Читать книгу Pearls Before Swine - Margery Allingham - Страница 6

Table of Contents

In the taxi Campion peered out of the window at the fast darkening town. He was confused to discover that many of the familiar landmarks had vanished, to leave new squares and avenues of neatly tidied nothingness. But when he suddenly caught sight of the uniquely horrible bronze group depicting Wealth succouring Innocence squatting unscathed against the bland face of the M.O.L.E. Insurance building, in what was presumably still Sabot Lane, he knew he was going astray. He rapped on the glass and shouted:

“Not Waterloo, Taxi. Euston, my lad. Euston.”

The driver took no notice whatever, and his fare was trying to slide back the connecting window when he became aware of an eye peering at him through the driving mirror. It was only one eye, and not an attractive one, but there was a shrewdness in it that was unmistakable.

Mr. Campion was both astounded and aggrieved. He had good reason to believe that all his more recent enemies were on the other side of the Channel, at least, and it seemed very unfair that some of his old ones should not have forgotten him. He noted the time again, and a futile rage possessed him. On attempting to open one of the doors he made a second discovery. Neither had any handles on the inside.

Since the situation had now become obvious, Campion took steps. He wrapped his coat round his arm, and pulling off a shoe took careful aim at the near-side window. The reinforced glass starred but did not break, and at the same moment the cab swerved sharply through an archway, jolted over the cobbles of an ancient yard, and plunged into the darkness of a building.

Campion took another swipe at the glass. This time his shoe-heel went all the way, but before he could slip his hand through the hole, the door behind him was jerked open and long arms seized him round the shoulders. He hunched instinctively, making himself wide, but he knew as soon as he felt the grip tighten that the advantage was with the shape in the gloom. He braced himself against the seat, pitching his weight backward on to his adversary, and gained a moment’s advantage. But the next moment the door with the broken glass was swung open, and a pad with a nauseating smell was clamped over his mouth and nose. He struggled violently, aware even in this extremity of a sensation of outrage and injustice. His last conscious thought was that he had missed his train.

He was still thinking about his train when he opened his eyes again. He was aware of pain and nausea, cold, and a light which was too bright to be borne. This last shot towards him in a long, straight blade from between two dark pillars. It hit him in the eyes, and he closed them.

Once again he remembered the train, and a sense of desolation spread over him. He had missed it. This was sunlight, the train had gone. Missed it; missed it by hours. He could have wept, he was so angry and so helpless.

Presently a new procession of pictures began to undulate through his head. These were visions which possessed all the inconsequence of nightmare. He saw Eve Snow sitting on the draining board in the kitchenette in his flat; she was looking at him with her head held on one side and a strange, tragic expression on her attractive but ridiculous face, which was meant only for comedy.

Then he saw a boy, a pleasant, stalwart boy, in the olive green of an invading army. He looked resolute but puzzled, and desperately unhappy. A second woman jostled the young soldier out of Campion’s waking dream. At first she was only a vague, recumbent outline and his memory focused on small wedge shoes, grey and black, the square toes turned up like a doll’s.

Through the mist he struggled to comprehend the significance of this final picture. There was something odd here, something very wrong. He ought not to have seen the soles of her shoes, he thought, unless ...

He opened his eyes again. That was right; there was something wrong with her, very wrong. She was dead, he remembered now. Her name was Moppet somebody, and she was dead.

He stirred as the shaft of light broadened, and he saw that the twin pillars were walking towards him, stout blue pillars they were, very dignified and solid. He tried to sit up and a policeman bent over him.

“Feeling better, sir?” he enquired. “The ambulance is on its way, but the Chief said we were to wait for him.”

Campion blinked at the man, and turning stiffly, looked about him. He was in a small garage, through the half-open doorway of which bright sunlight streamed. There was no car about, nor yet any sign of one. The place had been used as a storeroom for some time; there were old picture frames against the wall and a heap of electric-light fittings, and some decorative iron-work in the foreground. Between him and the door was a pile of debris, which he took some time to recognize as portions of his own luggage; its contents were strewn about the floor as if some mad Customs official had made hay there.

Campion eyed the policeman. “Did you do that?” he enquired.

“No, sir! Nothing’s been touched since I found you, except that I opened your collar and propped you up. I got your name from your papers in your wallet. You’ve still got plenty of money there, sir; you don’t seem to have been robbed. I’ve got a glass of water here. Will you have some?”

Campion was sitting up sipping, when once again the sunlit shaft was disturbed as a melancholy, elderly person in a flapping raincoat came striding in. There were a couple of other figures behind him, but at the entrance they dropped back, and he came on in, alone.

The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Stanislaus Oates, was never a wit, nor was gaiety his province, and Campion’s first impression on seeing his long face after three years’ absence was that the world catastrophe had cheered the old boy up. At any rate, a faint sad smile spread over his drawn face as he recognized his friend, and his cold eyes roved over the scene of desolation.

“Hello, Campion,” he said. “Got yourself a welcome home, I see.”

“A pity the Police Department didn’t assist in the festivities.” The lean wreck in the corner spoke acidly.

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know.” Oates was still glancing about him, his inquisitive eyes taking in everything. “What are you grumbling at—you’ve been found, haven’t you?”

“Where am I?”

“Number twenty-seven, Goldhawk Mews, North One—what’s left of it. This is practically the only building with a roof for a mile. Is that where you thought you were?”

“No. They put me out on the other side of London.”

“Humph.” Oates continued his terrier-like sniffing, and finally sat down suddenly on an upturned suitcase. He looked hard at the other man. “Well, how are you?” he enquired.

Campion told him.

“I see. Like to see the Doc?”

“No, I don’t think so. I want to catch a train. Any objection?”

“Well ...” The Chief scratched his ear with the same earnest misgiving with which Campion remembered him scratching it when a mere Superintendent. “That rather depends, don’t you know. As a matter of fact, Campion, I’m supposed to be holding you. You looked in at that flat of yours yesterday, I believe.”

“Yes.” Campion’s pale eyes narrowed. “Yes, I did.”

“Ah, well, there you are, you see.” The Chief’s seat was low and he rubbed his knees, which were stiffening in their unusual position. “We found a corpse there, you know. A woman. She had been murdered. I’d just got the report on the P.M. when this constable ’phoned up to tell me you had been found.”

Campion stared at him. In that moment it was the girl he thought of first, the pretty girl who was so young and so much in love with the man she was not going to marry. The girl with the old-fashioned father, the conscientious girl who had followed her ambulance. This was going to hit her as hard as anybody.

“Murdered? Are you sure?” he asked stupidly.

“As sure as I am that you’ve got to talk,” said the Chief.