Читать книгу Police at the Funeral - Margery Allingham - Страница 6

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‘If you don’t mind pulling up here I’ll get out. This is the house, you see.’

The words were murmured apologetically into Mr Campion’s ear as the elderly Bentley sped down the London Road towards the towers and spires of a deserted Cambridge out of term. He slowed down obediently and glanced with curiosity at a great dark house on the opposite side of the road. From where they sat a large portion of the building was visible through the decorated iron-work of the drive gates.

Mr Campion’s pale face wore an inquiring expression. ‘It hasn’t altered outside,’ he said.

‘Or inside,’ said Joyce. ‘Does it occur to you,’ she added, lowering her voice a little, ‘that there’s something rather—rather awful about it?’

Somewhat to her relief the extraordinary young man at her side took her remark quite seriously, or at any rate he appeared to do so, for he turned again to the house and sat staring at it thoughtfully for some moments.

It was in darkness save for the half-circle of light above the front door, but nevertheless, in spite of the misty twilight of the late evening, its shape and general details were clearly discernible. Built some time in the beginning of the last century it was spacious, L-shaped and gabled. The windows were small, however, and the creeper-covered walls looked gloomy. The cedars on the lawn in the angle of the building made fantastic shapes against the night sky. There was nothing definitely unpleasant about the house, but it had some of the grim dignity and aloofness of an institution and the sightless expression of a house in which all the blinds have been drawn.

Mr Campion returned to the girl. ‘Are you sure that you want to go in at once?’ he said. ‘Why not come down to see Marcus first?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I will, if you don’t mind. They’re all a little helpless. They may need me rather badly, if it’s only to get them all hot-water bottles. Good-bye. Thank you for coming.’

She slipped out of the car before he could stop her, and he watched her hurry across the road, through the iron gates and down the drive. He waited until the dark hall door opened, and the sudden rectangle of light appeared and swallowed her up. Then he let in the clutch and proceeded down the gentle slope into the town.

A thick mist from the fens had settled over the whole valley. Campion’s big car wound its way carefully through the narrow streets, now ghostly and deserted, save for a few townsfolk hurrying to their homes to escape the dank vaporous air. As he drove he was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment: this was not the Cambridge of term time, the Cambridge he had known, but a chill medieval city, whose carved stone porticos encircled only closed doors.

As he turned off Queen’s Road and entered Soul’s Court he found the precise tidy little square in darkness also, although every house was occupied. Here was one of those last remaining fortresses in England where the modern code of familiarity with one’s neighbours had not yet penetrated. Here shutters were closed, and silence was preserved, not so much in order to hide one’s affairs as from a polite desire not to embarrass one’s acquaintances by obtruding any aspect of one’s private life upon them.

As he pulled up outside Number Two, Soul’s Court, the gracious Queen Anne front was dark as the others. No flicker of light escaped the old-fashioned wooden shutters across the big lozenge-shaped windows.

He dismounted and pulled the iron bell. Heavy footsteps on the tiles within brought him to attention and the next moment, as the door swung open, he was met by that strange individual odour of a well-ordered, lived-in house, a pleasant mixture of furniture-polish, warmth and tobacco. The maid who admitted him was a gaunt Cambridgeshire woman well past middle age, the severity of whose uniform had not been modified by the recent emancipation of her sex. To modern eyes her starched embroidered cap had some of the glamour of an archaic head-dress. She allowed herself a single withered smile in the young man’s direction.

‘Mr Campion,’ she said. ‘Mr Marcus is in the dining-room. Cook has set something cold for you.’

Campion, somewhat startled by the discovery that a decade had made no change in the Featherstone household, or indeed in the good woman’s appearance, smiled affably and parted with his hat and coat.

‘How’s the rheumatism?’ he said, not daring to risk a guess at her name, but backing on the ailment.

He was rewarded by a half-hearted flush of pleasure, and a ‘still hangs about me, thank you, sir’. Then she set off down the panelled corridor, her white apron crackling and her heavy shoes clattering on the coloured tiles. A moment later Campion found himself confronting his old friend.

Marcus Featherstone rose from a high-backed chair by the fireplace and advanced to meet him. He was a man of about twenty-eight and of a type peculiar to his age and upbringing. His big figure was clothed with a species of prearranged carelessness; so that his suit, although well-cut, was definitely on the loose side, and his curling reddish-brown hair was uncontrolled and a little too long for the fashion. He was not unhandsome in a dry ascetic way, although it was evident from his manner that he endeavoured to look older than he was. But at the moment, in spite of his air of faint conscious superiority, he was frankly in a state of panic. He came across the room and shook Campion by the hand.

‘Hallo, Campion, I’m so glad you came,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid my molehill has turned out to be a mountain after all. Have some food, won’t you?’ He waved vaguely to the dining table. He spoke jerkily, creating an odd impression of shyness which was flatly contradicted by his casual manner.

In the bright light from the enormous crystal chandelier over the table Mr Campion looked even more vacant and foolish than usual, and when he spoke his voice was vague and inconclusive.

‘I read the papers before I came down,’ he said. ‘Quite a bad business.’

Marcus glanced at him sharply, but there was no sign of anything but the utmost gravity in the other’s face. He went on, still speaking with that faint inconsequential air which irritated so many of his acquaintances.

‘I left Miss Blount at Socrates Close. A charming girl. Congratulations, Marcus.’

The over-bright lights, the polished walnut and gleaming silver, combined with the slightly low temperature of the room, contrived to foster the extraordinary formality which distinguished this odd reunion. Campion became more and more vague, and Marcus’s natural frigidity nearly succeeded in silencing him altogether.

Mr Campion partook of some cold ham with ritualistic solemnity, Marcus attending to his wants with grave politeness, clinging resolutely to the hard and fast law of etiquette, which demands that a newly-arrived guest must be instantly fed, preferably upon something cold.

As for Mr Campion, he seemed completely unaware of anything out of the ordinary in the situation. To be summoned to a catastrophe and met with cold ham might have been the most usual of his experiences. It was only after he had finished his meal and accepted reverentially the proffered cigarette that he glanced up at the other, a polite smile upon his lips, and remarked in a slightly high-pitched conversational tone: ‘Many murders for the time of year?’

Marcus stared at him and slowly reddened disarmingly.

‘Still the same damn fool, Campion,’ he said explosively. ‘I’ve had a feeling you were laughing at me all the time you’ve been eating.’

‘Not at all,’ said Mr Campion. ‘I was remembering. You got your blue for deportment, didn’t you?’

Marcus permitted himself a smile which humanized him instantly. The next moment, however, he was his grave and anxious self again.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I don’t want you to think I’ve got you down here under false pretences, but the fact is I’m in a hole’—he hesitated.

Mr Campion waved his hand. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said deprecatingly, ‘of course I’ll do anything I can.’

Marcus looked relieved and, since the rheumatic maid had returned to clear the table, suggested that they should retire to the privacy of his study. As they went up the narrow polished oak staircase he turned to Campion, once more apologetic.

‘I expect you’re rather accustomed to this sort of thing?’ he murmured. ‘But I may as well admit that I’ve got the wind-up.’

‘I seldom get more than one body a quarter,’ murmured Mr Campion modestly.

The room they entered was a typical Cambridge study, aesthetically impeccable, austere, and, save for the two deep arm-chairs before the fire, slightly uncomfortable. As they entered, a wire-haired fox terrier of irreproachable breeding, rose from the hearth-rug and came to meet them with leisurely dignity. Marcus effected an introduction hastily.

‘Foon,’ he said. ‘Written “Featherstonehaugh”.’

Somewhat to his host’s embarrassment Mr Campion shook hands with the dog, who seemed to appreciate the courtesy, for he followed them back to the hearth-rug, waiting for them to be seated before he took up his position on the rug again, where he sat during the rest of the proceedings with the same air of conscious breeding which characterized his master.

Marcus Featherstone presented the unhappy spectacle of a man who has reduced at least the trivialities of life to a thought-saving if somewhat rigid code, suddenly confronted by a situation for which even the best people have no set form of behaviour.

‘You see, Campion,’ he said suddenly, as they sat down. ‘Joyce is in the thick of it. That’s the real snag as far as I’m concerned.’

Campion nodded. ‘I quite understand,’ he said. ‘Fire ahead with the story. Mr Seeley was a friend of yours, I suppose?’

The other looked up in surprise. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘Didn’t Joyce explain? Seeley was a very difficult customer. I don’t think he had many friends. In fact, I can’t think of anyone who liked him. That’s what makes it so excessively awkwardly.’ He frowned and paused, but after a moment’s hesitation pulled himself together and continued. ‘I first heard about the trouble this afternoon. Old Mrs Faraday sent for my father, but the governor’s away, thank heaven. Cambridge doesn’t suit him in the winter. I went down myself and found the whole house in an uproar. That is, in a sort of suppressed ferment.’

He leant forward as he spoke, his eyes on the other man’s face.

‘Mrs Faraday was taking charge herself, of course. There is an amazing old woman for you, Campion. There were a couple of detective-inspectors of the Cambridgeshire C.I.D. in the drawing-room when I arrived, and they were as nervous as a knife-boy at a servants’ ball. Roughly, the facts are these, Campion. The ’Varsity doesn’t come up until next Wednesday, as you know, but there are always one or two Indian students about out of term time. Two of these men, bug-hunting along the river bank, found the body in the river in Grantchester Meadows, some way above the bathing pool. It was caught up in some willow roots and may have been there for days. That stream is deserted this time of year, and the weather’s been beastly anyhow. They gave the alarm. The police came along, put the body in the mortuary, and discovered a visiting card that was still legible in the wallet, also a presentation watch with the name engraved. That sent them doubling up to Socrates Close of course, and William Faraday went down to identify the body.’

He paused and smiled grimly. ‘It’s a most amazing thing,’ he went on, ‘but Mrs Faraday insisted on driving with him. She sat in the car outside and waited. Think of it! She’s eighty-four, and an autocrat. I’m frightened of her myself. Then William went on to the police station, where he made a statement. It was not until we were up at the house that they told us about the shooting. Until then we thought he had been drowned.’

Campion sat forward in his chair, his pale eyes vague behind his spectacles, his tone still inconsequential.

‘About the shooting,’ he said. ‘What happened exactly?’

The other man’s expression changed and he grimaced reminiscently. ‘He was shot through the head,’ he said. ‘I saw the body afterwards. Shot through the head at very close range. There might have been a simple explanation for that, of course, but unfortunately he was bound hand and foot and they can’t find a gun. I saw the Chief Constable of the county today; he’s a friend of Father’s a delightful old boy, Anglo-Indian family, a “wallah of the old school, don’t you know”. Our chat was completely unofficial, of course, but in confidence he gave me to understand that there’s no doubt about it—it’s murder. In fact what he said was: “It’s murder, my boy, and damned unpleasant murder at that.” ’

A ghost of a smile appeared upon Mr Campion’s lips and he lit another cigarette.

‘Look here, Featherstone,’ he said. ‘I must warn you. I’m no detective, but of course I’m open to help. What d’you think I can do for you exactly?’

His host hesitated before replying. ‘I’m afraid it’s rather a delicate matter to explain,’ he said at length, in his curiously dry voice. ‘When I first asked you to come down I had some vague idea that you might assist me to prevent a particularly unpleasant scandal. You see,’ he went on, smiling sourly, ‘this is one of the few places left in the world where it’s not only considered unfortunate, but atrocious bad form, to have one of your relations—or clients—mysteriously murdered. Of course it’s quite beyond the bounds of scandal now,’ he hurried on, ‘but I feel, if I may say so without being offensive, that it would be very useful for me to have someone I knew who was not bound by the edicts or—well—scruples of convention to assist the police on our side. Someone who would hold an intelligent watching brief, someone utterly trustworthy, and, if you will forgive me, my dear Campion, for using a revolting term, someone who is a gentleman. In other words,’ he added, unbending suddenly and becoming almost ingenuous, ‘the governor is almost eighty himself and not really capable of the job, and I’ve got the wind-up.’

Campion laughed. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m to play my speciality rôle—the handy man about the trouble. I say, I hope the police like me. This isn’t the sort of idea they cotton to as rule. I’m afraid it’s practically impossible to go gaily in “assisting”. However, I’ve got friends, as Lugg said to the beak. I’ll do anything I can for you, but I must know the full strength. Things look rather hot for Uncle William, I suppose?’

The other did not reply, and he went on:

‘Tell me the worst. I’m a ferret for information. And after all, you don’t want me turning up with the family skeleton in my beak, wagging my tail and shouting miaow, as it were.’

Marcus took up the poker and jabbed meditatively at a particularly solid piece of coal. The stiffness had faded out of his manner, leaving him an oddly defenceless person without his affectations. ‘If I didn’t know you, Campion,’ he began—‘and why you insist on calling yourself that I can’t imagine—I should never dream of putting this to you at all. But the thing that’s frightening me is the family.’

His tone gave the two words an ominous significance.

‘There’s rank evil there,’ he went on unexpectedly, fixing his bright eyes on the other man’s face and speaking with an intense sincerity which finally removed any trace of his former frigidity. ‘There they are, a family forty years out of date, all vigorous energetic people by temperament, all, save for the old lady without their fair share of brains, and herded together in that great mausoleum of a house, tyrannized over by one of the most astounding personalities I’ve ever encountered. Imagine it, Campion, there are stricter rules in that house than you or I were ever forced to keep at our schools. And there is no escape.

‘You see,’ he went on earnestly, ‘there’s no vent to the suppressed hatreds, petty jealousies, desires and impulses of any living soul under that roof. The old lady holds the purse strings and is the first and final court of appeal. Not one of her dependents can get away without having to face starvation, since not one of them is remotely qualified to earn a sixpence.

‘Now in that atmosphere, although I don’t like to think it, I can’t help imagining that anything might happen.’

‘You are certain, in fact,’ said Mr Campion, ‘that it’s one of the family?’

Marcus did not reply directly. He passed his hand over his hair and sighed. ‘It’s terrible,’ he said. ‘Andrew was not even robbed. If only someone had stolen his wallet I should feel more helpful. Or if he’d fallen in the river trying to take a short cut home to score off his cousin it wouldn’t matter much. However, that is all ruled out. I saw the body. Someone tied him up and then practically blew his head off. The police hadn’t found the gun half an hour before you came. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. As the Chief said this afternoon, it’s “a perfectly obvious case of murder”.’

‘Why?’ said Mr Campion.

The other stared at him. ‘Well, you can’t get away from the evidence,’ he said.

‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. I mean, why should anyone murder him? As far as I can gather he seems to have been a perfectly normal old nuisance—just like anyone else’s uncle, in fact. And he had no money. That in itself should have insured him a long life.’

Marcus nodded. ‘That’s the trouble,’ he said. ‘Of course there is this bookmaker’s cheque, but the police doctor is convinced that the body had been in the water at least a week. So that’s no good. Over and above that, he seems to have had nothing but petty debts. That’s the whole point of it: none of the family have any money at all, except the old lady, who is definitely wealthy. No, there’s no motive that I can see.’

‘Save, of course,’ said Mr Campion, ‘the fewer men the greater share of plunder in the end, so to speak.’

Marcus jabbed again gloomily at the fire.

‘Even that’s no good,’ he said. ‘Strictly in confidence, of course, though I fancy the whole family know this, old Mrs Faraday altered her will some little time ago. Under the new provisions, Andrew Seeley, her nephew by marriage, was to receive nothing at all. When she died, therefore, he must either starve or depend upon the problematic charity of his cousins. It was his own fault. De mortuis nil nisi bonum, you know, but he wasn’t a pleasant customer. A petty cantankerous little person, a strain of the bounder in him. I’ve often felt like kicking him myself. But then, they’re not charming, any of them. The old lady has an element of grandeur about her, and Catherine is quite a kindly soul, although of course I do hate stupidity in a woman. What really frightens me is that I can easily imagine myself feeling like murder if I lived in that house.’

‘Julia,’ said Mr Campion, who had listened with astonishment to this recital from the prosaic Marcus. ‘How about Julia? She’s an unknown quantity at the moment. I understand from Joyce that she’s a spinster and difficult.’

Marcus considered the matter. ‘I’ve never been able to understand whether Julia is unfriendly and deep, or merely unfriendly,’ he said. ‘But to tie a man up, and shoot him, and chuck him in the river when she was known to have been driving home from church—why, my dear fellow, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I suppose it did happen then?’ said Mr Campion dubiously.

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who can tell?’ he said. ‘Certainly William was the last person who saw him alive. I fancy that if the police found the weapon William would be under lock and key by now.’ He looked up abruptly. Heavy footsteps sounded in the passage outside, and were followed by a discrete tap on the door. The elderly maid reappeared carrying a silver tray with a card on it, disapproval manifest on every line of her face. She presented the tray to Marcus without a word. The young man took the missive in some surprise, and after glancing at it handed it to Campion.

Mr William R. Faraday.

Socrates Close,

Trumpington Rd, Cambridge.

The proximity of the man they had been discussing was brought home to them startlingly by the primly engraved name. Campion turned the card over to discover a few words scrawled in a flamboyant hand cramped to fit the space.

‘Shall be greatly obliged if you can spare me a few moments. W.F.’

Marcus raised his eyebrows as he saw it, and pocketed the card absently. ‘Show him up, Harriet,’ he said.