Читать книгу Mr Campion and Others - Margery Allingham - Страница 7

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Mr Campion received the hat as a sentimental tribute. Mrs Wynyard pressed it into his hand at her farewell party at the Braganza on the night before she sailed home to New York.

‘I want you to have it,’ she said, her curly white head held on one side and her plump hand resting lightly on the sleeve of his tail coat. ‘It’s ex-clusive. I got it from old Wolfgarten in one of those cute little streets off Bond Street, and he gave me his solemn word by everything he feels to be holy that it’s quite u-nique. There’s not another one in the world, and I want you to keep it to remind you of me and Mr Honeyball and the grand times we’ve had this trip.’

Hubert Wynyard, who was so good-humoured that he let his wife call him anything, even ‘Mr Honeyball’, winked at Campion across his glass.

‘So now you know,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about a speech of thanks. Time’s short. Where’s that confounded wine waiter?’

So Campion pocketed the hat, which was less than half an inch high and made of onyx, with a cunningly carved agate where the opening for the head should have been, and thought no more about it.

He found it again next time he put on full war paint, which was for the first night of Lorimer’s Carry Over at the Sovereign Theatre. The occasion was so smart that he was beginning to feel that ‘sticky’ might be the term for it when the curtain descended on the second act and someone touched him on the shoulder. It turned out to be Peter Herrick, looking a trifle pink and disconcerted, which was unusual in one normally so very elegantly at ease.

‘I say, old man, I need a spot of support,’ he muttered. ‘Can you come?’

There was a note of genuine supplication in the plea, and Campion excused himself from his party and joined him.

‘What’s up? Going to start a fight?’

His whisper was respectfully amused as they pressed their way through the noisy, perfumed crowd in the corridor.

‘I hope not. As a matter of fact that’s what I’m trying to avoid. It’s social support I need.’

Peter had edged into a convenient corner between a gilt settee and an enormous basket of hydrangeas. He was a trifle red about the ears and his vivid blue eyes, which lent his young face most of its charm, were laughing but embarrassed.

‘I suddenly caught sight of you,’ he said, ‘and I realized you were probably the one man in the world of whom one could ask such a damn silly thing and not get cut for the rest of one’s life. Come and back me up like a good bloke. You couldn’t look like a duke or something, could you?’

‘I don’t see why not.’ Mr Campion’s lean face took on an even more vacant expression. ‘What’s the idea? Whom do I impress?’

‘You’ll see.’ Peter was grim. ‘I’m suspect, old boy. I’m not the thing. Not—er—quite it, don’t you know. I think someone’s spread it around that my old man’s a bobby.’

Campion’s eyebrows appeared above his horn-rimmed spectacles and he began to laugh. Major Herrick was well known to him as one of the Assistant Commissioners and one of the more poker-backed of his acquaintances, while Peter’s worst enemy, if he had one, which seemed unlikely, could scarcely accuse him of being unpresentable. The whole situation seemed to Campion to have the elements of humour and he said so, delicately.

‘But also very charming,’ he added cheerfully. ‘All olde worlde and young-man-what-are-your-intentions. Must you bother about the woman? There is a woman, I take it?’

Peter shot a revealing glance at him.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but you wait until you see her. I met her on a boat and then I lost her. Now I’ve found her again at last, and there’s this insane old father and the incredible tick of a fellow they’re touting around with them. Come on, old boy, do your stuff. I’m out of my depth altogether. Prudence is embarrassed, and the other two have to be seen to be believed.’

A trifle under two minutes later Campion was inclined to agree with half the final statement. Old Mr Thomas K. Burns was not unbelievable, Norman Whitman was. As for Prudence Burns, he took one look at her slender red-headed loveliness and was prepared to sympathize with any enthusiasm which Peter might evince. The girl was a raving beauty of the modern type. She sat on her gold chair in Box B and smiled up at him with humour and intelligence as well as embarrassment in her brown eyes.

Her escorts were far less pleasant to meet. Old Mr Burns was a plain man in every sense of the word who had made an enormous amount of money in South Africa. He was in the midst of recounting these two obvious facts to Campion immediately after their introduction when a warning frown from the third member of his party silenced him as though a hand had been placed over his mouth, leaving him deflated and at sea. He turned helplessly, with an appealing flicker in his small grey eyes.

‘This ’ere—I should say, this gentleman is Mr Norman Whitman,’ he said, and paused for the name to take effect.

Entirely because he felt it was expected of him, Campion looked interested, while Norman Whitman favoured him with a supercilious stare. Campion was puzzled. He saw a plumpish, consequential little person with sleek hair and a pale face in which the eyeglass was a definite mistake. He was well dressed, not to say natty, and from the toes of his shoes to the highlight on his prominent white forehead he was polished until he shone. His voice, which was high, was so carefully modulated as to sound affected, and altogether he exuded an atmosphere of conceit and self-importance which was quite insufferable.

‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before,’ he said, making the announcement sound like an accusation. ‘Not very good acting, is it? I’m afraid poor Emily is a sad disappointment.’

Campion had thought that Dame Emily Storm’s performance was well up to its usual standard of polished perfection, and said so.

‘She always says she’s very nervous on first nights,’ he added.

‘Oh, do you know her?’ There was real excitement and hero-worship in Prudence Burns’s inquiry, and a quality of youthful naïveté in her eagerness which made Campion like her.

‘My dear child, not the stage!’ Norman Whitman shook an admonishing finger at the girl and she stared at him blankly, as did they all save old Mr Burns, who said somewhat hurriedly, ‘I should think not. Not likely,’ and assumed a virtuous expression which was patently false and ill suited to his round, red face.

The incredible Norman leant over the side of the box.

‘Isn’t that the Countess?’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘Is it? Why, of course. Yes, it is. You must all excuse me a moment. I really must go and say “Hello”.’

He bustled off and Mr Burns moved into his place and looked down at the frothing pool of clothes and their owners in the stalls below. There was something almost pathetic in his interest, a quality of small-boyishness which Campion found disarming. Peter was less sympathetic. He looked scandalized and crossed over to the girl at once. It seemed only charitable to give him a moment or so, and Campion gallantly concentrated on the father.

Mr Burns glanced up at him and looked away again.

‘He’s not there yet,’ he said and hesitated, adding abruptly because of his embarrassment, ‘do you see her?’

‘Who?’

‘The Countess,’ said Mr Burns, lowering his voice to a respectful whisper.

Campion became a little embarrassed also. His fingers deep in his pockets found the onyx hat, and he began to play with it, taking it out and letting it roll idly in his hand. He was standing up in the box, a little behind the old man, who seemed in danger of falling out altogether in his eagerness.

‘There he is.’ Mr Burns’s voice rose in his excitement. ‘That’s her, is it? You don’t recognize her, do you?’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ said Campion helplessly as he glanced at the large lady in the crimson cloak who had paused to speak to Norman Whitman in the crowd below. Mr Burns nodded gloomily as though he had feared as much, and Campion was aware that both he and Peter had lost caste. Having stared his fill, the old man straightened himself and stepped back.

‘Better not let him catch us,’ he remarked, and coughed explosively but a trifle too late to cover the ill-advised statement. For the first time he was able to give Campion his attention.

‘You’re in business, I suppose?’ he inquired, regarding him morosely.

The tall thin man in the horn-rimmed spectacles grinned unhappily. The bourgeois gentilhomme is an age-old character who moves some people to laughter, but others are apt to find his wistful gaucherie a little dispiriting, and Campion was of the latter category. He was so anxious not to hurt in any way that he hesitated over his answer.

‘Not exactly,’ he said, casually, and flicked the little hat into the air, catching it again and rolling it over between his fingers. The gesture was so idle that he was scarcely aware that he had made it, so that Mr Burns’s reaction came as a complete surprise to him.

All he saw at first was that the old man’s eyes were positively bulging and that there were pale patches in the mottled crimson of his cheeks. The next moment Prudence’s father’s entire attitude towards his new acquaintance underwent a complete change. His depression vanished and he became more than merely friendly. Within two minutes he had offered Campion a cigar, told him his hotel, begged him to visit him, and imparted a tip for the Stock Exchange which his somewhat startled visitor happened to know was a good one. Even the young people, who were engrossed in themselves, were aware of the change of front. Indeed, Campion felt that the entire theatre must notice it. Old Mr Burns was not subtle.

In the midst of his expansiveness he glanced at Peter and, returning to Campion, jerked his head at the young man.

‘Known him long?’ he inquired with husky confiding.

‘A great many years,’ Campion assured him.

‘Oh, he’s all right then, is he?’ The red face was very serious.

‘He’s one of my best friends.’ Campion had no intention of sounding severe, but the question was bewildering and in spite of himself the words came coldly.

Mr Burns took a rebuke. ‘That’s all right then,’ he said, sighing. ‘To tell you the honest truth, I’m not exactly in my place yet. A bit out of touch.’

He glanced up shyly to see how this confidence had been received and, noting that Campion remained affable if blank, added in a conspiratorial whisper: ‘You’ve no idea what a weight off my mind that is.’

Campion began to feel that the weight on his own mind was considerable, and he was on the point of launching out into a minor campaign of discreet inquiry when the curtain bell rang and he was forced to rejoin his own party. Mr Burns let him go with great reluctance but consoled himself a little when Peter accepted his invitation to remain.

Campion hurried down the corridor in a state of complete mystification. He was used to being a success but not a riot, and the single startled glance which Peter had turned upon him at parting made him laugh whenever he thought of it, but he was thankful he had not been pressed for an explanation.

On the stairs he passed Norman Whitman. The little man was bustling back to his seat and puffing consequentially as he hurried. He glanced at Campion and nodded to him.

‘She spared me a word, the dear thing,’ he said, as if the intelligence was good news of the highest importance, and trotted on out of sight. Campion glanced after him and somewhere in the far depths of his memory something stirred only to be lost again immediately.

There are few things more irritating than an elusive impression that one has seen someone or something before, and as he went on down the staircase and re-entered the now darkened auditorium Campion walked slowly, his forehead wrinkled. Somewhere, some time had he seen that plump little figure waddling along; but where and when escaped him utterly. It was most tantalizing.

He did not see Peter again that evening, but the following morning the boy telephoned while Campion was still in bed.

‘I say,’ the young voice sounded enthusiastic over the wire, ‘that was pretty sensational, wasn’t it? How did you do it?’

‘Did it last?’ Campion inquired cautiously.

‘Rather! We’re all going off to the races this morning. I’m more than grateful to you. I knew you were remarkable in many ways but I wasn’t prepared for a miracle. I’m still bewildered. Do you realize that I’d had the cold shoulder with icicles on it until you arrived? But now I’m the old man’s white-headed boy. What did you say?’

With pardonable weakness, Campion was loth to cast down his laurels.

‘Nothing much,’ he said truthfully. ‘I talked through my hat a bit, you know.’

‘I have no doubt you did, old boy,’ Peter agreed laughing, ‘but what did you actually say? Hang it all, you’ve altered the man’s entire attitude.’

‘I scarcely spoke,’ said Campion, regretting that this exactitude was hardly convincing. ‘How about the “gentleman friend”? Did you cut much ice with him?’

‘No.’ Peter’s tone carried unutterable contempt. ‘I’m afraid I scarcely noticed the little twirp. I say, you might let me know how to work the oracle.’

Since he had no idea at all and could therefore hardly be helpful, Campion thought it best to change the subject.

‘A very pretty girl,’ he ventured.

Peter rose to the bait like a salmon to a fly.

‘Amazing,’ he said warmly. ‘I don’t mind telling you I’m not coherent on the subject.’

It was nearly ten minutes later when Campion was at last allowed to hang up the receiver and he re-settled himself, grinning. Peter had under-estimated himself.

Thinking over the entire incident, Campion was inclined to wash his hands of the whole affair, putting it down as one of those odd things that do sometimes occur. There are degrees of oddness, however, and the next time the onyx hat came under his serious consideration it was in circumstances which could hardly be disregarded.

The following Wednesday was the seventeenth and on the seventeenth of September, whenever he was in London, Campion took his Aunt Eva to dinner after the Dahlia Show. This was one of those family fixtures which begin as a graceful gesture in commemoration of past favours in the way of timely financial assistance in mid-term, and may very well end as awful responsibilities; but Aunt Eva might easily have been worse. She was a spry little old lady in brown velvet and bangles, and her mind was almost entirely devoted to horticulture, whereas, of course, it might easily have been Pekinese or other people’s love affairs.

It was a time-honoured arrangement between them that she should choose the restaurant and, because of her preference for flower names, they sometimes dined well and sometimes appallingly, which was why Campion was not particularly astonished when he arrived at her hotel to find her all set, in garnets and gold galloon, to visit the Gillyflower.

‘I warn you it may be expensive,’ she said, settling herself in the taxi, ‘but I remembered poor Marchant left you all that money in the spring, so I dare say you can afford it. Don’t hesitate to mention it, my dear boy, if you’d rather not.’

‘Darling, I can’t think of a place in which I should enjoy seeing you more,’ he assured her, and spoke with a certain amount of truth, for the Gillyflower was an exotic bloom and he was interested to see what she would make of it.

He had visited the place once himself about three months before, just after it opened, and had found it flashy, exorbitant and badly staffed, but there had been an air of ultra-smart sophistication about it which he thought might possibly strike a new note after the homely sobriety of the Manor House dining-room.

They found the place noisy but not crowded. It did not yet exude the cold depression of failure, but neither was there the cheerful blare of assured success. Aunt Eva was able to choose a table with an excellent view of the floral display round the band platform, although it only gave her an oblique angle on the cabaret. All the same the meal was not one of their triumphs. The staff still left much to be desired and the food, although quite extraordinarily pretentious, was certainly not cooked by a master.

The quality of the service began to irritate Campion about half-way through the meal. A dirty plate, a forgotten order, a leaking ice-pail, two delays, and impossibly cold coffee reduced him by slow stages to a state of politely repressed irritation, and he was relieved that Aunt Eva was too happily engrossed in her subject for the evening, which appeared to be the merits of ground bones as a fertilizer, to notice the many defects in the meal.

However, what with one thing and another it was a trying experience for Campion, and while he was waiting patiently for the second brew of coffee and the wine waiter his fingers encountered the onyx hat and he took it out and began to play with it, rolling it over and over upon the table-cloth.

The first thing that happened was that the waiter spilt the coffee. Campion drew back wearily and looked up to receive his second surprise. He was prepared for some sort of apology but not for abnegation. The unfortunate man was green. He grovelled. He all but wept, and from that moment the Gillyflower appeared to belong to Mr Campion.

The change was astounding. The head waiter appeared at his elbow in solicitous friendliness, myrmidons arrived on all sides showering little attentions like so many sallow amorelli, Aunt Eva received a bouquet of Lady Forteviot roses, and Campion was tempted with a Napoleon fine from a bottle which certainly looked as though it had seen Paris, if not the siege. There was no doubt at all about their sudden rise to importance as guests of the Gillyflower and Campion’s eyes grew thoughtful behind his spectacles as he turned the charm over and over.

‘That’s a nice little hat,’ remarked Aunt Eva, smiling over her roses.

‘Isn’t it?’ said Campion. ‘A smart little hat, not to say clever.’

Just how clever it was, however, lay as yet unrevealed. That surprise came later when the lady went off to collect her old-fashioned sables and Campion glanced down at a bill for three pounds, seventeen shillings and one penny. On his nod of acceptance the waiter took the bill away. There was no charge, of course, he said, and seemed hurt that the guest should suggest it. ‘But naturally,’ no charge at all.

Campion gaped at the man, who smiled at him with bland satisfaction and expressed the pious hope that he had enjoyed the meal. Campion was taking out his note-case in stolid defiance when the maître d’hôtel, round as a football and sleek as a seal, appeared to corroborate the first man’s story.

‘No charge, sir,’ he said. ‘No, no, no charge. If only you had telephoned we should have been so happy to reserve you a better table.’

Campion looked down at the onyx hat which sat, prim and shining, on the edge of an ashtray. The man followed his glance and beamed.

‘You are satisfied?’ he inquired.

Campion flicked the trinket with his forefinger and a memory bringing enlightenment in its train blazed up suddenly in his mind.

‘That pays the waiter, does it?’ he said.

And then they both laughed; but Campion laughed all the way home.

It was over a fortnight later when he received a visit from Peter Herrick. That young man was in an indignant mood.

‘I say, I was glad you ’phoned,’ he said, coming into the study in the Piccadilly flat like a small electric storm. ‘I was just making up my mind to come down on you for another spot of help when you rang. Your success with old man Burns was so sensational that I was going to risk a second appeal. You wouldn’t care to be the complete hero and have another go, would you?’

His host, who was mixing the drinks, looked round from the cocktail cabinet and grinned.

‘My influence wore off, did it?’ he said. ‘I wondered if it might.’

Peter sat down. ‘It weakened,’ he admitted. ‘It’s that unspeakable little toot Whitman, you know. He’s got an idiotic line in pseudo smart-set talk that gets the old boy all of a flutter. When we’re alone he’s perfectly happy, apart from the fact that he wants to talk about you still, which is curious—forgive me, but you know what I mean.’

He broke off to laugh at himself.

‘I’m an ass,’ he said. ‘The whole truth of the matter—and you may be astounded to hear it, for I’m completely bewildered by it myself—the truth is that I’m nuts about Prudence, Campion, absolutely nuts. I want her to marry me, and she’s dead keen on the idea, which is another staggering piece of luck, and, logically speaking, everything ought to be pretty good. However, the old boy is completely taken in by Whitman. Whitman sells him the most fantastic hints on etiquette and he falls for it every time.’

Campion looked sympathetic.

‘Old Burns has an idea that Whitman is some sort of social capture, I take it?’ he ventured.

‘That’s it, I’m afraid.’ Peter was embarrassed. ‘It’s ludicrous, of course, and very uncomfortable, especially as the old lad himself is quite all right, really. Apart from this fantastic snob complex he’s a darned interesting, shrewd old chap. Whitman is simply taking advantage of his pet weakness. Prudence says her old man has always had a touch of it, but it’s got worse since he retired and settled down to enjoy his cash. Still, for Prudence’s sake I’d put up with Whitman if it wasn’t for this last piece of cheek. He’s had the impudence to suggest that he might marry her himself.’

‘Has he, by George?’ said Campion. ‘That’s sailing near the wind, isn’t it?’

‘I thought so.’ Peter spoke with feeling. ‘Unfortunately the old man is half sold in the idea. He’s anxious for Prudence to be happy, of course, for he’s dead set on doing his duty and that sort of thing, but you can see that the idea of the socialite son-in-law is going over big. What is so infuriating is that he’s being taken in. Whitman is about as bogus as they go. He’s quite sincere, I expect, but look at him! What is he? A wretched little tuft-hunter with no more brains than that soda-water syphon. Wasn’t that your impression?’

‘Since you press me, no,’ said Mr Campion judicially. ‘No, old boy, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t. I think you underestimate him. However, that’s beside the point. What does A do now? Have you anything in mind?’

‘Well—’ Peter was evidently leading up to a delicate subject with some trepidation. ‘I may as well make a clean breast of it. Old Burns wants to take Prudence, Whitman and myself out to a meal tonight to “talk things over”. It went through my mind that if I had the infernal cheek to ask you to join the party you might be able to do your celebrated heart-softening act once again. The old boy will be tickled to death, of course. He’s worried my life out to get hold of you again. But I do see that it’s a ghastly imposition from your point of view.’ He paused unhappily. ‘It’s the limit,’ he said. ‘The ultimate outside edge. But she’s grown so darned important to me that I’m forgetting the ordinary decencies.’

‘My dear chap, not at all. I think it might be an extremely jolly gathering.’ Campion sounded positively enthusiastic. ‘There’s only one thing, though,’ he hurried on, while his visitor eyed him in astonishment, ‘you don’t think you could fix it so that we went either to the Gillyflower or the Maison Grecque?’

The other man sat up, his eyes wide with suspicion. ‘Why on earth do you suggest that?’

Campion avoided his glance.

‘They’re the only two places in London at which one can eat, aren’t they?’ he murmured idiotically.

‘Look here, Campion, what do you know about all this business?’ Peter was scrambling out of his chair. ‘You might have been imitating Whitman, except that he’s got an extra half-dozen perfectly appalling places of the same type on his list.’

‘Half a dozen others, has he?’ Campion seemed impressed. ‘What a thorough bird he is.’

‘Thorough?’ said Peter. ‘I thought he was off his head.’

‘Oh, dear me, no. He’s an intelligent chap. I thought that the first time I saw him. You’ll fix it then, will you? Either the Gillyflower or the Maison Grecque.’

The younger man stretched out his hand for the telephone.

‘I’ll get on to the old man this minute before you can change your mind,’ he announced. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you it might be a trying party. You’re an astonishing chap, aren’t you? I didn’t know you’d ever seen Whitman before I introduced him. Where do you keep all this information?’

‘Under my little hat,’ said Campion innocently. ‘All under my remarkable little hat.’

The first thirty-five minutes of Mr Thomas Burns’s little dinner-party at the Maison Grecque amply justified Peter Herrick’s worst fears. The restaurant itself was a trifle more pretentious than the Gillyflower, and on this occasion the service was even more ostentatiously attentive than that which had distinguished the latter half of Aunt Eva’s night out. Mr Burns himself was considerably subdued by the fuss accorded him and frequently fingered his tight evening collar in a wistful fashion which made his desire to take it off as clear as if he had announced it in so many words.

Campion, glancing round the table, decided that Prudence was embarrassed by the avowed object of the gathering, but there was a line of determination in her firm mouth and an expression in her eyes when she glanced at Peter which made him like her.

Mr Herrick was frankly distrait and unhelpful, while Campion did his gallant best with the conversation.

The only person in the party who seemed both to experience no discomfort himself and to be capable of ignoring it in his fellows was Mr Norman Whitman. All through the over-elaborate meal he sat bored and superior, smiling superciliously at Campion’s conversational efforts and only opening his own mouth to murmur an occasional comment on some celebrity whom he saw, or thought he saw, among the neighbouring diners.

Campion, who made a hobby of what he was pleased to call ‘tick-fancying’, could hardly refrain from the open gloat. The man was a collector’s piece. His pallid shining forehead could express ‘refaned distaste’ with more downright vulgarity than seemed possible on a single surface and he revealed a line in ‘host deflation’ which had to be heard and seen to be believed.

It soon became clear to everybody that Mr Burns’s hope of a ‘little friendly chat about love and courtship’ was doomed, and the young people were openly relieved. Mr Burns himself was depressed and Norman remained aloof but condescending.

Towards the end of the meal, however, the host brightened. A childlike gleam of anticipation came into his eyes, and Campion caught him glancing towards him once or twice with disarming eagerness. Moreover, every now and again he felt in his waistcoat pocket and at last, when coffee was served and Peter had carried Prudence off on to the dance floor, he could deny himself no longer but took a small onyx hat out of its hiding-place and let it roll over and over in his plump palm.

Norman Whitman frowned at him warningly, but the Burns blood was up and the old man ignored his mentor. He was watching Campion with the same shy delight and triumph which is displayed by the child who suddenly produces a new toy as good as the other boy’s.

Campion did not look at Norman Whitman. He stretched out his hand.

‘That’s very attractive, isn’t it?’ he said, and, taking up the charm, he turned it over.

The old man laughed. ‘It’s quite genuine,’ he said. ‘It’s the real McCoy, isn’t it?’

Still Campion did not glance at the third man, who was watching the incident with a face as innocent of expression as a ball of wool.

‘I think so.’ Campion spoke softly and frowned. It seemed such a shame.

‘I think so, too.’ The old man chuckled over the words. ‘Waiter, bring my bill!’

It did not work.

After five minutes of such unbearable embarrassment and chagrin that Campion could have wept for him, Mr Burns had to face that indubitable fact.

He rolled the hat, he placed it black and shining in the midst of the white table-cloth, he waved it frantically beneath the waiter’s nose, but the wooden face did not change and the man remained polite but immovable as a rock while the bill stayed folded on the table.

There came a moment—it was nicely timed—when both Mr Burns and Mr Campion looked at Norman Whitman. It was a steady inspection which lasted for some little time. The fat man did not change colour. His boiled eyes remained blank and his expression reserved. After a while, however, the silence became unendurable and he rose with a conciliatory laugh.

‘I’ll see the manager for you, Burns,’ he murmured. ‘You must forgive these fellows. They have to be very careful.’

If the implied insult was unmistakable it was also a master-stroke, and the old man, whose eyes had been slowly narrowing, permitted himself a gleam of hope.

All the same he did not speak. He and Campion sat in silence watching the consequential figure bustling across the room, to disappear finally behind the bank of flowers which masked the exit.

After allowing his host due time for meditation, Campion leaned back in his chair and took out his own onyx hat, which he placed on the table beside the other. They were identical; two little toppers exact in every detail.

‘I had mine given me,’ Campion observed.

Burns raised his eyes from the two trinkets and stared.

‘Given you?’ he said. ‘Some gift. I thought I had a fair enough bank-roll, but I couldn’t afford to give presents like that.’

The lean man in the horn-rimmed spectacles looked apologetic.

‘A very charming American and her husband wanted to give me a little keepsake to remind me of their visit here,’ he said. ‘They bought this at Wolfgarten’s in Cellini Street. He told them it was exclusive and unique, but then he has his own definition of the term. “Unique” to Wolfgarten means one for London and one for New York. He may have charged them about a fiver. I—er—I thought I’d better tell you.’

Mr Burns was sitting up stiffly, his face blank and his small eyes grown hard. Suddenly he swung round in his chair and gazed at the bank of flowers. Campion put out a gently restraining hand.

‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘It’s entirely up to you. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging it so that you can have him if you want him. At this moment, I imagine, our Norman is in the manager’s office asking why the devil the arrangement which he made here has been ignored. You see, three weeks ago he opened an account of twenty pounds each at quite a number of restaurants on the understanding that anyone who displayed a small onyx top hat, which he showed them, should be taken without question to be his personal representative. It was a curious request, but after all the personal token, the signet ring and so on, has served this sort of purpose from time immemorial, and the restaurants didn’t stand to lose anything while they held his twenty pounds.’

Mr Burns swallowed. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Well,’ Campion was even more diffident, ‘just now I’m afraid the manager may be explaining to Whitman that the particular twenty pounds which he invested here has been used up. Doubtless he is bringing bills to prove it. I’ve been eating here and at the Gillyflower until my little hat wouldn’t do its trick any more, and I fear I must owe our Norman quite a considerable sum. However, that’s beside the point. What is important is that the house detective is sitting in the manager’s office. Now the story which he will hear from Mr Whitman is a perfectly innocent if eccentric one. But should he subsequently get a rather different tale from you—as he certainly has from me—well, it won’t be toppers and tails and bogus countesses for our Norman for some time, will it? I’m so sorry to bring it out like this, but it seemed the only satisfactory and safe way if you should decide to prosecute.’

The old man sat perfectly still for some moments. He made a stolid, powerful figure, his shoulders bowed and his head, with its thatch of thick grey hair, thrust forward as his eyes dwelt upon the two hats. After a while he glanced up and caught Campion’s eye. There was a moment of mutual understanding and then, to the young man’s intense relief, they both laughed.

Mr Burns laughed for rather a long time for one who has been suddenly confronted with unpleasant news, and Campion was growing a trifle apprehensive when the older man pulled himself together and picked up his own hat.

‘Five thousand pounds,’ he said, looking at it. ‘I thought it was a darned sight too cheap to be sound.’

‘Too cheap for what?’

‘Free food for life at all the best restaurants in London for as many guests up to six as I cared to bring,’ said the old man calmly. ‘Wait a minute. I’m not so daft as I look. It was a good story. Norman’s a smart-fellow. He went to work very carefully. I’d known him about six weeks before he brought me in here one night, and I don’t mind admitting that he impressed me with his way of doing things.’

He paused and looked at Campion shyly. ‘I’m not what you might call a social swell,’ he said. ‘No, no, don’t be nice about it; I’m a fool but not a damned fool. I came over here with plenty of money and plenty of time. I meant to get in with the right lot and learn all the tricks and the refinements that I’d read about, and I got just about what I was asking for. Norman looked all right to me. Obviously I was wrong. Anyway, he taught me one or two useful things about the clothes to wear and so on, and then we came in here and he did his act with his damn-fool hat.

‘I was impressed. These stiffs of waiters always get me flustered, and when I saw it all go off so smoothly I was attracted. It seemed to be so easy, so dignified and gentlemanly. No money passing and so on. Well, I asked him about it, and he pretended he didn’t want to tell me. But I’m a tenacious sort of chap, and presently out it came. It was a most ingenious spiel. This hat represented the Top Hat Club, he said, a club so exclusive that only the very best people in the land belonged to it ... royalty and so on. He also explained that, like all these very superior affairs, it was practically secret because the restaurant only entered into the arrangement if they were certain they were getting only the very best people.’

He broke off and grinned sheepishly.

‘Well, you can guess the rest,’ he said. ‘It seemed quite reasonable the way he told it, and the business side of it was sound. If you can buy an annuity for life why shouldn’t you buy a meal ticket, providing your honesty is guaranteed and they know you’re not the sort of chap to make money on it by hiring it out? Oh, I’m the mug all right, but he had luck. I happened to see your hat, you see. I didn’t mention it to him, of course, because he didn’t seem to like you and I didn’t want him getting jealous.’

‘He was going to get you elected to this club, I take it?’

‘That’s about it, son. Five thousand quid entrance fee. It seemed cheap. I’m fifty-six and I may go eating in restaurants for another twenty years. But what about you? When did you come into this?’

Campion told his story frankly. He felt it was the very least he could do with those bright eyes watching him suspiciously.

‘I remember Norman,’ he said. ‘He came back to me. It took me a tremendous time, but after my first free meal at the Gillyflower the whole thing suddenly became as clear as mud. I don’t want to depress you, but I’m afraid we’ve stumbled on the great forefather of all confidence tricks. Years and years ago, just after I came down from Cambridge, I went to Canada, and right out in the wilds I came upon a fit-up company in an awful little one-eyed town. They were real old barnstormers, the last in the world I should think, and they gave a four-hour programme, comprising a melodrama, a farce and a variety show all at one sitting. The farce was one of those traditional country tales which are handed down for generations and have no set form. The actors invent the dialogue as they go along. Well, the standard was frightful, of course, but there was one fat young man who played villains who was at least funny. He had a ridiculous walk, for one thing, and when I saw Whitman bolting down the corridor to your box he reminded me of something. Then of course when I saw the top hat at the dinner table it all came roaring back to me.... What’s the matter?’

Mr Burns was gazing at him, an incredulous expression growing in his eyes as recollection struggled to life.

‘Touch ’At Pays Waiter!’ he ejaculated, thumping the table with an enormous fist. ‘Good Lord! My old grandfather told me that story out in South Africa before I was breeched. I remember it! “Touch ’At Pays Waiter”, the story of the poor silly bumpkin who was persuaded to exchange his cow for a magic hat. Good lord! Before I was breeched!’

Campion hesitated. ‘What about Norman?’ he suggested. ‘What do you want to do? There may be a certain amount of publicity, you see, and—’

He broke off. The old man was not listening. He sat slumped in his chair, his eyes fixed on the far distance. Presently he began to laugh. He laughed so much that the tears ran down his face and he grew purple and breathless.

‘Campion,’ he began weakly, when he had regained comparative coherence, ‘Campion, do you recall the end of that story?’

His guest frowned. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t. It’s gone completely. What was it?’

Mr Burns struggled for air.

‘The bumpkin didn’t pay,’ he gasped. ‘The bumpkin ate the meal and didn’t part with the cow. That is what I’ve done! This was the final try-out. I was parting with the cash tonight. I’ve got the cheque all ready made out here in my wallet. I haven’t parted and you’ve eaten his forty quid.’

They were still looking at each other when the young people returned. Prudence regarded them with mild astonishment.

‘You two seem to be making a lot of noise,’ she remarked. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mr Burns winked at his companion.

‘What would you call it? The Hat Trick?’ he suggested.

Campion hesitated. ‘Hardly cricket,’ he said.