The Tiger In the Smoke (29 page)

In the old ice-house of the garden of the house at Sainte-Odile-sur-Mer (Meg will know the place, I cannot leave it to her because it is not mine, but the contents will be and that I have left her) there is the Sainte-Odile Treasure. It is for Meg to do as she likes with so long as she sees it is kept safe. America would not be a bad place for it as things seem to be turning out. If you are poor, make her sell it, of course. Anyone who paid a lot for it would naturally keep it safe. Safety is all that matters. If I go, and I shall have gone, of course, if you get this, our Sainte-Odile lot will have ended and someone else must take over.

I am not trusting Meg with the job of getting hold of it herself, nor yet her dear Old Boy, who, as you will know by this time, is not exactly worldly. This is because I can see that, should the place still be in enemy hands, or should France be in a state of upheaval, the job would be much too dangerous for them to risk. Also it would worry them, and I do not want that. The same applies to Sam. He is a grand old scout and the kindest, straightest old duck in the world, but this may be a delicate business. I cannot tell what may have happened, you see. That is what is so worrying. To be frank, I just can't see him managing the thing, but I shall trust him with this letter. You will realize why. He is the boy-scout grown up. I
know
that you alone will get it.

I am landing you with the job because I am conceited enough to believe that you will be the same sort of chap that I am, and will make no bones about it but will just go and get it the instant the thing seems at all possible (it is not possible at this present juncture, as you will appreciate. I am banking on things having changed, if not become actually better). The old women in the country round Sainte-Odile used to say ‘One truly loves only the same man'. (I have not used the French because you may not read French; if you do, please forgive me, but it is vital you should understand exactly what I am saying.) They meant, as I take it, that a woman only
really
loves the same sort of man all her life, so I am betting that Meg will only marry when she really loves again, and so my guess is that you and I are rather alike in important things. I hope you will not be offended by this. As I am now just off on a sticky assignment it is a great comfort to
me
.

Now do not worry. The Treasure is portable, but it will take great care. I will put where it actually is in the ice-house on a separate piece of paper. I do not know why I do this except that it seems safer. I hid it myself, which is why the whole thing may look a bit odd. Be very careful how you break in.

Of course I appreciate that all this may be a waste of time. It may be looted already or it may get a direct hit. If so forget it; it can't be helped.

But in that case please do not tell Meg at all. I have never told her anything about it, for this reason. After all, if she cannot help she will only worry, and I feel she has worried enough.

Should the war have ended satisfactorily, it may be all fairly simple. Just in case this is so, I will enclose some letters for a few people who may be useful to you if they are still there.

That is all. Please go and get it the instant you feel it is at all practicable for you to do so, and give it to Meg.

Give Meg my love but do not tell her it is mine. As you will understand perfectly well (if you are as I expect) when dead I would prefer to lie down. Over to you, chum.

Good luck, you lucky old blighter, and I mean that.

Yours very truly,

Martin Elginbrodde

Major

Mr Campion sat staring at the signature for some seconds before he turned back to read the message once more. The room was quite quiet. Geoffrey was looking into the fire.

When he had completed the second reading, Campion handed the letter back. His pale face was blank and his eyes shadowed behind his spectacles. Geoffrey took it and exchanged it for a third sheet.

‘This was the enclosure. You'd better see it.'

As Campion read the single line written neatly across it, his brows rose.

‘Odd,' he murmured, ‘but quite clear. Yes, I see. What are you going to do now?'

Levett crushed the flimsy sheets into three tight balls and threw them one after the other on the red coals. Little blue flames leapt out of nothingness to devour them. As they turned from black to white he spoke.

‘After all, it was a personal letter,' he said, his shy eyes meeting Campion's for an instant. ‘I don't see a pack of officials breathing over it, do you?'

Mr Campion did not speak at once. He was thinking how surprising the man was. Just when one thought one knew him, one stumbled on new depths. He had grown to like him enormously during the day, but he had not suspected this sensitivity. He realized with a little shock how right Martin had been, how discerning Meg's heart.

‘Oh, I agree,' he said aloud. ‘And now?'

‘Now we nip over and get it right away, just as he asks.' Geoff had become his familiar self again, brisk, purposeful, and capable as they come. ‘There's no point in hanging about. That's asking for trouble. We'll settle it with the police and we'll all four go, you and Amanda, me and Meg. We'll drive to Southampton tonight, fog or no fog, and catch the first boat to Saint-Malo, taking the car with us for the trip down the coast. I feel that if Meg is right away from here it will be safer for everybody, and the job ought to be done, so let's go and do it.'

The more Mr Campion considered the proposal the more he liked it. He had told Amanda the truth when he had said that he felt that Havoc was ‘police work'. There was no mystery surrounding his guilt. He was something to be trapped and killed, and Campion was no great man for blood sports.

As for the girls, Geoffrey was right. The farther they were from the scene of action, the better. He glanced at his watch.

‘Luke is due now,' he remarked. ‘Get your clothes on and we'll tackle him. If I know him he'll be fascinated. What exactly are you expecting to find, by the way?'

‘I haven't the faintest idea.' Geoffrey stood up, looking solid and splendid, like the man who supports the human pyramid at the circus. ‘Anything. It's fragile and bulky, that's all anyone knows. A crystal candelabrum, perhaps, or a tea service even. Something they thought a lot of when Elginbrodde was a kid. Families do have the most extraordinary treasures. My grandmother half starved a child rather than sell a clock which might have been chipped off the Albert Memorial. But that doesn't matter. It's not a question of intrinsic value at all. The point is that it was
his
treasure and he wanted Meg to have it and keep it safe. Values are so relative. I thought that when I was trussed up, listening to that bunch of crazy thugs. Hitler wanted the modern world. Well, I mean to say, Campion,
look
at the modern world! No, I shall be quite prepared for a bust of Minerva or a set of fire-irons, and in the circumstances I'd risk my life to get them for Meg. I've got to. It's over to me. Why, you weren't thinking of pieces of eight, were you?'

Campion laughed. ‘No,' he said, ‘not exactly. That notion may occur to Luke, though, and I shouldn't disillusion him. He's no starry-eyed optimist, but he's got to hunt these chaps and get them hanged, and it would be merciful to let him share their dream as long as possible. At the moment Havoc is at least producing tragedy. As soon as it becomes tragic farce – ' He shrugged his shoulders and did not finish the sentence.

Geoffrey was eyeing him curiously. He too was finding more in his new friend than he had expected.

‘Exactly,' he said. ‘He'll let us go, will he?'

‘I think so. It's good orthodox procedure. Phase One, recover loot. His only anxiety as far as you are concerned is that you may be shielding someone here. Havoc's contact.' He made the suggestion lightly, but his eyes were inquisitive. Geoffrey met them steadily.

‘I don't think I am. I told you so. Havoc spoke of a contact, but there was no suggestion that it was anyone in the house. Who could it be? Are you worrying about the safety of my future pa-in-law?'

‘No. Quite frankly, I feel to do that would be presumptuous. Someone else looks after Uncle Hubert. Very well then, I'll see you downstairs as soon as may be. I must ask my wife, of course.'

‘I've
told
mine.' Geoffrey sounded as gay and confident as Rupert himself. ‘I met her on the stairs and told her to pack a bag. She'll go like a shot if Amanda will, but if she won't, of course I shan't let her. We're all set to be old-fashioned that way. See you in five minutes.'

His gaudy coat tails vanished through the doorway and Campion was left smiling. Geoffrey ‘would do', he decided. He had liked the remark about the fire-irons and had no doubt that the young man had meant what he had said. If the treasure turned out to be the most ordinary of curios, it would still receive honour from him. Campion could see a set of fire-irons arranged in a glass casket five times their worth, let into the wall of a living-room and remaining there, an eyesore and a thinking point for the rest of Geoffrey's life. He was that sort of masculine person, a familiar type of successful man.

All the same, a moment or so later he was frowning in a fruitless effort to remember. Ever since he had first heard the story that afternoon he had been delving in the vast ragbag of miscellaneous information for which he was so justly renowned, trying to find something he had forgotten. Somewhere, at some time, in an old guidebook perhaps, or among the reminiscences of the fabulous
grandes dames
who had infested his childhood, he had heard tell of the Sainte-Odile Treasure before.

—

AN UNNATURAL PEACE
had settled over the house when late that night Luke sat in the study with Canon Avril. The two private cars had left some time before. Rupert and Lugg, with the dog snoring between them, were making their way towards the sanctuary of Suffolk lanes, while the four treasure-seekers groped through the fog in the other direction in an attempt to catch the first Saint-Malo boat out from Southampton.

The rectory was quiet without them, although it was by no means empty. Sergeant Picot lolled on a hard chair in the front hall, while in the basement two of his men made half-hourly rounds. Under the roof, Sam was still working on the article which must be on his editor's desk by morning. Emily and her grandparents were asleep in the two little rooms beyond the kitchen, and, in Meg's elegant bedroom, Miss Warburton, who had been induced to leave her lonely cottage for the night, brushed out her limp hair before the looking-glass.

In the study, where it was warm and the air was blue with tobacco smoke, the coal fire ticked softly as the white ash fell and was audible in the silence which had fallen between the two men. Luke was at the desk. The Canon had insisted on him taking it because the little bits of paper on which he seemed to keep his notes worried him. Avril lost notes himself, often in the pulpit, and he had a very lively appreciation of the nuisance they could become. The Chief Inspector appreciated his motive, because he was setting himself out to understand every minute detail of the man.

As Campion had recognized when he first met him, Charlie Luke was destined to become one of the great policemen. He possessed the one paramount quality which appears in all the giants of his profession quite apart from any other merit which they may display. He had that utter persistence which only derives from an almost unnatural interest. The man was a living question-mark, and he hunted his quarry with the passionate patience of a devotee hunting salvation. After thirty-six sleepless hours, his red-rimmed eyes were bright as a bird's.

Sergeant Picot and his men had been working on the St Petersgate Square angle all day and they had gleaned only a little. Luke had digested the scraps they had given him and now he was working on them. He had been talking to the Canon about Jack Havoc for a long time, expending the precious minutes deliberately, putting everything he had into the job, feeling his way, watching like a cat, letting his intuition stretch out beyond where the mind could take him.

Old Avril was listening. He sat in the worn chair, his uncunning fingers folded across his black vest. He looked both wise and good, but there was no telling what was going on behind his quiet eyes. Luke found himself hoping he never had to play poker with him. He tried again.

‘Usually, you see, sir, we know these lads like brothers.' He stretched his left hand out and closed it as if it held another fist. ‘We know their families, and if we don't exactly love them we are close to them. Havoc is an exception. We know nothing of his life before his first conviction in nineteen thirty-four. He was sixteen then, or so he says, and that seems to be all they ever got out of him. It's not his real name, of course.'

‘No?' The old man did not appear surprised, merely interested.

‘It doesn't sound right to me. Does it to you?' Luke was appealing. ‘It's too suitable. I should say he invented that, as a boy might, trying to sound big. We seem to have accepted it. I suppose we had to. Anyhow, it was as Jack Havoc that he went to Borstal, and as Havoc, J., he's on the C.R.O. files. He said he came from nowhere, no one came forward to claim him, and from our point of view his life started then.'

As Avril did not speak, he spread out his hands to him.

‘All I know about him is what I've been able to get from the records. No one has had him on their short list for five years because he's been safely in jail, and for some time before that he'd vanished, presumably into the army. I've come to him fresh, and the outstanding thing about him from my point of view is that, according to listed information, he's been able to disappear twice before in his life just as he has now.'

The Canon nodded his tousled grey head. ‘I see,' he said, as if he was reluctantly convinced. ‘You feel that he must have friends among the people the police do not – walk hand in left hand with. I understand.'