Coroner's Pidgin (10 page)

“My half-bottle,” murmured Mr. Campion.

Bush reproved him with a glance. “I saw no humour in it,” he said coldly. “A whole lorry-load of utterly irreplaceable stuff was utterly destroyed. All those things in the cabinet under the south window in the big room went, all the Russian flasks, intrinsically some of the most valuable stuff in the whole collection; and there were ten cases of beautiful glass including all the modern Swedish exhibits.”

“Any wine?”

“A little.” Theo's small eyes rested for a moment on Mr. Campion's face. “A very little. One small parcel was put on at the last moment to make up the load. It was not entirely
without interest, though, I'm afraid; it belonged to the Bishop of Devizes.”

“My uncle,” said Mr. Campion piously. “Good heavens.”

“Oh, not the port, not the port, my dear fellow.” Theo was reassuring. “That's safe. At the beginning of the war I made him take it home. Some of those cellars at the Palace are quite excellent; I told him so. Let me see, you're the only nephew now, aren't you? That sister of yours . . . ?”

“The port descends in the male line,” said Mr. Campion so seriously that Susan was misled. Bush laughed.

“I have devoted my life to wine,” he said, “and to me it is important and always will be. I shall hope to see you. Campion.”

The faint emphasis on the final pronouncement made it sound like a command, and as he passed on, his coat brushing the tables on either side, Mr. Campion sat looking after him in astonishment, for as they had shaken hands a slip of paper had passed into his palm. He read the message now, under cover of the table-cloth. It was written on a leaf from a pocket diary and was brief and extraordinary:

‘
I may need your help in near future. Stand by. Theodore Bush.
'

As a gesture it was so unlike the man as he remembered him that Campion blinked. He was still looking at the note when Susan spoke.

“Is he always like that?” she enquired. “Always portentous and mysterious?”

“Portentous, yes; mysterious, no,” said Campion rolling the message into a pill. “Dear me, what a jolly place this is. Do you come here much?”

“No, I don't, I'm afraid. Very seldom. I told you, Miss Snow introduced me to Don here; I believe she uses it a great deal, but she's not here today.”

“Miss Evangeline Snow, miss?” The ancient waiter whom Stavros had enticed from some country town hotel, cut into the conversation with the happy provincialism of his kind. “No, she's not here today, and I haven't seen her since the day before yesterday. She's often here, you know.”

“That's nice for you,” said Mr. Campion.

“Yes, it is, sir.” The bleary eyes brightened. “She's very nice indeed. Such a
good
lady, if you know what I mean. She always comes to one of my tables. Last time I saw her here was on Sunday, dining over there with Lord Carados.”

“With Johnny? But that's impossible. He didn't come home on leave until yesterday.” Susan spoke involuntarily, and the old man's hand shook as he set down her plate.

“That's right, miss. I made a mistake,” he said easily. “Now I come to think of it, it wasn't Lord Carados, it was another gentleman. It's very difficult to tell people in uniform, you know.”

He wavered off, nervously, leaving an air of apology behind him.

“Wonderful to live to that age and still be indiscreet,” observed Mr. Campion, glancing after him. “His life must have been one long fall downstairs, and still going strong, I see.”

“But how extraordinary.” Susan was unusually pale. “Johnny couldn't have been in London on Sunday night: that was the night that woman must have—died.”

“Forget it,” said Mr. Campion firmly. “Look, Susan, this is the first food I've had since I got home. So far we've had some lovely horse, and this looks like beautiful rice shape with raw medlars. Let's eat it, and forget our own and other people's troubles just for half an hour, shall we?”

Susan smiled. “Grand girl,” said Mr. Campion, and raised his glass. He put it down again untasted, however; advancing down the room towards him with a purposeful nonchalance which stamped ‘police' all over him, was Superintendent Yeo.

On the whole, Mr. Campion went quietly.

“I won't keep him a moment, miss,” said Yeo to Susan. “I only want a word with him. I'll send him back in no time. Sorry, I'm sure, Mr. Campion.”

“Gestapo!” said Campion, as they entered the passage behind the service door.

“No need to be abusive,” said the Superintendent mildly. “You're going to be very interested in half a moment.”

“That's nice,” said Mr. Campion. “What'll you bet?”

Yeo did not reply immediately. He led the way to a small office whose single window looked over the yard behind the restaurant. It was deserted, but excitable sounds reached them faintly from an inner room.

“We've identified the body, sir,” Yeo was wagging an imaginary tail. “Her name was Moppet Lewis once, but when she died she was Mrs. Philip Stavros, the wife of one of the partners of this restaurant. He says he hasn't seen much of her lately and he seems straight about it. But will you look out there, sir?”

Mr. Campion glanced out of the window and saw, in the yard, a uniformed constable keeping guard over an ancient taxi-cab. The near-side window had a hole through it, just such a hole might have been made in reinforced glass by the heel of a shoe.

“The handles have been filed off on the inside of the doors,” remarked the Superintendent. “It makes you think, doesn't it?”

THE YARD WAS
as gloomy and dirty as only a London crevice can be. It was both cold and unsavoury, homely and uninviting. As Mr. Campion climbed out of the taxi-cab after making an exhaustive examination, there was a hint of rain falling. Yeo's red face glistened above his magnificent overcoat.

“What hope?” he enquired.

“Of identifying it? Not a glimmer. Not in the witness box. I had my little dust-up in the dark, you see. Besides, this damned thing looks like every cab there ever was; it's been cleaned, too, so there's not a hope of real proof. The suspicion is tremendous, of course.”

Yeo sighed. “Suspicion doesn't count,” he said. “Pity you can't remember something definite. Still, I don't blame you, you can't be too careful. I don't see where it fits in either; you said there was a connection between the two crimes and I admit it begins to look like it, but I don't see that helps us, it just makes it more difficult to my mind.”

Mr. Campion turned up his coat collar. “What's their story?” he enquired.

“The restaurant's? Oh, they say they're minding the cab for a lad on active service. We can check that, but it's probably true.”

The Superintendent began to move back to the house as he spoke. “They say it hasn't been out for a year,” he went on, “and it's not licensed. So if it was on the road yesterday, the driver was taking a big risk.”

“That's rather the kind of driver we're looking for,” observed Mr. Campion as he followed him towards the house.

“Exactly,” said Yeo irritably. “And so what? I tell you, Campion, I've had this case exactly twelve hours, and I'm tired of it; I've held this kind of baby before. It's going to be unlucky for policemen, I can smell it.”

Recollecting the Admiral, Mr. Campion thought there well might be something in the prophecy, but tactfully forbore to say so, and the Superintendent went on. “Now we'll see Stavros,” he said. “He'll have to identify the deceased formally this afternoon. We didn't realize there was a husband about at first, so we got her char to come along to the mortuary. That won't do, though, we must get the whole thing in order. There's a great deal to do and no daylight anywhere. Holly's with him now; a good officer, Holly, but hard, very hard, not like a London policeman, really.”

All the time he was talking he was edging his companion towards the side door, and Campion, becoming aware of the manœuvre, stopped abruptly.

“Do you need me?” he said.

“Yes, my lad, I do.” Yeo took his arm. “You weren't surprised when I told you the dead woman was Stavros's wife. Why was that?”

Mr. Campion's pale eyes widened. “I hope you realize that I was safely on the high seas,” he began.

“Yes, I do. And don't keep talking about it or I shall feel I've got to verify it. No, you're not a suspect, but you're friendly with people who may be. Also, you're missing your
first home leave for three or four years, and once you've made certain your shady old chum, Lugg, is safely above ground, I shouldn't be at all surprised if you happened to forget any details which might keep you in London as a witness. That's how we stand, Campion. Have I made myself clear?”

“Horribly,” said his companion. “It may surprise you to learn, Yeo, that you remind me vividly of my dear mother. She used to see things with the same clarity, and say them too, which is more serious.”

The Superintendent grunted. “I don't feel like anybody's mother,” he said. “How did you happen to be here, anyway? I don't have to have a suspicious nature to notice that, I suppose.”

“I came here to eat,” said Campion with dignity, “and I'm still hoping to do it. I met Mrs. Shering at the Carados's house and she brought me here because she often eats here, as do others of her circle. That is why I was here, and also why I was not surprised to learn the dead woman came from the place either. Until you told me that I could not imagine how the crowd who seem so determined to make a mystery of her death could ever have met her alive. When you came out with your little piece, I saw how it had happened, and therefore I was not surprised. Now are you satisfied?”

Yeo sniffed. “You've covered yourself,” he said maddingly, “but you don't help. We got on to her through a laundry mark on her nightdress; our chap who specializes on them traced it to a firm in Notting Hill, and they gave us her address. The char did the rest. She didn't live with her husband, you see.”

“She didn't live with Stavros? Didn't live here?” Mr. Campion, who was being forced up a narrow flight of stairs, paused in astonishment, and the Superintendent came up with his shoulder.

“That's right,” he said. “She didn't live here. And if you can believe her husband's story she hasn't come here very often. She lived alone in a little art and crafty flat in Kensington High Street.”

“When did they marry?”

“Beginning of the war. She was a widow then. The man Lewis appears to have been dead for years. According to Stavros he and she never did live together for more than a fortnight, yet he insists he was very fond of her.”

Yeo was panting a little over the stairs, and had lowered his voice to an angry mumble. “You come and see him,” he said. “He sounds almost on the level, which doesn't help. I tell you, Campion, I don't like the people in this case.”

“Which people? Stavros, or Lady Carados and family?”

“All of them. They're all—” the Superintendent hesitated over the word, “they're all expense-and-talk-over-your-head,” he said at last. “Class, that's what it is. It's all right in its proper place, no doubt.”

“Where's that?” enquired Mr. Campion side-tracked.

“On the stage,” said Yeo stoutly. “I like it better than anywhere on the stage. But when I meet it in my business it gets round my feet. You come and hear this chap. He thinks he means something in a high-class foreign way, I don't doubt, but I can't say I follow him.”

Mr. Campion gave up thinking about his meal, and did what he was told.

They found Stavros standing by a circular table in a small, dark room which was sometimes used for private dinner parties. A constable sat at the table taking notes, while Chief Inspector Holly stood on the hearthrug looking very neat and spare; his black hair receded sleekly from a pallid forehead that shone like china, and his eyes, which were remarkable for their coldness, looked large and blue and hard. On catching sight of Stavros, Mr. Campion's first impression was that he had changed, and only afterwards it occurred to him that he had become a private person. At the moment he had an entirely new dignity and a different courtesy in which there was nothing ingratiating; he stood easily, but quite still with his hands folded, and his head raised a little. His eyes flickered as Campion came in, but he did not speak.

Holly stepped across the room to meet Yeo. “He has nothing to add,” he murmured, lowering his voice a tone or two, but making no real attempt to speak in confidence, “his
story remains. The last time he saw the deceased was on Sunday when she looked in on him for ten minutes or so in the afternoon for a chat and a sherry. When she left, she did not tell him where she was going. He says he did not ask her.”

Yeo turned and looked at Stavros with gloomy speculation. “Don't you want to add anything to that?” he said. “Nothing at all?”

The Greek grimaced nervously at Campion. “It is never easy to explain one's exact relations with a woman, is it?” he said.

Yeo's homely face cleared hopefully. “We're all men of the world here, Mr. Stavros,” he said heartily, his fatherliness marred only by a gleam of policemanly embarrassment. “You won't find us narrow-minded. You just say what you want to.”

Stavros coloured under his dark skin, and Campion felt profoundly sorry for him. “I loved my wife,” said the man with an effort, “I loved her enough to marry her. Afterwards I still loved her, but not so much. She was not a woman to live with every day.”

Holly's glass-cold eyes became contemptuous, while Yeo's were resigned. They were both married men, and Mrs. Yeo and Mrs. Holly were ladies who could be lived with every day or emphatically not at all. Stavros appeared aware of the impression he was making, but he floundered stoutly on.