Читать книгу Mr Campion and Others - Margery Allingham - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The second prettiest girl in Mayfair was thanking Superintendent Stanislaus Oates for the recovery of her diamond bracelet and the ring with the square-cut emerald in it, and Mr Campion, who had accompanied her to the ceremony, was admiring her technique.

She was doing it very charmingly; so charmingly, in fact, that the Superintendent’s depressing little office had taken on an air of garden-party gaiety which it certainly did not possess in the ordinary way, while the Superintendent himself had undergone an even more sensational change.

His long dyspeptic face was transformed by a blush of smug satisfaction and he quite forgot the short lecture he had prepared for his visitor on The Carelessness Which Tempts the Criminal, or its blunter version, Stupidity Which Earns Its Own Reward.

It was altogether a most gratifying scene, and Mr Campion, seated in the visitor’s chair, his long thin legs crossed and his pale eyes amused behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, enjoyed it to the full.

Miss Leonie Peterhouse-Vaughn raised her remarkable eyes to the Superintendent’s slightly sheepish face and spoke with deep earnestness.

‘I honestly think you’re wonderful,’ she said.

Realizing that too much butter can have a disastrous effect on any dish, and not being at all certain of his old friend’s digestive capabilities, Mr Campion coughed.

‘He has his failures too,’ he ventured. ‘He’s not omnipotent, you know. Just an ordinary man.’

‘Really?’ said Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn with gratifying surprise.

‘Oh yes; well, we’re only human, miss.’ The Superintendent granted Mr Campion a reproachful look. ‘Sometimes we have our little disappointments. Of course on those occasions we call in Mr Campion here,’ he added with a flash of malice.

Leonie laughed prettily and Mr Oates’s ruffled fur subsided like a wave.

‘Sometimes even he can’t help us,’ he went on, encouraged, and, inspired no doubt by the theory that the greater the enemy the greater the honour, launched into an explanation perhaps not altogether discreet. ‘Sometimes we come up against a man who slips through our fingers every time. There’s a man in London today who’s been responsible for more trouble than I can mention. We know him, we know where he lives, we could put our hands on him any moment of the day or night, but have we any proof against him? Could we hold him for ten minutes without getting into serious trouble for molesting a respectable citizen? Could we? Well, we couldn’t.’

Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn’s expression of mystified interest was very flattering.

‘This is incredibly exciting,’ she said. ‘Who is he?—or mustn’t you tell?’

The Superintendent shook his head.

‘Entirely against the regulations,’ he said regretfully, and then, on seeing her disappointment and feeling, no doubt, that his portentous declaration had fallen a little flat, he relented and made a compromise between his conscience and a latent vanity which Mr Campion had never before suspected. ‘Well, I’ll show you this,’ he conceded. ‘It’s a very curious thing.’

With Leonie’s fascinated eyes upon him, he opened a drawer in his desk and took out a single sheet torn from a week-old London evening paper. A small advertisement in the Situations Vacant column was ringed with blue pencil. Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn took it eagerly and Mr Campion got up lazily to read it over her shoulder.

Wanted: Entertainer suitable for children’s party. Good money offered to right man. Apply in person any evening. Widow, 13 Blakenham Gardens, W.1.

Leonie read the lines three times and looked up.

‘But it seems quite ordinary,’ she said.

The Superintendent nodded. ‘That’s what any member of the public would think,’ he agreed, gracefully keeping all hint of condescension out of his tone. ‘And it would have escaped our notice too except for one thing, and that’s the name and address. You see, the man I was telling you about happens to live at 13 Blakenham Gardens.’

‘Is his name Widow? How queer!’

‘No, miss, it’s not.’ Oates looked uncomfortable, seeing the pitfall too late. ‘I ought not to be telling you this,’ he went on severely. ‘This gentleman—and we’ve got nothing we can pin on him, remember—is known as “The Widow” to the criminal classes. That’s why this paragraph interested us. As it stands it’s an ad. for a crook, and the fellow has the impudence to use his own address! Doesn’t even hide it under a box number.’

Mr Campion eyed his old friend. He seemed mildly interested.

‘Did you send someone along to answer it?’ he inquired.

‘We did.’ The Superintendent spoke heavily. ‘Poor young Billings was kept there singing comic songs for three-quarters of an hour while W—I mean this fellow—watched him without a smile. Then he told him he’d go down better at a police concert.’

Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn looked sympathetic.

‘What a shame!’ she said gravely, and Mr Campion never admired her more.

‘We sent another man,’ continued the Superintendent, ‘but when he got there the servant told him the vacancy had been filled. We kept an eye on the place, too, but it wasn’t easy. The whole crescent was a seething mass of would-be child entertainers.’

‘So you haven’t an idea what he’s up to?’ Mr Campion seemed amused.

‘Not the faintest,’ Oates admitted. ‘We shall in the end, though; I’ll lay my bottom dollar. He was the moving spirit in that cussed Featherstone case, you know, and we’re pretty certain it was he who slipped through the police net in the Barking business.’

Mr Campion raised his eyebrows. ‘Blackmail and smuggling?’ he said. ‘He seems to be a versatile soul, doesn’t he?’

‘He’s up to anything,’ Oates declared. ‘Absolutely anything. I’d give a packet to get my hands on him. But what he wants with a kids’ entertainer—if it is an entertainer he’s after—I do not know.’

‘Perhaps he just wants to give a children’s party?’ suggested Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn and while the policeman was considering this possibility, evidently the one explanation which had not crossed his mind, she took her leave.

‘I must thank you once again, Mr Oates,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you how terribly, terribly clever I think you are, and how awfully grateful I am, and how frightfully careful I’ll be in future not to give you any more dreadful trouble.’

It was a charming little speech in spite of her catastrophic adjectives and the Superintendent beamed.

‘It’s been a pleasure, miss,’ he said.

As Mr Campion handed her into her mother’s Daimler he regarded her coldly.

‘A pretty performance,’ he remarked. ‘Tell me, what do you say when a spark of genuine gratitude warms your nasty little heart? My poor Oates!’

Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn grinned.

‘I did do it well, didn’t I?’ she said complacently. ‘He’s rather a dear old goat.’

Mr Campion was shocked and said so.

‘The Superintendent is a distinguished officer. I always knew that, of course, but this afternoon I discovered a broad streak of chivalry in him. In his place I think I might have permitted myself a few comments on the type of young woman who leaves a diamond bracelet and an emerald ring in the soap-dish at a public restaurant and then goes smiling to Scotland Yard to ask for it back. The wretched man had performed a miracle for you and you call him a dear old goat.’

Leonie was young enough to look abashed without losing her charm.

‘Oh, but I am grateful,’ she said. ‘I think he’s wonderful. But not so absolutely brilliant as somebody else.’

‘That’s very nice of you, my child.’ Mr Campion prepared to unbend.

‘Oh, not you, darling.’ Leonie squeezed his arm. ‘I was talking about the other man—The Widow. He’s got real nerve, don’t you think?—using his own address and making the detective sing and all that.... So amusing!’

Her companion looked down at her severely.

‘Don’t make a hero out of him,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because, my dear little hideous, he’s a crook. It’s only while he remains uncaught that he’s faintly interesting. Sooner or later your elderly admirer, the Superintendent, is going to clap him under lock and key and then he’ll just be an ordinary convict, who is anything but romantic, believe me.’

Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn shook her head.

‘He won’t get caught,’ she said. ‘Or if he does—forgive me, darling—it’ll be by someone much cleverer than you or Mr Oates.’

Mr Campion’s professional pride rebelled.

‘What’ll you bet?’

‘Anything you like,’ said Leonie. ‘Up to two pounds,’ she added prudently.

Campion laughed. ‘The girl’s learning caution at last!’ he said. ‘I may hold you to that.’

The conversation changed to the charity matinée of the day before, wherein Miss Peterhouse-Vaughn had appeared as Wisdom, and continued its easy course, gravitating naturally to the most important pending event in the Peterhouse-Vaughn family, the christening of Master Brian Desmond Peterhouse-Vaughn, nephew to Leonie, son to her elder brother, Desmond Brian, and godson to Mr Albert Campion.

It was his new responsibility as a godfather which led Mr Campion to take part in yet another elegant little ceremony some few days after the christening and nearly three weeks after Leonie’s sensational conquest of Superintendent Oates’s susceptible heart.

Mr Campion called to see Mr Thistledown in Cheese Street, E.C., and they went reverently to the cellars together.

Mr Thistledown was a small man, elderly and dignified. His white hair was inclined to flow a little and his figure was more suited, perhaps, to his vocation than to his name. As head of the small but distinguished firm of Thistledown, Friend and Son, Wine Importers since 1798, he very seldom permitted himself a personal interview with any client under the age of sixty-five, for at that year he openly believed the genus homo sapiens, considered solely as a connoisseur of vintage wine, alone attained full maturity.

Mr Campion, however, was an exception. Mr Thistledown thought of him as a lad still, but a promising one. He took his client’s errand with all the gravity he felt it to deserve.

‘Twelve dozen of port to be laid down for Master Brian Desmond Peterhouse-Vaughn,’ he said, rolling the words round his tongue as though they, too, had their flavour. ‘Let me see, it is now the end of ’36. It will have to be a ’27 wine. Then by the time your godson is forty—he won’t want to drink it before that age, surely?—there should be a very fine fifty-year-old vintage awaiting him.’

A long and somewhat heated discussion, or, rather, monologue, for Mr Campion was sufficiently experienced to offer no opinion, followed. The relative merits of Croft, Taylor, Da Silva, Noval and Fonseca were considered at length, and in the end Mr Campion followed his mentor through the sacred tunnels and personally affixed his seal upon a bin of Taylor, 1927.

Mr Thistledown was in favour of a stipulation to provide that Master Peterhouse-Vaughn should not attain full control over his vinous inheritance until he attained the age of thirty, whereas Mr Campion preferred the more conventional twenty-one. Finally a compromise of twenty-five was agreed upon and the two gentlemen retired to Mr Thistledown’s consulting-room glowing with the conscious virtue of men who had conferred a benefit upon posterity.

The consulting-room was comfortable. It was really no more than an arbour of bottles constructed in the vault of the largest cellar and was furnished with a table and chairs of solid ship’s timber. Mr Thistledown paused by the table and hesitated before speaking. There was clearly something on his mind and Campion, who had always considered him slightly inhuman, a sort of living port crust, was interested.

When at last the old gentleman unburdened himself it was to make a short speech.

‘It takes an elderly man to judge a port or a claret,’ he said, ‘but spirits are definitely in another category. Some men may live to be a hundred without ever realizing the subtle differences of the finest rums. To judge a spirit one must be born with a certain kind of palate. Mr Campion, would you taste a brandy for me?’

His visitor was startled. Always a modest soul, he made no pretensions to connoisseurship and now he said so firmly.

‘I don’t know.’ Mr Thistledown regarded him seriously. ‘I have watched your taste for some years now and I am inclined to put you down as one of the few really knowledgeable younger men. Wait for me a moment.’

He went out, and through the arbour’s doorway Campion saw him conferring with the oldest and most cobwebby of the troglodyte persons who lurked about the vaults.

Considerably flattered in spite of himself, he sat back and awaited developments. Presently one of the younger myrmidons, a mere youth of fifty or so, appeared with a tray and a small selection of balloon glasses. He was followed by an elder with two bottles, and at the rear of the procession came Mr Thistledown himself with something covered by a large silk handkerchief. Not until they were alone did he remove the veil. Then, whipping the handkerchief aside, he produced a partly full half-bottle with a new cork and no label. He held it up to the light and Mr Campion saw that the liquid within was of the true dark amber.

Still with the ritualistic air, Mr Thistledown polished a glass and poured a tablespoonful of the spirit, afterwards handing it to his client.

Feeling like a man with his honour at stake, Campion warmed the glass in his hand, sniffed at it intelligently, and finally allowed a little of the stuff to touch his tongue.

Mr Thistledown watched him earnestly. Campion tasted again and inhaled once more. Finally he set down his glass and grinned.

‘I may be wrong,’ he said, ‘but it tastes like the real McKay.’

Mr Thistledown frowned at the vulgarism. He seemed satisfied, however, and there was a curious mixture of pleasure and discomfort on his face.

‘I put it down as a Champagne Fine, 1835,’ he said. ‘It has not, perhaps, quite the superb caress of the true Napoleon—but a brave, yes, a brave brandy! The third best I have ever tasted in my life. And that, let me tell you, Mr Campion, is a very extraordinary thing.’

He paused, looking like some old white cockatoo standing at the end of the table.

‘I wonder if I might take you into my confidence?’ he ventured at last. ‘Ah—a great many people do take you into their confidence, I believe? Forgive me for putting it that way.’

Campion smiled. ‘I’m as secret as the grave,’ he said, ‘and if there’s anything I can do I shall be delighted.’

Mr Thistledown sighed with relief and became almost human.

‘This confounded bottle was sent to me some little time ago,’ he said. ‘With it was a letter from a man called Gervaise Papulous; I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him, but he wrote a very fine monograph on brandies some years ago which was greatly appreciated by connoisseurs. I had an idea he lived a hermit’s life somewhere in Scotland, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact remains that when I had this note from an address in Half Moon Street I recognized the name immediately. It was a very civil letter, asking me if I’d mind, as an expert, giving my opinion of the age and quality of the sample.’

He paused and smiled faintly.

‘I was a little flattered, perhaps,’ he said. ‘After all, the man is a well-known authority himself. Anyway, I made the usual tests, tasted it and compared it with the oldest and finest stuff we have in stock. We have a few bottles of 1848 and one or two of the 1835. I made the most careful comparisons and at last I decided that the sample was a ’35 brandy, but not the same blend as our own. I wrote him; I said I did not care to commit myself, but I gave him my opinion for what it was worth and I appended my reasons for forming it.’

Mr Thistledown’s precise voice ceased and his colour heightened.

‘By return I received a letter thanking me for mine and asking me whether I would care to consider an arrangement whereby I could buy the identical spirit in any quantity I cared to name at a hundred and twenty shillings a dozen, excluding duty—or, in other words, ten shillings per bottle.’

Mr Campion sat up. ‘Ten shillings?’ he said.

‘Ten shillings,’ repeated Mr Thistledown. ‘The price of a wireless licence,’ he added with contempt. ‘Well, as you can imagine, Mr Campion, I thought there must be some mistake. Our own ’35 is listed at sixty shillings a bottle and you cannot get finer value anywhere in London. The stuff is rare. In a year or two it will be priceless. I considered this sample again and reaffirmed my own first opinion. Then I re-read the letter and noticed the peculiar phrase—“an arrangement whereby you will be able to purchase”. I thought about it all day and finally I put on my hat and went down to see the man.’

He glanced at his visitor almost timidly. Campion was reassuring.

‘If it was genuine it was not a chance to be missed,’ he murmured.

‘Exactly.’ Mr Thistledown smiled. ‘Well, I saw him, a younger man than I had imagined but well informed, and I received quite a pleasant impression. I asked him frankly where he got the brandy and he came out with an extraordinary suggestion. He asked me first if I was satisfied with the sample, and I said I was or I should hardly have come to see him. Then he said the whole matter was a secret at the moment, but that he was asking certain well-informed persons to a private conference and something he called a scientific experiment. Finally he offered me an invitation. It is to take place next Monday evening in a little hotel on the Norfolk coast where Mr Papulous says the ideal conditions for his experiment exist.’

Mr Campion’s interest was thoroughly aroused.

‘I should go,’ he said.

Mr Thistledown spread out his hands.

‘I had thought of it,’ he admitted. ‘As I came out of the flat at Half Moon Street I passed a man I knew on the stairs. I won’t mention his name and I won’t say his firm is exactly a rival of ours, but—well, you know how it is. Two or three old firms get the reputation for supplying certain rare vintages. Their names are equally good and naturally there is a certain competition between them. If this fellow has happened on a whole cellar full of this brandy I should like to have as good a chance of buying it as the next man, especially at the price. But in my opinion and in my experience that is too much to hope for, and that is why I have ventured to mention the matter to you.’

A light dawned upon his client.

‘You want me to attend the conference and make certain everything’s above-board?’

‘I hardly dared to suggest it,’ he said, ‘but since you are such an excellent judge, and since your reputation as an investigator—if I may be forgiven the term—is so great, I admit the thought did go through my mind.’

Campion picked up his glass and sniffed its fragrance.

‘My dear man, I’d jump at it,’ he said. ‘Do I pass myself off as a member of the firm?’

Mr Thistledown looked owlish.

‘In the circumstances I think we might connive at that little inexactitude,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I think we’ll have to,’ said Mr Campion.

When he saw the ‘little hotel on the Norfolk coast’ at half-past six on the following Monday afternoon the thought came to him that it was extremely fortunate for the proprietor that it should be so suitable for Mr Papulous’s experiment, for it was certainly not designed to be of much interest to any ordinary winter visitor. It was a large country public-house, not old enough to be picturesque, standing by itself at the end of a lane some little distance from a cold and sleepy village. In the summer, no doubt, it provided a headquarters for a great many picnic parties, but in winter it was deserted.

Inside it was warm and comfortable enough, however, and Campion found a curious little company seated round the fire in the lounge. His host rose to greet him and he was aware at once of a considerable personality.

He saw a tall man with a shy ingratiating manner, whose clothes were elegant and whose face was remarkable. His deep-set eyes were dark and intelligent and his wide mouth could smile disarmingly, but the feature which was most distinctive was the way in which his iron-grey hair drew into a clean-cut peak in the centre of his high forehead, giving him an odd, Mephistophelean appearance.

‘Mr Fellowes?’ he said, using the alias Campion and Mr Thistledown had agreed upon. ‘I heard from your firm this morning. Of course I’m very sorry not to have Mr Thistledown here. He says in his note that I am to regard you as his second self. You handle the French side, I understand?’

‘Yes. It was only by chance that I was in England yesterday when Mr Thistledown asked me to come.’

‘I see.’ Mr Papulous seemed contented with the explanation. Campion looked a mild, inoffensive young man, even a little foolish.

He was introduced to the rest of the company round the fire and was interested to see that Mr Thistledown had been right in his guess. Half a dozen of the best-known smaller and older wine firms were represented, in most cases by their senior partners.

Conversation, however, was not as general as might have been expected among men of such similar interests. On the contrary, there was a distinct atmosphere of restraint, and it occurred to Mr Campion that they were all close rivals and each man had not expected to see the others.

Mr Papulous alone seemed happily unconscious of any discomfort. He stood behind his chair at the head of the group and glanced round him with satisfaction.

‘It’s really very kind of you all to have come,’ he said in his deep musical voice. ‘Very kind indeed. I felt we must have experts, the finest experts in the world, to test this thing, because it’s revolutionary—absolutely revolutionary.’

A large old gentleman with a hint of superciliousness in his manner glanced up.

‘When are we going to come to the horses, Mr Papulous?’

His host turned to him with a depreciatory smile.

‘Not until after dinner, I’m afraid, Mr Jerome. I’m sorry to seem so secretive, but the whole nature of the discovery is so extraordinary that I want you to see the demonstration with your own eyes.’

Mr Jerome, whose name Campion recognized as belonging to the moving spirit of Bolitho Brothers, of St Mary Axe, seemed only partly mollified. He laughed.

‘Is it the salubrious air of this particular hotel that you need for your experiment, may I ask?’ he inquired.

‘Oh no, my dear sir. It’s the stillness.’ Mr Papulous appeared to be completely oblivious of any suggestion of a sneer. ‘It’s the utter quiet. At night, round about ten o’clock, there is a lack of vibration here, so complete that you can almost feel it, if I may use such a contradiction in terms. Now, Mr Fellowes, dinner’s at seven-thirty. Perhaps you’d care to see your room?’

Campion was puzzled. As he changed for the meal—a gesture which seemed to be expected of him—he surveyed the situation with growing curiosity. Papulous was no ordinary customer. He managed to convey an air of conspiracy and mystery while appearing himself as open and simple as the day. Whatever he was up to, he was certainly a good salesman.

The dinner was simple and well cooked and was served by Papulous’s own man. There was no alcohol and the dishes were not highly seasoned, out of deference, their host explained, to the test that was to be put to their palates later on.

When it was over and the mahogany had been cleared of dessert, a glass of water was set before each guest and from the head of the table Mr Papulous addressed his guests. He made a very distinguished figure, leaning forward across the polished wood, the candle-light flickering on his deeply lined face and high heart-shaped forehead.

‘First of all let me recapitulate,’ he said. ‘You all know my name and you have all been kind enough to say that you have read my little book. I mention this because I want you to realize that by asking you down here to witness a most extraordinary demonstration I am taking my reputation in my hands. Having made that point, let me remind you that you have, each of you, with the single exception of Mr Fellowes, been kind enough to give me your considered views on a sample of brandy which I sent you. In every case, I need hardly mention, opinion was the same—a Champagne Fine of 1835.’

A murmur of satisfaction not untinged with relief ran round the table and Mr Papulous smiled.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘frankly that would have been my own opinion had I not known—mark you, I say “known”—that the brandy I sent you was a raw cognac of nearly a hundred years later—to be exact, of 1932.’

There was a moment of bewilderment, followed by an explosion from Mr Jerome.

‘I hope you’re not trying to make fools of us, sir,’ he said severely. ‘I’m not going to sit here, and—’

‘One moment, one moment.’ Papulous spoke soothingly. ‘You really must forgive me. I know you all too well by repute to dare to make such a statement without following it immediately by the explanation to which you are entitled. As you’re all aware, the doctoring of brandy is an old game. Such dreadful additions as vanilla and burnt sugar have all been used in their time and will, no doubt, be used again, but such crude deceptions are instantly detected by the cultured palate. This is something different.’

Mr Jerome began to seethe.

‘Are you trying to interest us in a fake, sir?’ he demanded. ‘Because, if so, let me tell you I, for one, am not interested.’

There was a chorus of hasty assent in which Mr Campion virtuously joined.

Gervaise Papulous smiled faintly.

‘But of course not,’ he said. ‘We are all experts. The true expert knows that no fake can be successful, even should we so far forget ourselves as to countenance its existence. I am bringing you a discovery—not a trick, not a clever fraud, but a genuine discovery which may revolutionize the whole market. As you know, time is the principal factor in the maturing of spirits. Until now time has been the one factor which could not be artificially replaced. An old brandy, therefore, is quite a different thing from a new one.’

Mr Campion blinked. A light was beginning to dawn upon him.

Mr Papulous continued. There seemed to be no stopping him. At the risk of boring his audience he displayed a great knowledge of technical detail and went through the life history of an old liqueur brandy from the time it was an unripe grapeskin on a vine outside Cognac.

When he had finished he paused dramatically, adding softly:

‘What I hope to introduce to you tonight, gentlemen, is the latest discovery of science, a method of speeding up this long and wearisome process so that the whole business of maturing the spirit takes place in a few minutes instead of a hundred years. You have all examined the first-fruits of this method already and have been interested enough to come down here. Shall we go on?’

The effect of his announcement was naturally considerable. Everybody began to talk at once save Mr Campion, who sat silent and thoughtful. It occurred to him that his temporary colleagues were not only interested in making a great deal of money but very much alarmed at the prospect of losing a considerable quantity also.

‘If it’s true it’ll upset the whole damned trade,’ murmured his next-door neighbour, a little thin man with wispy straw-coloured hair.

Papulous rose. ‘In the next room the inventor, M. Philippe Jessant, is waiting to demonstrate,’ he said. ‘He began work on the idea during the period of prohibition in America and his researches were assisted there by one of the richest men in the world, but when the country was restored to sanity his patron lost interest in the work and he was left to perfect it unassisted. You will find him a simple, uneducated, unbusiness-like man, like many inventors. He came to me for help because he had read my little book and I am doing what I can for him by introducing him to you. Conditions are now ideal. The house is perfectly still. Will you come with me?’

The sceptical but excited little company filed into the large ‘commercial’ room on the other side of the passage. The place had been stripped of furniture save for a half-circle of chairs and a large deal table. On the table was a curious contraption, vaguely resembling two or three of those complicated coffee percolators which seemed to be designed solely for the wedding-present trade.

An excitable little man in a long brown overall was standing behind the table. If not an impressive figure, he was certainly an odd one, with his longish hair and gold-rimmed pince-nez.

‘Quiet, please. I must beg of you quiet,’ he commanded, holding up his hand as they appeared. ‘We must have no vibration, no vibration at all, if I am to succeed.’

He had a harsh voice and a curious foreign accent, which Campion could not instantly trace, but his manner was authoritative and the experts tiptoed gently to their seats.

‘Now,’ said Mr Jessant, his small eyes flashing, ‘I leave all explanations to my friend here. For me, I am only interested in the demonstration. You understand?’

He glared at them and Papulous hastened to explain.

‘Mr Jessant does not mean the human voice, of course,’ he murmured. ‘It is vibration, sudden movement, of which he is afraid.’

‘Quiet,’ cut in the inventor impatiently. ‘When a spirit matures in the ordinary way what does it have?—quiet, darkness, peace. These conditions are essential. Now we will begin, if you please.’

It was a simple business. A clear-glass decanter of brandy was produced and duly smelt and sampled by each guest. Papulous himself handed round the glasses and poured the liquid. By unanimous consent it was voted a raw spirit. The years 1932 and 1934 were both mentioned.

Then the same decanter was emptied into the contraption on the table and its progress watched through a system of glass tubes and a filter into a large retort-shaped vessel at the foot of the apparatus.

M. Jessant looked up.

‘Now,’ he said softly. ‘You will come, one at a time, please, and examine my invention. Walk softly.’

The inspection was made and the man in the brown overall covered the retort with a hood composed of something that looked like black rubber. For a while he busied himself with thermometers and a little electric battery.

‘It is going on now,’ he explained, suppressed excitement in his voice. ‘Every second roughly corresponds to a year—a long, dark, dismal year. Now—we shall see.’

The hood was removed, fresh glasses brought, and the retort itself carefully detached from the rest of the apparatus.

Mr Jerome was the first to examine the liquid it contained and his expression was ludicrous in its astonishment.

‘It’s incredible!’ he said at last. ‘Incredible! I can’t believe it.... There are certain tests I should like to make, of course, but I could swear this is an 1835 brandy.’

The others were of the same opinion and even Mr Campion was impressed. The inventor was persuaded to do his experiment again. To do him justice he complied willingly.

‘It is the only disadvantage,’ he said. ‘So little can be treated at the one time. I tell my friend I should like to make my invention foolproof and sell the machines and the instructions to the public, but he tells me no.’

‘No indeed!’ ejaculated Mr Campion’s neighbour. ‘Good heavens! it would knock the bottom out of half my trade....’

When at last the gathering broke up in excitement it was after midnight. Mr Papulous addressed his guests.

‘It is late,’ he said. ‘Let us go to bed now and consider the whole matter in the morning when M. Jessant can explain the theory of his process. Meanwhile, I am sure you will agree with me that we all have something to think about.’

A somewhat subdued company trooped off upstairs. There was little conversation. A man does not discuss a revolutionary discovery with his nearest rival.

Campion came down in the morning to find Mr Jerome already up. He was pacing the lounge and turned on the young man almost angrily.

‘I like to get up at six,’ he said without preamble, ‘but there were no servants in the place. A woman, her husband and a maid came along at seven. It seems Papulous made them sleep out. Afraid of vibration, I suppose. Well, it’s an extraordinary discovery, isn’t it? If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I should never have believed it. I suppose one’s got to be prepared for progress, but I can’t say I like it. Never did.’

He lowered his voice and came closer.

‘We shall have to get together and suppress it, you know,’ he said. ‘Only thing to do. We can’t have a thing like this blurted out to the public and we can’t have any single firm owning the secret. Anyway, that’s my opinion.’

Campion murmured that he did not care to express his own without first consulting Mr Thistledown.

‘Quite, quite. There’ll be a good many conferences in the City this afternoon,’ said Mr Jerome gloomily. ‘And that’s another thing. D’you know there isn’t a telephone in this confounded pub?’

Campion’s eyes narrowed.

‘Is that so?’ he said softly. ‘That’s very interesting.’

Mr Jerome shot him a suspicious glance.

‘In my opinion...’ he began heavily, but got no further. The door was thrust open and the small wispy-haired man, who had been Campion’s neighbour at dinner, came bursting into the room.

‘I say,’ he said, ‘a frightful thing! The little inventor chap has been attacked in the night. His machine is smashed and the plans and formula are stolen. Poor old Papulous is nearly off his head.’

Both Campion and Jerome started for the doorway and a moment later joined the startled group on the landing. Gervaise Papulous, an impressive figure in a long black dressing-gown, was standing with his back to the inventor’s door.

‘This is terrible, terrible!’ he was saying. ‘I beseech you all, go downstairs and wait until I see what is best to be done. My poor friend has only just regained consciousness.’

Jerome pushed his way through the group.

‘But this is outrageous,’ he began.

Papulous towered over him, his eyes dark and angry.

‘It is just as you say, outrageous,’ he said, and Mr Jerome quailed before the suppressed fury in his voice.

‘Look here,’ he began, ‘you surely don’t think ... you’re not insinuating...’

‘I am only thinking of my poor friend,’ said Mr Papulous.

Campion went quietly downstairs.

‘What on earth does this mean?’ demanded the small wispy-haired gentleman, who had remained in the lounge.

Campion grinned. ‘I rather fancy we shall all find that out pretty clearly in about an hour,’ he said.

He was right. Mr Gervaise Papulous put the whole matter to them in the bluntest possible way as they sat dejectedly looking at the remains of what had proved a very unsatisfactory breakfast.

M. Jessant, his head in bandages and his face pale with exhaustion, had told a heart-breaking story. He had awakened to find a pad of chloroform across his mouth and nose. It was dark and he could not see his assailant, who also struck him repeatedly. His efforts to give the alarm were futile and in the end the anaesthetic had overpowered him.

When at last he had come to himself his apparatus had been smashed and his precious black pocket-book, which held his calculations and which he always kept under his pillow, had gone.

At this point he had broken down completely and had been led away by Papulous’s man. Mr Gervaise Papulous then took the floor. He looked pale and nervous and there was an underlying suggestion of righteous anger and indignation in his manner which was very impressive.

‘I won’t waste time by telling you how appalled I am by this monstrous attack,’ he began, his fine voice trembling. ‘I can only tell you the facts. We were alone in this house last night. Even my own man slept out in the village. I arranged this to ensure ideal conditions for the experiment. The landlady reports that the doors were locked this morning and the house had not been entered from the outside. Now you see what this means? Until last night only the inventor and I knew of the existence of a secret which is of such great importance to all of you here. Last night we told you, we took you into our confidence, and now....’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, we have been robbed and my friend assaulted. Need I say more?’

An excited babble of protest arose and Mr Jerome seemed in danger of apoplexy. Papulous remained calm and a little contemptuous.

‘There is only one thing to do,’ he said, ‘but I hesitated before calling in the police, because, of course, only one of you can be guilty and the secret must still be in the house, whereas I know the publicity which cannot be avoided will be detrimental to you all. And not only to yourselves personally, but to the firms you represent.’

He paused and frowned.

‘The Press is so ignorant,’ he said. ‘I am so afraid you may all be represented as having come here to see some sort of faking process—new brandy into old. It doesn’t sound convincing, does it?’

His announcement burst like a bomb in the quiet room. Mr Jerome sat very still, his mouth partly open. Somebody began to speak, but thought better of it. A long unhappy silence supervened.

Gervaise Papulous cleared his throat.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I must either have my friend’s note-book back and full compensation, or I must send for the police. What else can I do?’

Mr Jerome pulled himself together.

‘Wait,’ he said in a smothered voice. ‘Before you do anything rash we must have a conference. I’ve been thinking over this discovery of yours, Mr Papulous, and in my opinion it raises very serious considerations for the whole trade.’

There was a murmur of agreement in the room and he went on.

‘The one thing none of us can afford is publicity. In the first place, even if the thing becomes generally known it certainly won’t become generally believed. The public doesn’t rely on its palate; it relies on our labels, and that puts us in a very awkward position. This final development precipitates everything. We must clear up this mystery in private and then decide what is best to be done.’

There was a vigorous chorus of assent, but Mr Papulous shook his head.

‘I’m afraid I can’t agree,’ he said coldly. ‘In the ordinary way M. Jessant and I would have been glad to meet you in any way, but this outrage alters everything. I insist on a public examination unless, of course,’ he added deliberately, ‘unless you care to take the whole matter out of our hands.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mr Jerome’s voice was faint.

The tall man with the deeply lined face regarded him steadily.

‘Unless you care to club together and buy us out,’ said Mr Papulous. ‘Then you can settle the matter as you like. The sum M. Jessant had in mind was fifteen thousand pounds, a very reasonable price for such a secret.’

There was silence after he had spoken.

‘Blackmail,’ said Mr Campion under his breath and at the same moment his glance lighted on Mr Papulous’s most outstanding feature. His eyebrows rose and an expression of incredulity, followed by amazement, passed over his face. Then he kicked himself gently under the breakfast table. He rose.

‘I must send a wire to my principal,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand I’m in an impossible position and must get in touch with Mr Thistledown at once.’

Papulous regarded him.

‘If you will write your message my man will despatch it from the village,’ he said politely and there was no mistaking the implied threat.

Campion understood he was not to be allowed to make any private communication with the outside world. He looked blank.

‘Thank you,’ he said and took out a pencil and a loose-leaf note-book.

‘Unexpected development,’ he wrote. ‘Come down immediately. Inform Charlie and George cannot lunch Tuesday. A. C. Fellowes.’

Papulous took the message, read it and went out with it, leaving a horrified group behind him.

Mr Thistledown received Mr Campion’s wire at eleven o’clock and read it carefully. The signature particularly interested him. Shutting himself in his private room, he rang up Scotland Yard and was fortunate in discovering Superintendent Oates at his desk. He dictated the wire carefully and added with a depreciatory cough:

‘Mr Campion told me to send on to you any message from him signed with his own initials. I don’t know if you can make much of this. It seems very ordinary to me.’

‘Leave all that to us, sir.’ Oates sounded cheerful. ‘Where is he, by the way?’

Mr Thistledown gave the address and hung up the receiver. At the other end of the wire the Superintendent unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out a small red manuscript book. Each page was ruled with double columns and filled with Mr Campion’s own elegant handwriting. Oates ran a forefinger down the left-hand column on the third page.

‘Carrie ... Catherine ... Charles....’

His eye ran across the page.

‘Someone you want,’ he read and looked on down the list.

The legend against the word ‘George’ was brief. ‘Two’, it said simply.

Oates turned to the back of the book. There were several messages under the useful word ‘lunch’. ‘Come to lunch’ meant ‘Send two men’. ‘Lunch with me’ was translated ‘Send men armed’, and ‘Cannot lunch’ was ‘Come yourself’.

‘Tuesday’ was on another page. The Superintendent did not trouble to look it up. He knew its meaning. It was ‘hurry’.

He wrote the whole message out on a pad.

‘Unexpected developments. Come down immediately. Someone you want (two). Come yourself. Hurry. Campion.’

He sighed. ‘Energetic chap,’ he commented and pressed a bell for Sergeant Bloom.

As it happened, it was Mr Gervaise Papulous himself who caught the first glimpse of the police car which pulled up outside the lonely little hotel. He was standing by the window in an upper room whose floor was so flimsily constructed that he could listen with ease to the discussion taking place in the lounge below. There the unfortunate experts were still arguing. The only point on which they all agreed was the absolute necessity of avoiding a scandal.

As the car stopped and the Superintendent sprang out and made for the door, Papulous caught a glimpse of his official-looking figure. He swung round savagely to the forlorn little figure who sat hunched up on the bed.

‘You peached, damn you!’ he whispered.

‘Me?’ The man who had been calling himself ‘Jessant’ sat up in indignation. ‘Me peach?’ he repeated, his foreign accent fading into honest South London. ‘Don’t be silly. And you pay up, my lad. I’m fed up with this. First I do me stuff, then you chloroform me, then you bandage me, then you keep me shut up ’ere, and now you accuse me of splitting. What you playing at?’

‘You’re lying, you little rat.’ Papulous’s voice was dangerously soft and he strode swiftly across the room towards the man on the bed, who shrank back in sudden alarm.

‘Here—that’ll do, that’ll do. What’s going on here?’

It was Oates who spoke. Followed by Campion and the sergeant he strode across the room.

‘Let the fellow go,’ he commanded. ‘Good heavens, man, you’re choking him.’

Doubling his fist, he brought it up under the other man’s wrists with a blow which not only loosed their hold but sent their owner staggering back across the room.

The man on the bed let out a howl and stumbled towards the door into the waiting arms of Sergeant Bloom, but Oates did not notice him. His eyes were fixed upon the face of the tall man on the other side of the room.

‘The Widow!’ he ejaculated. ‘Well I’ll be damned!’

The other smiled.

‘More than probably, my dear Inspector. Or have they promoted you?’ he said. ‘But at the moment I’m afraid you’re trespassing.’

The Superintendent glanced inquiringly at the mild and elegant figure at his side.

‘False pretences is the charge,’ murmured Mr Campion affably. ‘There are certain rather unpleasant traces of blackmail in the matter, but false pretences will do. There are six witnesses and myself.’

The man whose alias was The Widow stared at his accuser.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded, and then, as the answer dawned upon him, he swore softly. ‘Campion,’ he said. ‘Albert Campion ... I ought to have recognized you from your description.’

Campion grinned. ‘That’s where I had the advantage of you,’ he said.

Mr Campion and the Superintendent drove back to London together, leaving a very relieved company of experts to travel home in their own ways. Oates was jubilant.

‘Got him,’ he said. ‘Got him at last. And a clear case. A pretty little swindle, too. Just like him. If you hadn’t been there all those poor devils would have paid up something. They’re the kind of people he goes for, folk whose business depends on their absolute integrity. They all represent small firms, you see, with old, conservative clients. When did you realize that he wasn’t the real Gervaise Papulous?’

‘As soon as I saw him I thought it unlikely.’ Campion grinned as he spoke. ‘Before I left town I rang up the publishers of the Papulous monograph. They had lost sight of him, they said, but from their publicity department I learned that Papulous was born in ’72. So as soon as I saw our friend The Widow I realized that he was a good deal younger than the real man. However, like a fool I didn’t get on to the swindle until this morning. It was when he was putting on that brilliant final act of his. I suddenly recognized him and, of course, the whole thing came to me in a flash.’

‘Recognized him?’ Oates looked blank. ‘I never described him to you.’

Mr Campion looked modest. ‘D’you remember showing off to a very pretty girl I brought up to your office, and so far forgetting yourself as to produce an advertisement from an evening paper?’ he inquired.

‘I remember the ad,’ Oates said doggedly. ‘The fellow advertised for a kids’ entertainer. But I don’t remember him including a photograph of himself.’

‘He printed his name,’ Campion persisted. ‘It’s a funny nickname. The significance didn’t occur to me until I looked at him this morning, knowing that he was a crook. I realized that he was tricking us, but I couldn’t see how. Then his face gave him away.’

‘His face?’

‘My dear fellow, you haven’t spotted it yet. I’m glad of that. It didn’t come to me for a bit. Consider that face. How do crooks get their names? How did Beaky Doyle get his name? Why was Cauliflower Edwards so called? Think of his forehead, man. Think of his hair.’

‘Peak,’ said the Superintendent suddenly. ‘Of course, a widow’s peak! Funny I didn’t think of that before. It’s obvious when it comes to you. But even so,’ he added more seriously, ‘I wonder you cared to risk sending for me on that alone. Plenty of people have a widow’s peak. You’d have looked silly if he’d been on the level.’

‘Oh, but I had the advertisement as well,’ Campion objected. ‘Taken in conjunction, the two things are obvious. That demonstration last night was masterly. Young brandy went in at one end of the apparatus and old brandy came out at the other, and we saw, or thought we saw, the spirit the whole time. There was only one type of man who could have done it—a children’s party entertainer.’

Oates shook his head.

‘I’m only a poor demented policeman,’ he said derisively. ‘My mind doesn’t work. I’ll buy it.’

Campion turned to him. ‘My good Oates, have you ever been to a children’s party?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you’ve been a child, I suppose?’

‘I seem to remember something like it.’

‘Well, when you were a child what entertained you? Singing? Dancing? The Wreck of the Hesperus? No, my dear friend, there’s only one kind of performer who goes down well with children and that is a member of the brotherhood of which Jessant is hardly an ornament. A magician, Oates. In other words, a conjurer. And a damned good trick he showed us all last night!’

He trod on the accelerator and the car rushed on again.

The Superintendent sat silent for a long time. Then he glanced up.

‘That was a pretty girl,’ he said. ‘Nice manners, too.’

‘Leonie?’ Campion nodded. ‘That reminds me, I must phone her when we get back to town.’

‘Oh?’ The Superintendent was interested. ‘Nothing I can do for you, I suppose?’ he inquired archly.

Campion smiled. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘I want to tell her she owes me two pounds.’