Go on, Albert, answer me.'

Mr Campion saw any hope he may have had of remaining discreet and neutral vanishing abruptly.

‘I've not quite gathered what it's all about,' he said cautiously. ‘It's Clytie and Mike Dunning, is it?'

‘Well, of course, dear. Don't be a fool.' Her asperity stung round his ears like a carriage-whip. ‘I'm not proposing to run an orphan asylum.'

‘I thought you were,' muttered Clarrie infuriatingly, so that she turned on him.

‘You make me tired, you do, all you men. Here's a nice motherly girl – don't you laugh, Clarrie; I know – all young and upset, and very much smitten, worrying what to do for a poor sick boy. If I have him here I can have a look at him, can't I? If he's not suitable, and no one knows that until they've met him, then we can put her off him in a proper Christian way . . .'

Clarrie made a noise like a skittish horse.

‘So you're proposing to nag the poor kids, are you? This is new. You didn't tell me this.'

‘Rubbish! I'm only trying to look after her as if she were my own.'

He sat down at the table, folded his arms, and laid his head, hat and all, upon them.

‘Why?'

‘Why?'

‘Yes, why! Isn't that what the whole blessed barney is about? Look here, Campion, you be judge. I've been trying to tell this silly old duck – whom I love like a ruddy mother, mind you – that she can't look after the perishing world. That's fair isn't it? Isn't that fair?'

Renee's reaction was unexpectedly violent.

‘Piggy!' She screwed up her eyes in an attempt, apparently, to convey the image visually. ‘Pure Piggy! Oh, it's not your fault. Your mother was all right, she was a pal of mine, and a more generous girl never breathed. But your dad! . . . I can see him in you this minute, the rat.'

Mr Grace made no attempt to defend his father, but he looked crestfallen and aggrieved. Campion received the
impression that the blow was below the belt. It was evident that Renee thought so, for she became, if not apologetic, at least anxious to justify herself.

‘Well, it's not nice to keep watching what others are getting. What if I do give the family upstairs a little more than they can pay for? I can afford it and it's my business. Sneaking round and trying to pump old Congreve at the bank about my account isn't gentlemanly.'

‘That's a lie, of course.' Clarrie spoke without conviction. ‘Besides, Congreve doesn't give much away. He's trying to pump me half the time. He scraped acquaintance with me and I told you about it, and you said – stop me, if I'm wrong – that banks always were nosey.'

‘You're an eel, nothing but an eel.' She gave Campion a faint uneasy smile. ‘I know what I'm doing,' she said.

‘If you do, that's all right.' Clarrie sounded weary. ‘I only tried to protect you, you silly old fool. I just see half-a-dozen elderly number eight hats taking more out than they put in. I don't want to know why you let them, mind you – although that would seem queer to some people – I only wondered if you could do it. Since you say you can, and you assure me you're not setting fair for the poor-box, I'll say no more. Keep the lovebirds, sweetheart, and half the street besides if you like, I don't care.'

Miss Roper kissed him. ‘That's an apology,' she said. ‘Now don't spoil it. Do take your hat off in the house, love. Look, Albert does.'

‘Sorry, I'm bloody sure!' said Mr Grace, and, snatching off the offending felt, he threw it at the stove, where it rolled among the cooking pots and began to smell at once. Miss Roper's dying passion flared. Quick as a lizard, she hooked the poker into the cooking ring and thrust the hat into the flames. The iron ring sat down on it, blotting it out for ever. Then, without turning, she busied herself, moving pots and kettles with busy importance.

Perfectly white, and with tears of fury in his flat blue eyes, Clarrie rose to his feet and opened his mouth.

Mr Campion, seeing no good purpose he could possibly
serve, left the old friends together, finding touch, so to speak, just outside the door to the back stairs. There he all but fell over Mrs Love, who was kneeling by a pail at the foot of them.

‘'As 'e gorn, I say 'as 'e gorn?' she demanded, hopping up and seizing him by the coat sleeve. ‘I can't 'ear everything, I say I can't hear everything.'

She was shouting and Mr Campion, who had formed the impression that she could not hear
anything,
bellowed, ‘I hope not.'

‘So do I,' she said in a surprisingly normal murmur, adding unexpectedly, ‘it's a funny thing, though, I say it's a funny thing.'

As he edged his way round her he realized that the repeated statement indicated that some sort of reply was not only expected but demanded.

‘Is it?' he ventured non-committally, gaining the stairs.

‘Well, of course it is.' She thrust her rosy ancient face very close to his own. ‘Why should she give them so much free? They're only lodgers, aren't they? You would think she owed 'em something, I say you'd think she owed 'em something.'

The shrill words, which were so uncomfortably shrewd, echoed his own thoughts and brought him to a pause.

‘Going up to yer room now?' she inquired, and suddenly grovelled. ‘There!' she said. ‘There! I never told you. It went out of me mind, see? It's all the 'appenings put it out of me mind. There's a gentleman in your room come to see you about arf an hower ago. Seemed very respectable, I say very respectable, so I put 'im up there.'

‘Did you, though?' said Mr Campion, who expected no caller. He moved towards the staircase. Her voice followed him cheerfully.

‘I wouldn't let no ordin'ry person in there, because you never know what you're going to miss, I say you never know what you're going to miss.'

She must, he thought, be quite audible all over the house. He paused before the door of his own bedroom in surprise.

There was a conversation going on inside. No words were
distinguishable, but the sounds which reached him suggested a polite social gathering. His eyebrows rising, he pushed open the door and went in.

Miss Evadne was sitting on the nordic throne before the dressing-table, with her back to the mirror. She was still wearing the long Paisley garment in which he had first seen her, but now there was a lace fichu draped over her shoulders, and a diamond ring in an old-fashioned gold setting shone on her large well-shaped hand. At her feet, wrestling with the plug of the electric kettle, which he was attempting to mend with a nail-file, knelt a rotund grey-haired man in formal black coat and striped trousers.

As he raised his head Campion recognized him as Sir William Glossop, the financial expert and adviser to the Treasury, whom he knew but slightly.

WHEN CAMPION ENTERED,
the amateur electrician would have risen gratefully had not Miss Palinode's gesture kept him on his knees.

‘Do please go on. You're managing very nicely.' Her gracious cultured voice was packed with authority. ‘I think that little screw goes there, doesn't it? No, perhaps not. You're out a great deal,' she added, presumably to Campion.

It was very gentle chiding.

‘I am trying to get quite ready for my little conversazione tomorrow, and I noticed that this difficult thing had come apart. So annoying of it! I am not very clever with my hands, I am afraid.'

Her laugh, which was delightful, conveyed that a notion so absurd was amusing and yet somehow flattering to them.

‘So I came along to find you. I know you theatrical people are so resourceful. You weren't here, you see, but your colleague came to my rescue.'

Sir William favoured Campion with a glance from under his lashes. His small sophisticated mouth was pursed with irritation. Anyone less like any actor he had yet met Campion could not imagine. He held out his hands.

‘I'll have a go, shall I?' he suggested.

‘I really wish you would.' The announcement was heartfelt and the older man rose, to take a more congenial position on the hearthrug.

Miss Evadne smiled at him.

‘“You do look, my son, in a moved sort,”' she quoted ‘“as if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir: our revels now are ended.”' She watched his face with an amused tolerance which he found disconcerting.

‘I'm afraid these gadgets are beyond me,' he said uneasily. He was not a man who believed in the smile as a social lubricant. Miss Evadne found him shy.

‘You're not a Shakespearian, I see,' she said kindly. ‘I took it that you were. Now why was that?' Her glance, falling on his Falstaffian girth, reminded her and her eyes twinkled. ‘Never mind. You must both come in tomorrow, of course. I don't know that there will be anyone particularly influential there this week. However, it should be amusing, I think.'