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4: You have to be Careful

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« on: June 01, 2023, 12:26:12 pm »

THE torch beam, springing like a sword out of the variegated laurels, discovered Mr. Campion and his modest bag the instant he laid a hand on the flaking paint of the iron gate. It paused on his face and then with charming deference lit his way not up the worn stone staircase to the crumbling portico but along a side path to the other steps leading down to the basement door.

No word passed. Detective Officer Corkerdale knew his place, if he overestimated the secrecy of the occasion, and Campion passed quietly to the stairhead, whence he could see down through a bright-barred window to the heart and soul of Portminster Lodge.

There was Renee, looking much as he had seen her for the first time nearly ten years before. She was in profile, leaning across a supper table talking to someone he could not see. Miss Roper’s age might still have been ‘about sixty’, although in all likelihood she was some eight or nine years older. Her small figure was as compact, if not quite as curved, as in the days when she was kicking up her heels on the provincial variety stage, and her hair was still a wonderful if unlikely brown.

She was in her receiving costume, a fussy multi-coloured silk blouse tucked tightly into a neat black skirt, not too short. She heard Campion when he was halfway down the area, edging his way through a booby-trap of milk bottles. He caught a glimpse of her face with the tip-tilted nose and far too prominent eyes turned sharply towards the window before she hurried to open the door a foot or so.

‘Who is it?’ The words ran up the scale like a cue for song. ‘Oh, it’s you, ducky.’ She was human again but still more or less before footlights. ‘Come in, do. This is good of you. I appreciate it and I shan’t forget it. How’s your mother? Nicely?’

‘As well as can be expected.’ Mr. Campion, who had been orphaned some ten years, fielded the catch as neatly as he was able.

‘I know. Well, we mustn’t grumble.’ She patted him on the shoulder, possibly in approbation, and turned back into the room.

It was a typical basement-kitchen of the ancient sort, a place of pipes and unexplained alcoves, with a stone floor and more recent rough wood pillars shoring up danger areas against bomb damage. A certain gaiety had been achieved by the display of some hundreds of theatrical photographs of all periods covering half the walls, and there were bright rag rugs on the matting and a vast clothes-horse hung with linen airing before an old black stove.

‘Clarrie,’ she rattled on, still with the same false brightness, ‘I don’t think you’ve met my nephew Albert. He’s the one from Bury. The nobby side of the family, dear. He’s a lawyer and one does so need one at a time like this. His mother wrote and said he’d help me if I wanted him to, so I sent her a wire---didn’t tell you in case he didn’t come!’

She lied like the staunch old trouper she was and her laugh was pretty. It welled up fresh and young from a heart nothing had aged.

Mr. Campion kissed her. ‘Glad to get here, Auntie,’ he said, and she blushed like a girl.

The man in the plum-coloured pullover, who had been eating bread and cheese and pickled onions with his stockinged feet tucked over the chair-rail, got up and leaned across the board.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, thrusting out a carefully manicured hand. His nails were misleading. So was the flash of gold in his smile, and the shock of dry fair hair, now receding somewhat drastically in a cascade of ordered crimps. His deeply-lined face was kindly and a pattern of common sense had been battered into its second-rate good looks. The pink and brown striped shirt which showed in the V of the pullover had small darns at the sides where the points of the collar had worn holes.

‘My name’s Grace,’ he went on, ‘Clarence Grace. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of it.’ The tone was not even wistful. ‘I did a season in Bury, as a matter of fact, in thirty-nine, just before the old rough-and-tumble.’

‘Ah, that was Bury, Lancs, dear,’ Renee put in quickly. ‘This is Bury St Edmunds, isn’t it, Albert?’

‘That is so.’ Mr. Campion managed to sound both regretful and apologetic. ‘It’s very quiet down there.’

‘Still, he has to understand the law down there, just the same as anywhere else.’ Renee was valiant. ‘Sit down, ducky. I expect you’re hungry. I’ll find you something. We’re in a bit of a hurry, as usual. It’s a funny thing, but I never seem to get done. Mrs. Love!

The final summons, uttered in a sort of musical scream, brought forth no response and Campion had time to protest that he had already fed.

‘You’re sure?’ They were both looking at him anxiously.

‘Absolutely. I had something at the station.’

‘The station?’ Clarrie Grace struck his forehead. ‘What did you come on, the dreamland express?’

‘Station Hotel, I mean.’ Campion achieved provincial dignity and was sorry to see the other man look abashed.

‘Well, that’s a mercy anyway.’ Renee patted his shoulder again as if it were the situation she was jollying along. ‘Sit down and have a drop of Clarrie’s stout while I get on with your bed. Mrs. Love! It’s quite a nice room and no one’s died in it, in my time at any rate, so you needn’t get nervous.’ She gave a little crow of amusement. ‘Mrs. Love! The others will be in soon, or at least the Captain will. He’s got a dinner on tonight, with an old flame, I fancy. He’ll go straight to his room. He doesn’t really like the kitchen. If you hear the front door, that’s who it is. After that you boys will have to help me with the trays. Mrs. Love!

Clarrie lowered his feet gently to the matting.

‘I’ll fetch her,’ he said. ‘What about the kiddo? She ought not to be out this time of night. What would auntie say?’

‘Clytie? Yes.’ Renee glanced at the clock. ‘Quarter past eleven. She is late, isn’t she? I shouldn’t worry if she was my daughter, but I don’t like real innocence, do you, Albert? You never feel safe with it. But you shut up, Clarrie. No tale-telling, mind.’

The man, who was not quite as light on his feet as he ought to have been and not quite as svelte as the musical comedy public requires of its juvenile leads, paused with a hand on the doorknob.

‘If I tell that old jar of smelling salts anything, it won’t be about her niece, ducks,’ he said cheerfully, but his face was working and in the second before he turned away they caught an uneasy flicker in his big indeterminate-coloured eyes. Renee waited until he closed the door before she said, ‘It’s nerves. But he’ll get another job.’ She spoke defensively, as if Campion had questioned it. ‘I’ve seen many worse than Clarrie in the provinces, I have really. And his voice is tuneful, which is something.’ And then, almost in the same breath but with a startling change to genuine intensity, ‘Tell me, Mr. Campion, are they going to dig the other one up?’

He glanced down at her with affection.

‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘It’s not your funeral. Honestly, I don’t know.’

She looked small and old. Little networks of red veins had appeared through the powder on her cheekbones and over the bridge of her nose.

‘Oh, I don’t like it.’ She spoke softly. ‘Not poison. I keep all the food locked up, you know. I try not to let it out of my sight until it’s eaten. You can drink the stout, that’s safe. My old girl has just brought it in and we opened it together, Clarrie and I.’

Suddenly it was all there before him, as if she had taken the lid off a cauldron, all the horror which she had been concealing under her valiant small-talk. It spread out over the bright room like an evil cloud, blotting out all the other reactions, the excitement, the interest, the avid curiosity of police, public and Press.

‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ she said. ‘I knew you would. You’re a sport. I shan’t forget it. Now, these sheets must be aired by this time. Mrs. Love!

‘Want me, miss?’

An ancient voice from the doorway was followed by a deep satisfactory sniff as a little old woman in a bright pink overall came shambling in. She had a high colour, vivid sky-blue eyes which despite a certain rheumy mistiness possessed a definite twinkle, and a thinly covered little poll bound with a snood of pink ribbon. She paused in the doorway, breathing heavily, regarding Campion with interest.

‘Yer nephew?’ she shouted. ‘Eh? I see the likeness. I say I see the likeness.’

‘I’m glad,’ Miss Roper bellowed back. ‘We’ll make his bed now.’

‘Make ’is bed?’ Mrs Love sounded as if the idea had occurred to her. Her eyes were inquisitive, her breathing terrifying. ‘I’ve done yer porridge. I say I’ve done yer porridge. Put it in the ’ay-box and turned the padlock on it. Key’s ’ere till you want it.’ She patted her lean bosom.

Clarrie, who had followed her in, began to laugh rather helplessly, and she turned on him, looking, thought the fascinated Campion, exactly like a kitten which has been dressed up as a doll.

‘You laugh.’ The hoarse London voice might have come from the top of the building. ‘But you can’t be too careful. I say you can’t be too careful.’

She turned to Campion and caught his eye with a gleam which was wholly feminine.

‘ ’E don’t understand,’ she said, shrugging a shoulder at the actor. ‘Some men don’t. Don’t ever take care. But you ’ave to mind if you want to keep above ground. I got two lovely chops from the butcher today and I’d ’ave brought ’em along to show Miss Roper but I didn’t like to. It’s not safe, see? I’m only ’ere because my friends think I’m at the pub. ’E says I’m not to come getting meself talked about and mixing with the police and that, but I couldn’t let ’er down so I come at night. I say I come at night.’

‘That’s right, the old sport comes at night.’ Renee giggled but there was a catch in her voice.

‘I come with ’er from the other ’ouse,’ roared Mrs. Love. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be ’ere. Not me, no fear! Too dangerous.’

Having achieved one effect, she shot out for another.

‘Still got me evenin’ doodah on.’ She waggled her ribbon at Clarrie, who touched an imaginary hat to it, making her laugh like an evil child. ‘ ’E’s my second string,’ she said to Campion. ‘I say ’e’s my second string. These ’ere the sheets? Got any piller-cases? I done me floor. I say I done me floor.’

She shuffled out with the warm linen, her heels dragging sadly. Renee followed her with a second armful, and their footsteps clattered away on uncarpeted inner stairs.

Clarrie Grace sat down again and pushed a glass and bottle at the visitor.

‘They’d censor a comic who did her on the halls,’ he remarked. ‘All of eighty and still brimful of what it takes. Works like a navvy, too. Can’t stop in case she falls down dead. Renee and her do all the chores between them. How she’s loving this business, God, how she’s loving it!’

‘A case of one woman’s poison being another woman’s meat?’ suggested Mr. Campion foolishly.

Clarrie paused, his glass halfway to his mouth.

‘You could use that,’ he said seriously. ‘I often hear people say things they could use. Of course, though, you’re a solicitor, aren’t you?’

‘That makes it more difficult,’ murmured Mr. Campion, from whose pale face the diffused lights had smoothed away all maturing lines.

Clarrie Grace laughed. He had a delightful smile when he was genuinely amused and a hideous one for more polite or professional purposes.

‘You know,’ he began conversationally, ‘Renee’s been a pal of mine ever since I was a nipper, and somehow I can’t see you being her nephew. I should have heard of you before. I must have. She’s one of the very best, Renee is. I know in the past she had one or two very close old pals who were quite-quite, if you get me.’ He hesitated. ‘Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. Live and let live. I’ve had that on my hatband all my life. I mean I’d never be surprised by anything. You can’t afford it in my profession and I dare say it’s the same in yours. Surprise costs money, that’s what I say. Someone’s got it while you’re still looking. Your old man wasn’t really her brother, was he?’

‘Only in a manner of speaking,’ said Mr. Campion, thinking, no doubt, of the brotherhood of man.

‘Now that is rich.’ Clarrie was delighted. ‘That’s wizzo. I shall use that. That can’t be wasted. “In a manner of speaking”---you’re a laugh! You’re going to cheer us up. “Only in a manner of speaking”. I mustn’t forget that. It needs a build-up, of course.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Mr. Campion modestly.

Clarrie was still laughing. His nerviness appeared to have evaporated.

‘Keep up your strength,’ he said, indicating the glass. ‘They can’t get at the bottled stuff.’

‘Who?’

‘The family. The Pally-allys upstairs. Roll me over, you don’t think Renee or I . . . or even the Captain, excuse my glove---that’s what I call him, “excuse my glove”---have been going in for chemistry, do you? My dear, if we had the brains we haven’t the initiative, as the queens say. We’re the regulars. We’re all right. We’ve known each other for donkeys’ years. It’s the Ally-pallys, that’s certain. But they can’t get at the beer. Have one with the seal unbroken.’

Since his honour appeared to demand it, Mr. Campion took some stout, which he disliked.

‘I should hardly think there was much danger of indiscriminate poisoning,’ he ventured diffidently. ‘I mean, what are the facts? An old lady died a couple of months ago and for reasons best known to themselves the police have dug her up again. No one knows yet what the findings of the public analyst will be. The inquest hasn’t been resumed. No, I don’t think there’s anything to show that everyone in the household is now in danger, I really don’t. I mean it’s not as though any further attempt has been made . . .’

‘You can bet your sweet life it hasn’t! What do you expect us to do? Lap up any filth some Pally-ally may feel like putting in the stew?’ Mr. Grace was magnificently, illogically angry. Drama, after all, has its dignity.

Campion stuck to his guns in an uncharacteristic obstinacy.

‘But until the police made this move you can’t even have thought of poison,’ he persisted.

Clarrie set down his beer. ‘My dear old boy, you’re a lawyer,’ he said. ‘No offence, mind you! I’m just stating it as a fact. You don’t see the situation in a human light, that’s all. Of course we’re all in danger! There’s a killer about, isn’t there? No one’s been hanged. Besides, what about the old boy?---the brother, the first one.’

He was waving his manicured hand with the big masculine knuckles like a baton.

‘He died, didn’t he, last March? The police are going to have him up next. It stands to reason. I for one shan’t be satisfied if they don’t, and I wasn’t out of the Raf when he got his, and I never saw him. Renee had only been here a year herself.’

Campion was not at all sure that he followed the other’s exact process of thought, but he was extraordinarily convincing, at least in tone. Clarrie appeared gratified by this tacit acceptance of his argument.

‘You’ll find him bunged to the brim with muck,’ he said flatly, ‘just like his sister, and we may as well face it. As I’ve told Renee, one of these old ducks upstairs has started killing off the others and God knows where it’ll stop. I’ve seen the same thing in a touring company.’

‘Really?’ Mr. Campion was astonished.

‘Not actual poison.’ Clarrie was irritated. ‘Attacks, though, you know. Pepper in the powder bowls and that sort of thing. Can be damned dangerous. I knew one girl half blinded. What I mean is, the thing goes on and on and no one can stop it. I say the old Ally-pallys are all in it together, that’s my theory.’ He was very serious. The horizontal wrinkles across his forehead under the uneven line of the receding tide of hair made his face look like a mask of anxiety painted on a kite. ‘It’ll hit you in the eye. You wait till you see them.’

Mr. Campion stirred. He had begun to tire of this formula.

‘I realize they’re eccentric,’ he murmured.

‘Eccentric?’ Clarrie stared at him and got up. For some unexplained reason he appeared insulted. ‘Good lord, no,’ he said, ‘not eccentric. They’re all number eight hats and very quite-quite. Eccentric? Not unless brains are eccentric. They’re a very good family. Their old man was a sort of genius, a professor. A real one, not in the stage sense. Letters after his name.’ He let this intelligence sink in and then went on earnestly, ‘Old Miss Ruth---that’s the one who’s been done in---wasn’t up to the family standard. She was going a bit. Used to forget her own name and take her plate out in public and that sort of thing generally! Thought she was invisible, probably. I think the others just got together and talked it over and----’ he made a gesture. ‘She couldn’t make the grade,’ he said.

Campion sat looking at him for a considerable time. Gradually the unnerving conviction seized him that the man was perfectly sincere.

‘When could I meet one of them?’ he said.

‘Well, you could go up now, ducky, if you cared to,’ said Renee as she appeared from an inner kitchen, a tray in her hands. ‘Take this up to Miss Evadne for me. Someone’s got to do it. Clarrie, you can do Mr. Lawrence tonight. Take him a kettle and he can mix it himself.’

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