Читать книгу Look to the Lady - Margery Allingham - Страница 8

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“ ’Ere, wot d’you think you’re doing?”

Mr Lugg’s scandalized face appeared round the corner of the door.

“Mind your own business,” said Campion without looking up. “And, by the way, call me ‘sir’.”

“You’ve bin knighted, I suppose?” observed Mr Lugg, oozing into the room and shutting the door behind him. “I’m glad that chap’s gone. I’m sick o’ nobs. As soon as I caught a bosso of ’im and ’is ’arem going up that street I come up to see what the ’ell you was up to—sir.”

Mr Campion resumed his spectacles. “You’re a disgrace,” he said. “You’ve got to make the ‘valet’ grade somehow before to-morrow morning. I don’t know if you realize it, but you’re a social handicap.”

“Now then, no ’idin’ be’ind ’igh school talk,” said Mr Lugg, putting a heavy hand on the table. “Show us what you’ve got in yer pocket.”

Mr Campion felt in his hip-pocket and produced the revolver obediently.

“I thought so.” Mr Lugg examined the Colt carefully and handed it back to his master with evident contempt. “You know we’re up against something. You’re as jumpy as a cat. Well, I’m prepared too, in me own way.” He thrust his hand in his own pocket and drew out a life-preserver with a well-worn handle. “You don’t catch me carryin’ a gun. I’m not goin’ to swing for any challenge cup that ever was—but then I’m not one of the gentry. And I don’t know wot you think you’re up to, swankin’ about the cash your uncle left you. I know it paid your tailor’s bill, but only up to nineteen twenty-eight, remember. You’ll land us both in regular jobs workin’ for a livin’ if you’re so soft-’earted that you take on dangerous berths for charity.”

He was silent for a moment, and then he bent forward. His entire manner had changed and there was unusual seriousness in his little black eyes.

“Sir,” he said, with deep earnestness, “let’s ’op it.”

“My dear fellow,” said Mr Campion with affable idiocy, “I have buttered my bun and now I must lie on it. And you, my beautiful, will stand meekly by. It is difficult, I admit. Gyrth’s a delightful chap, but he doesn’t know what we’re up against yet. After all, you can’t expect him to grasp the significance of the Société Anonyme all at once. You’re sure that was Natty Johnson?”

“Wot d’you take me for—a private dick?” said Mr Lugg with contempt. “Of course I saw ’im. As little and as ugly as life. I don’t like it.”

He glanced about him almost nervously and came a step nearer. “There’s something unnatural about this business,” he breathed. “I was listenin’ down in the bar just now and an old bloke come out with a ’orrible yarn. D’you know they’ve got a blinkin’ two-’eaded monster up at that place?”

“Where?” said Mr Campion, considerably taken aback.

“Up at the Tower—where we’ve got to do the pretty. I’m not going to be mixed with the supernatural, I warn yer.”

Campion regarded his faithful servitor with interest. “I like your ‘fanny’,” he said. “But they’ve been pulling your leg.”

“All right, clever,” said Mr Lugg, nettled. “But it’s a fac’, as it ’appens. They’ve got a secret room in the east wing containin’ some filfy family secret. There’s a winder but there’s no door, and when the son o’ the house is twenty-five ’is father takes ’im in and shows ’im the ’orror, and ’e’s never the same again. Like the king that ate the winkles. That’s why they leave comin’ of age till the boy is old enough to stand the shock.” He paused dramatically, and added by way of confirmation: “The bloke ’oo was telling me was a bit tight, and the others was tryin’ to shut ’im up. You could see it was the truth—they was so scared. It’s bound to be a monster—somethin’ you ’ave to feed with a pump.”

“Lugg, sit down.”

The words were rapped out in a way quite foreign to Mr Campion’s usual manner. Considerably surprised, the big man obeyed him.

“Now, look here,” said his employer, grimly, “you’ve got to forget that, Lugg. Since you know so much you may as well hear the truth. The Gyrths are a family who were going strong about the time that yours were leaping about from twig to twig. And there is, in the east wing of the Tower, I believe, a room which has no visible entrance. The story about the son of the house being initiated into the secret on his twenty-fifth birthday is all quite sound. It’s a semireligious ceremony of the family. But get this into your head. It’s nothing to do with us. Whatever the Gyrths’ secret is, it’s no one’s affair but their own, and if you so much as refer to it, even to one of the lowest of the servants, you’ll have made an irreparable bloomer, and I won’t have you within ten miles of me again.”

“Right you are, Guv’nor. Right you are.” Mr Lugg was apologetic and a little nervous. “I’m glad you told me, though,” he added. “It fair put the wind up me. There’s one or two things, though, that ain’t nice ’ere. F’rinstance, when I was comin’ acrost out of the garage, a woman put ’er ’ead out the door o’ that one-eyed shop next door. She didn’t arf give me a turn; she was bald—not just a bit gone on top, yer know, but quite ’airless. I asked about ’er, and they come out with a yarn about witchcraft and ’aunting and cursin’ like a set o’ ’eathens. There’s too much ’ankypanky about this place. I don’t believe in it, but I don’t like it. They got a ’aunted wood ’ere, and a set o’ gippos livin’ in a ’ollow. Let’s go ’ome.”

Mr Campion regarded his aide owlishly.

“Well, you have been having fun in your quiet way,” he said. “You’re sure your loquacious friend wasn’t a Cook’s Guide selling you Rural England by any chance? How much beer did it take you to collect that lot?”

“You’ll see when I put in my bill for expenses,” said Mr Lugg unabashed. “What do we do to-night? ’Ave a mike round or stay ’ere?”

“We keep well out of sight,” said Mr Campion. “I’ve bought you a book of Etiquette for Upper Servants. It wouldn’t hurt you to study it. You stay up here and do your homework.”

“Sauce!” grumbled Mr Lugg. “I’ll go and unpack yer bag. Oh, well, a quiet beginning usually means a quick finish. I’ll ’ave a monument put up to you at the ’ead of the grave. A life-size image of yerself dressed as an angel—’orn-rimmed spectacles done in gold.”

He lumbered off. Mr Campion stood at the window and looked over the shadowy garden, still scented in the dusk. There was nothing more lovely, nothing more redolent of peace and kindliness. Far out across the farther fields a nightingale had begun to sing, mimicking all the bird chatter of the sunshine. From the bar beneath his feet scraps of the strident Suffolk dialect floated up to him, mingled with occasional gusts of husky laughter.

Yet Mr Campion was not soothed. His pale eyes were troubled behind his spectacles, and once or twice he shivered. He felt himself hampered at every step. Forces were moving which he had no power to stay, forces all the more terrible because they were unknown to him, enemies which he could not recognize.

The picture of Val and the two girls standing smiling in the bright old-fashioned room sickened him. There was, as Lugg said, something unnatural about the whole business, something more than ordinary danger and the three young people had been so very young, so very ignorant and charming. His mind wandered to the secret room, but he put the subject from him testily. It could not have any significance in the present business or he would surely have been told.

Presently he closed the window and crossed to the table, where the best dinner that Mrs Bullock could conjure was set waiting for him. He ate absently, pausing every now and then to listen intently to the gentle noises of the countryside.

But it was not until early the following morning, as he lay upon a home-cured feather bed beneath an old crocheted quilt of weird and wonderful design, that the storm broke.

He was awakened by a furious tattoo on his door and raised himself upon his elbow to find Mrs Bullock, pink and horror-stricken.

“Oh, sir,” she said, “as Mr Val’s friend, I think you ought to go up to the Tower at once. It’s Lady Pethwick, sir, Mr Val’s aunt. They brought her in this morning, sir—stone dead.”