Coroner's Pidgin (25 page)

“A lot to dust,” ventured Tovey brightly.

“And wash,” said Miss Pork. “I wash everything. I like things clean. Curtains, covers, carpets, tweeds—I wash them all. Now these pictures could all do with a scrub. Good white soap and water never hurt anything. But of course,” she added, seeing their expressions, “I should't wash
his
things without asking.”

“When you say ‘his',” said Oates, more for form's sake than anything else, “whom do you mean?”

“Oh, nonsense!” objected Miss Pork roundly. “None of that sort of rubbish, if you please. You must know whose the things are, or you wouldn't come looking for them, would you? I can see exactly what has happened. I only brought these things up to my drawing-room about six weeks ago. I did it solely to save them from damp, but people have admired them, and they must have talked.
What of course they don't know, and I dare say you don't either, is that I'm a very old friend of the girl the Marquess of Carados is going to marry. I don't see her often, and I don't write to her because I don't write; I never write, if I can help it, and I don't read either. I believe in action. When I saw these things were in danger of spoiling, I said to my maid Jones, ‘We must protect these, and the best place for them is in the drawing-room'. She agreed with me and we unpacked them. I didn't tell anybody this, why should I? Does it really matter where in the house the things are as long as they're looked after? Of course it doesn't. Now, you've come running down here all for nothing because I've seen to it now. Everything is quite in order now.”

Her exertions and her triumph brought her to boiling-point again, and she glowed at them.

“What have you done, ma'am?” Holly's voice was commendably quiet.

“I've written to him, of course,” she said.

“To Carados?”

“Yes. As soon as that little man, the commercial traveller, was his name Sloane? Yes, well, as soon as he came I realized that if word of my little change in the arrangements reached the Marquess without an explanation, he might well wonder what I was doing, for some of his things are quite nice, you know. So I sat down over there at once, and I wrote to him. I introduced myself, I told him I was the person who was housing his things, and I explained quite frankly about the damp. I also put in a postscript telling him to tell Susan that the jardinière I sent her for a present
was
from me. I haven't heard from her, and I remembered I couldn't have put my name in; I never have a card handy when I want one. So there you are, you see, it's all settled now.”

The visitors exchanged glances. “I should think it might be,” said Mr. Campion. “When did you send this letter. Miss Pork, do you remember?”

“Perfectly. The day before yesterday. Directly after the commercial traveller left. It took me some time because as I say I don't write much and I had to find everything; clean
notepaper and a good pen, you know. But I caught the post, I think, although I might have been a minute or two late, not enough to matter though, and he should have got it yesterday afternoon. At any rate you can be sure he's got it now, so if you go back and ask him I think you'll find there's nothing more to worry about.”

She smiled at them again, and relented.

“I'm sorry you've had all this journey for nothing. Let me get you a glass of wine—beetroot. Home-made, but before the war. Very nice, rather like a very sweet port with a taste of cloves.”

“No, thank you, ma'am. We won't trouble you.” The Chief's bleak old eyes were laughing, despite his disappointment. “There's just a little formality before we go. We'll have to know exactly what you've got here, and how it came here, and where from.”

At first it looked as if Miss Pork was about to protest, but whether she had taken a fancy to Oates, or whether she was enjoying the excitement, the fact remained that she decided to give them a few more minutes.

“Very well,” she conceded, “but we must hurry. I've got to run down to the church and do the flowers before lunch, and they're always a bother. People do criticize so. Personally I like a lot of flowers in a vase, especially on an altar, there's nothing so cheerful. Well, you've seen these things up here; now we'll go down to the cellar and I can tell you all about it there. This way. You'll have to mind your heads, for you are all tall, I see.”

She was out of the room before she had finished speaking, steaming along like a little red train, her wooden shoes clattering rhythmically on the coloured tiles. A low door in the varnished panelling led them to a flight of steep stairs up which rose a strong odour of decay and onions.

“I hang my shallots down here,” said Miss Pork. “They're good for the moth as well as being so useful in stews and illness; so they serve two purposes, you see. Be careful of the third step from the bottom, there's only half of it there.”

Since they were descending from the top, of course this last injunction took everybody's attention, and they arrived
in a low-ceilinged chamber in silence. Vast packing cases filled all one half of it, and Holly was regretting that he had not brought two sergeants and a working constable when Miss Pork spoke again.

“There, you see,” she said. “There is the damp.”

And there it was indeed. It ran in green rivers from iron gratings high in the wall, and lay in iridescent pools on the mouldering floor.

“You couldn't keep pictures there,” she said. “Not even furniture, although it's wonderful what good furniture will stand. So I took the contents of three packing cases upstairs. There are some little figurines which I put in the spare bedroom, by the way; ugly little things in some sort of ivory, but the rest you've seen in the drawing-room. Now, do you really want to undo all these boxes?”

“I'm very much afraid we shall have to, ma'am.” Holly spoke from his heart. He was shining his torch on to one box less professional-looking than the rest, and the Chief glanced over his shoulder. An old label upon it, carelessly chalked across, announced that Messrs. Bull & Butler, wine merchants of Old Jewry, had at one time delivered the case to the Marquess of Carados. The newer label was still hidden against the side of the package next it.

“There's only some cardboard in there,” cut in Miss Pork brightly. “I took a peep. It looks like scenery for a toy theatre. But there's some gilt wear in this big one; very elaborate pieces. One of them looks like a water pitcher for a bedroom, but it's covered with little figures and flowers, far too elaborate for use, but beautifully packed, so I hardly disturbed it. Now, where would you like to begin?”

“Just a moment, ma'am, if you please.” Oates was polite but authoritative. “Before I have a complete inventory taken, I want to put one or two questions. When exactly did you take possession of all this?”

“Oh, a long while ago.” Miss Pork was definite. “I've been so busy I've not had a moment to think about it; it was only the damp which reminded me it was here at all. Quite six or eight months, I should think, or was it this time last year? I'll ask Jones. She remembers what I forget, that's
how we get along. I organize my life. It must have been quite a time, though, or I should never have thought of opening it. If one's known a parcel a year, one feels one can take liberties, don't you know.”

The Chief seemed a little bewildered by this reasoning, but he rallied.

“You gave a receipt, of course, ma'am,” he began cannily. “Didn't you have a memorandum at the same time? A document? Something written down to remind you what you'd got?”

“Oh yes, I understand you. I'm not mentally defective.” Miss Pork's ruby face betrayed ferocious amusement. “I had a copy of the inventory on the firm's paper, of course, and I had some money. They paid me a sum for housing it all. That was why I felt I had an obligation in the matter. If one takes money, and one does nowadays, one must fulfil one's commitments. Mind you, I wouldn't have done it for anyone, but when I understood who owned it all, then I said to the woman that I felt I should do what I could. The aristocracy is dying, I know, but they mustn't be hurried, I said.”

“The woman?” cried Holly, unable to play the Chief's more patient game.

“Certainly.” Miss Pork turned her blazing glance upward. “The representative of the storage firm was a woman. I've entirely forgotten her name if I ever knew it, but she certainly was a woman. I don't see anything unusual in that, do you? Women do many things besides representing storage firms.”

Having finished with Holly she turned to Oates. “Now, as I was just going to tell you, I received a sum of money for one year's rent of my cellar in advance, and as I have not yet received any more I deduce the year is not yet up. I hope you don't expect me to tell you how much money I received; I'll tell you if you like, but surely you don't expect me to.”

“I'd like to have seen the cheque, ma'am.”

“Oh, there was no cheque. As it was a small sum I accepted two five-pound notes. It suited me. I like to have
a little money in the house; certain things are always paid in cash, the oil man, for instance, and . . .”

“But you kept the inventory, ma'am?” Oates managed to divert rather than to check the flow.

“Of course I did,” she said. “In my desk. I kept it right up to a few months ago, and I've got a bit of it now, which I'll show you.”

“A bit of it?” murmured Oates, his head on one side.

“Yes, the end quarter. It just says ‘Sealed Case twenty-nine' or something like that. I know, because I've been looking at it lately. A young American officer came to tea and admired one of the pictures in the drawing-room; he asked what it was called, and I said I'd find out because I must say I like a boy to be interested in the home. So I went to my desk, and then I found out.”

“The name of the picture?” demanded Holly in excitement.

“No.” Miss Pork laughed at herself. “No. I was so annoyed. I found I'd only got this end bit of the inventory. As soon as I laid eyes on it I remembered what I must have done. I don't know if things like that come back to you, but they do to me. As soon as I saw it I knew what had happened. I came in here late one night in the winter and I couldn't find any matches; I didn't like to turn on the lights because the black-out wasn't done, but I never think a single flame counts, do you? There was a little fire in the grate left, so I went to my desk in the dark and took out something to make a spill to light a candle. I tore it in half, I remember that, for one mustn't waste paper, and I thrust one half back in the drawer, and of course that must have been the inventory. I've kept the end half, though, and I'll get it for you now.”

She was off before they could stop her, her limp skirt flapping almost to her ankles as she clattered up the steps.

The Chief looked at Campion, and the younger man nodded. “Oh, yes, God made her,” he said, “no one else would have the nerve. They grow like that in the corners of rural England. I wonder what she's got in the spare bedroom. The Waterlow Ivories, or something like that?”

Holly, who was sitting on a packing case, studying some typewritten pages which he had taken from his pocket, glanced up. “It's the Lauderdale House stuff here,” he said huskily; “that ewer she mentioned, that's the Lauderdale Treasure by the sound of it. There's a basin and a chalice made by an Italian called Mattioti; it's very valuable according to the owners. Solid, blessed gold for one thing, and she's keeping it down here.” He looked round the cellar, his eyes protruding slightly. “It's wonderful, isn't it?” he said.

Oates sniffed. He had been considering the packing cases and now came to a decision. “If I were you, Holly, I'd get the local cops in on this, d'you know,” he said. “There's a lot of work here, and it must be done carefully. Old Colonel Rufus is the C.C. and he's a very decent old stick. When our good lady comes back I'd slip up to the 'phone and have a word with him.”

“Just what I had in mind, Mr. Oates.” Holly spoke with relief. “It'll take care of this end and leave me free to go straight after Carados. I think we've got him now. All this will have to be checked, of course, but I think the evidence is here if we look for it.”

Oates was not so sure. “There's her word and that old label on the box over there so far,” he objected. “Neither is exactly concrete, I should like something better than that. But perhaps you're right. I'd like to see that inventory; I suppose she is coming back.”

Holly looked up blankly. “Why, I never thought,” he began, but got no further.

A woman was coming down the stairs. It was not Miss Pork, but the maidservant who had admitted them. She held a scrap of paper on a tray and thrust it out towards the group.

“Madam asked me to give this to Mr. Oates,” she said. “She hopes you'll excuse her coming down for a minute or two, but she's just had a visitor come. She said I was to tell you who it was as she thought you'd like to know.”

“Oh yes?” said Oates, stretching out his hand to take what was left of the inventory.

The woman dropped her glance, and spoke in a respectful
murmur. “It's the Marquess of Carados upstairs,” she said. “Him and a lady. The one who came here before.”

NO ONE MOVED
until the old woman had gone lifting herself painfully up the dangerous stairs. When the sound of her feet died on the tiles above, Oates took Campion's elbow.

No word was spoken, but they all four went up quietly into the hall which was dark, yet dappled with many coloured patches of sunlight streaming in through the stained glass in the porch.

The drawing-room door was closed, but one beside it stood open, and Campion, who had not wasted his time during the original interview, led the way into a small ante-room in which there was another of the glass-and-iron doors like that through which they had first observed Miss Pork at breakfast. It led into an alcove in the drawing-room as he had noticed, and it was ajar.