More Work for the Undertaker (28 page)

Her reply was lost to him, for at that moment the door was opened abruptly and Clarrie Grace, looking flushed and harassed, swept in with a tray on which was an unopened bottle of Irish whisky, a siphon and half a dozen glasses.

‘Miss Roper's compliments,' he announced, addressing the room as if it were an audience. ‘Everything's sealed, so no cold feet, anybody.'

He planted the tray on the desk end of the dining table, flashed his stage smile at them, and rushed out again very quickly to show he did not want to overhear any secrets.

The police ignored the entire incident and continued their muttered consultations, but Miss Jessica turned to her champion.

‘A silly woman but so kind,' she observed.

‘Perhaps so,' he agreed absently, and his glance strayed to the portrait over the mantel. To his amazement, for he had forgotten her gift, she behaved as if he had spoken his thought aloud. She coloured slightly.

‘Oh, you know, do you?' she said softly. ‘The likeness is so very marked, isn't it? Her mother danced, I believe.'

He stared at her and she hurried on, still speaking very softly but greatly enjoying the sensation she was making.

‘She was also an excellent business woman, I believe. My mother, the poetess, whom I resemble, never knew of her existence, nor of the daughter, of course, but my father was a just man and he provided very handsomely for them. I think he must have known that Renee had inherited his practical ability, whereas none of the rest of us had, for he made certain that all the house property, for which he had a sentimental regard, went to her. That is why we accept so much from her.'

While he was still digesting this information she leaned close to him to whisper something which made him believe her utterly just as surely as it took his breath away.

‘Please be very discreet. You see,
she does not know we know.
That way there is no embarrassment on either side.'

Her gentle voice was touched with complacency as she folded her hands on the matter, very much as the poetess must have done in the grimly practical days when Victoria was queen. Even Luke, who came striding over with a flea in his ear, did not shake her equanimity. She sat down where he told her to and answered his opening questions with complete assurance.

From the beginning, Campion found the ordeal a good deal more nerve-racking than she did. It was the old nightmare situation dreaded by all good policemen; in this case doubly unsatisfactory since it soon became obvious that she might easily have made any sort of silly mistake in her potion-brewing, while no man in the room believed for a moment that she was guilty of the premeditated crimes which had occurred.

He was on the point of turning away from the unbearable interview when Miss Jessica's voice cut across his milling thoughts.

‘Oh, is that the glass Lawrence drank from? Do be careful of it. It's one of Evadne's sherries. She's only got two left. They're old Bristol.'

The words detached themselves from the immediate present and hung in front of him, very small and clear, as if they were printed in hard black type across a picture of the room.

Immediately two major problems became urgent.

Luke, who was holding the small green glass in a folded handkerchief, happened to look at him, his bright odd-shaped eyes questioning. Campion bent over Miss Jessica, surprised to find his voice shaking.

‘I've seen flowers in those glasses,' he said. ‘Doesn't your sister use them for flowers sometimes? Everlasting flowers?'

‘Flowers?' She was horrified. ‘Oh, no. They're the last of my father's sherry glasses. Evadne would never use them for anything else. They're very precious. I didn't realize she had put them out today. They are usually kept on the mantelshelf. There was no sherry. That was why we had to make something else.'

Campion had ceased to listen to her. With a word of apology he turned on his heel and went out of the room, crossed to the drawing-room where Lawrence lay and asked him a single, and, as it seemed to the sick man, utterly absurd and irrelevant question.

‘Well, yes,' said Lawrence Palinode in reply. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact we did. Always. It was a custom left from happier days. All of us. Yes. On every occasion. Good heavens! You're not suggesting . . .'

Campion left him. He was moving very quickly and he put his head into the dining-room looking like a bleached edition of himself in youth.

‘Come on,' he said to Luke with brisk authority. ‘Proof first, I suppose, and then, my lad, that net of yours had better close if we haven't left it too late.'

THE CROWD BEFORE
Portminster Lodge had shrunk like a flannel patch in the wet. Five minutes earlier Dice had opened the front door and invited the Press inside for what he was pleased to call ‘a bit of a chat with Inspector Bowden', and as the last soaked overcoat passed gratefully within, the four men, who did not wish to be observed, came quietly up the area steps and disappeared ostensibly in different directions.

They met in the mouth of the mews. Lugg and Charlie Luke went round to the front entrance of the bank and Yeo and Campion stood on the stone step of the small side door, dark and grimy under the archway. To their right was Apron Street, with the gleam of the Palinode windows making glittering pathways in the streaming roadway; to their left was the chasm of the mews, its ancient cobbles and old stable bricks catching what light there was and producing an interesting woodcut effect.

Yeo moved closer to his companion. His murmur was puzzled and a thought aggrieved.

‘Why does Luke keep calling the chap “Bloblip”?'

‘It will emerge, I hope.' Campion bent his head to listen at the door.

Already the shrill clamour of the bell, whose push Lugg was leaning against on the other side of the house, stole out to them through the wood. It went on steadily without pause, like the rain.

Yeo was restive. In his late middle-age he had become a heavy breather and now his whisper crept gustily through the sighing of the rain.

‘Funny. Must be someone there. I'm not breaking in without a warrant, Campion, I warn you. I'm trusting you.
We're all trusting and depending on you, but there are limits.'

The noise of the door-bell ceased.

A new clamour, this time of alarm bells both inside and on the front of the building, brought both men to their toes. Yeo had just time to swear violently before a shadow, jaunty and silent as an alley-cat, bore down upon them from the street.

It was Luke. Recklessness had made him off-handedly cheerful.

‘Okay,' he murmured. ‘It's Lugg. He's gone in through the window in a shower of glass. Damn it, he's a burglar, isn't he? He'll get the door open, hop it, and we'll rush in and protect the property. Sorry, Super. I'm working for my ticket this time, anyhow.'

Mr Campion divined rather than saw Yeo's face and could have laughed had the moment been any other than the dizzy one of failure. He could see himself opening that corner cupboard and finding it empty or full of books.

Luke pulled his sleeve. ‘Time we cops did our duty and answered the bell before our efficient inferiors hear it from over the way.' He was grinning, but there was appeal and trust in his voice. Campion found them horrific. ‘Come on, sir, do your bit of magic.'

They moved towards the street, but as he came out into the rain, and just before he turned the corner, Campion looked back. The sound he made stopped the others and they turned. In the centre of the mews was a sight of fantasy.

From a dark coach-house, whose doors must have been standing open unseen in the gloom, a monstrous anachronism had appeared. It was a large black horse-drawn vehicle, sinister in shape, with a high box-seat for the driver and an ominous flat body entirely enclosed. Swaying and glistening in the light of its own old-fashioned lamps, the coffin brake swung away from them and moved lightly and with surprising swiftness towards the Barrow Road exit of the mews.

Yeo's hand felt like iron on Campion's shoulder. The Superintendent was out of his depth.

‘What the hell's that?' he demanded. ‘Who is it? Where's he going at this time of night?'

Campion laughed aloud. He sounded hysterical.

‘It's Jas,' he said. ‘He's saved us – or rather, Luke's inspired general call has. He's going “up Apron Street” before our eyes. Can we get a car?'

‘Can do.' Luke strode off across the road with suspicious alacrity.

Above them the burglar-alarm continued its panic-stricken cacophony. Yeo was deeply quiet for a second before he moved nearer to his old friend. Then he cleared his throat and said with a deferential restraint which lent the announcement the force of an explosion :‘I hope you know what you're doing.'

‘Hope on, Guv'nor.' Campion spoke devoutly.

At that moment a long black car appeared out of the curtains of the sheeting rain.

Yeo grunted. ‘What about the bank?'

‘Dice and a couple of chaps are just behind me, sir. They'll take care of it.' Luke handed him into the car, and after thrusting Campion in after him, would have followed himself had not a large wet figure, furious as a startled fowl and making much the same noise, descended upon them from the soaking darkness.

‘'Ere, 'ere, 'ere! What's the game, eh? What's on the ivories? What are you all playin' at?' Lugg was drenched. His bald head ran water and his moustache was hung with diamond drops. He thrust Luke aside and shot into the tonneau like a cannon-ball of wet washing, to subside on the floor on the far side, where he added considerably to the discomfort of all concerned.

As the door closed after Luke, and the car started, he was still expostulating.

‘Broken glass in me armpits, me finger-prints all over the door which is now ajar, and you scarpering like a pack of silly kids . . . I can believe it of some of you, but what you think
you're
doing, Mr Yeo, I don't know!'

Luke placed a large but not unfriendly hand over his face.

‘Now, sir,' he said briskly to Campion, ‘what's the message?'

The message, which caused comment over the entire circuit, went out in a matter of seconds.

‘Car Q23 calling all cars. Chief Inspector Luke. Am pursuing black horse-drawn vehicle with single passenger driver. Technical name coffin brake, repeat coffin brake. Last seen Barrow Road, West, proceeding north. Inform all call points. Over.'

As they approached the old tram terminus at the top of Barrow Road, Yeo could bear it no longer.

‘Where's the fire?' he muttered to Campion, who was jammed in beside him. ‘No one on God's earth could miss an archaic contraption like that. You can't lose it. An ordinary Call must have picked him up in half an hour. What are we playing at?'

‘It's imperative he doesn't stop. We must get him before he stops, that's vital.'

‘All right, if you say so. Any idea at all where he's going?'

‘I think to Fletcher's Town. What's the address, Lugg?'

The sodden bundle heaved itself into a more comfortable position.

‘Peter George Jelf's? Seventy-eight Lockhart Crescent. Going to broadcast that? You won't see him for skid marks!'

‘Peter George Jelf? That's a name from the past.' Yeo sounded surprised and gratified. This morning Old Pullen came in to see me. He happened to mention he'd run into Jelf on Euston Station as he came into town. The man seemed quite respectable, which is a contradiction in terms, and said he'd got a little haulage business in North London. Pullen glanced in the van, the only thing the chap had on board was a packing-case marked “Conjurer's Stores” – singularly appropriate when one thinks back over his career.'

‘Conjurer's Stores . . .' The lean man's lazy voice was soft with relief and satisfaction.

‘So that's how they got the coffin back; I wondered about that.'

‘Back?' said Luke, sitting up. ‘Back?'

Mr Campion was about to explain when the loudspeaker interrupted him.

‘Central Control calling Car Q23. Black horse-drawn vehicle thought to be coffin brake, seen twenty-three forty-four hours
corner of Greatorex Road and Findlay Avenue N.W. proceeding north up Findlay Avenue at fair speed. Over.'

‘Hullo, he's round the park,' announced Yeo, the intrinsic excitement of the chase suddenly hitting him. ‘Seven and a quarter minutes ago. He's shifting, Campion. Astounding. No traffic, of course, but a dangerous surface. Here, turn up here, driver. It'll take you to Philomel Place. There's a way through right at the north end which will bring you to the Broadway. Cross the Canal Bridge there and you get out into – blow it! – thingummy street . . . I'll think of it in a moment. It's a rabbit warren just there.'

‘We mustn't lose him. Mustn't miss him in the side streets.' Campion spoke abruptly. ‘He mustn't get to Jelf and he mustn't stop. That's vital.'

‘Why not call one of the other buses? J54 is up in Tanner's Hill.' Luke was fidgeting. ‘He could get down to Lockhart Crescent and hang about for him. They can hold him till we come, can't they?'

‘I suppose so.' Campion did not sound happy. ‘I want him to go on feeling he's safe. All right, though. Probably best.'

Luke saw that the message went out as they raced through the dark built-up streets. Yeo, whose knowledge of London was legendary, had begun to enjoy himself, and the driver, also not without experience, became gratifyingly respectful.

The rain continued doggedly. It had settled into its stride and appeared to have achieved inevitability. They passed down Findlay Avenue and plunged into Legion Street at the roundabout where that great highroad settles down to its uninterrupted run to the north-western suburbs.

‘Steady.' Yeo could not have spoken more softly on the banks of a trout stream. ‘Steady now. Even if he's kept up his pace he can't be far now.'