More Work for the Undertaker
Read More Work for the Undertaker Online
Authors: Margery Allingham
Contents
3.
Old-fashioned and out of the ordinary
18.
Thread from Threadneedle Street
In a masterpiece of storytelling Margery Allingham sends her elegant and engaging detective Albert Campion into the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths. And if poisoning were not enough, there are also anonymous letters, sudden violence and a vanishing coffin. Meanwhile the Palinodes go about their nocturnal business and Campion dices with danger in his efforts to find the truth
.
Margery Allingham was born in London in 1904. She attended the Perse School in Cambridge before returning to London to the Regent Street Polytechnic. Her father â author H. J. Allingham â encouraged her to write, and was delighted when she contributed to her aunt's cinematic magazine,
The Picture Show
, at the age of eight.
Her first novel was published when she was seventeen. In 1928 she published her first detective story,
The White Cottage Mystery
, which had been serialised in the
Daily Express
. The following year, in
The Crime at Black Dudley
, she introduced the character who was to become the hallmark of her writing â Albert Campion. Her novels heralded the more sophisticated suspense genre: characterised by her intuitive intelligence, extraordinary energy and accurate observation, they vary from the grave to the openly satirical, whilst never losing sight of the basic rules of the classic detective tale. Famous for her London thrillers, such as
Hide My Eyes
and
The Tiger in the Smoke
, she has been compared to Dickens in her evocation of the city's shady underworld.
In 1927 she married the artist, journalist and editor Philip Youngman Carter. They divided their time between their Bloomsbury flat and an old house in the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex. Margery Allingham died in 1966.
The Crime at Black Dudley
Mystery Mile
Look to the Lady
Police at the Funeral
Sweet Danger
Death of a Ghost
Dancers in Mourning
Flowers for the Judge
The Case of the Late Pig
Mr Campion and Others
The Fashion in Shrouds
Black Plumes
Coroner's Pidgin
Traitor's Purse
The Casebook of Mr Campion
The Tiger in the Smoke
The Beckoning Lady
Hide My Eyes
The China Governess
The Mind Readers
A Cargo of Eagles
Every character in this book is a careful portrait of a living person, each one of whom has expressed himself delighted not only with the accuracy but with the charity of the delineation. Any resemblance to any unconsulted person is therefore accidental
To all old and valued clients this book is dedicated with respect and apologies for unavoidable delay in delivery of goods
Margery Allingham
Now listen to the tale I'm going to tell you.
You'll laugh until you feel you want some breath,
For people often think it very funny
When you tell them of a vi-hi-o-lent death!
More work for the Undertaker,
Another little job for the Tombstone Maker,
At the local cem-e-tery they've
Been very, very busy on a brand new grave:
He
won't be cold this winter!
Music Hall song sung by the late
T. E. DUNVILLE
,
circa
1890
â
I FOUND A
stiff in there once, down at the back just behind the arch,' said Stanislaus Oates, pausing before the shop window. âI always recollect it because as I bent down it suddenly raised its arms and its cold hands closed round my throat. There was no power there, fortunately. He was just on gone and died while I clawed him off. It made me sweat, though. I was a Sergeant Detective, Second Class, then.'
He swung away from the window and swept on down the crowded pavement. His raincoat, which was blackish with flecks of grey in it, billowed out behind him like a schoolmaster's gown.
His eighteen months as Chief of Scotland Yard had made little outward difference to him. He was still the shabby drooping man, who thickened unexpectedly at the stomach, and his grey sharp-nosed face was still sad and introspective in the shadow of his soft black hat.
âI always like to walk this bit,' he went on with gloomy affection. âIt was the high spot of my manor for nearly thirty years.'
âAnd it's still strewn with the fragrant petals of memory, no doubt?' commented his companion affably. âWhose was the corpse? The shopkeeper's?'
âNo. Just some poor silly chap trying to crack a crib. Fell through the skylight and broke his back. That's longer ago than I care to think. What a lovely afternoon, Campion. Enjoying it?'
The man at his side did not reply. He was extricating himself from a passer-by who had accidentally cannoned into him on catching a sudden glimpse of the old Chief.
The main stream of bustling shoppers ignored the old
detective, but to a minority his progress was like the serene sailing of a big river fish from whose path experienced small fry consider it prudent to scatter.
Mr Albert Campion himself was not unknown to some of the interested glances but his field was smaller and considerably more exclusive. He was a tall man in the forties, over-thin, with hair once fair and now bleached almost white. His clothes were good enough to be unnoticeable and behind unusually large horn-rimmed spectacles his face, despite its maturity, still possessed much of that odd quality of anonymity which had been so remarked upon in his youth. He had the valuable gift of appearing an elegant shadow and was, as a great policeman had once said so enviously, a man of whom at first sight no one could ever be afraid.
He had accepted the Chief's unprecedented invitation to lunch with reservations and the equally unlikely proposal that they should go and walk in the park with a stiffening of his determination not to be drawn into anything.
Oates, who usually walked fast and spoke little, was dawdling and presently his cold eyes flickered upward. Mr Campion, following their gaze, saw that it rested on the clock over the jeweller's two doors down. It was just five minutes past three. Oates sniffed with satisfaction.
âLet's have a look at the flowers,' he said and set off across the road. The Chief leading the way had seen his goal. It proved to be a nest of small green chairs arranged cosily at the foot of a giant beech which made a tent of shadow over them. He crossed towards them and sat down, wrapping the tails of his coat over his knees like a skirt.
The only other living creature in sight at the moment was a woman who sat on one of the public benches which flanked the gravel path. The full sunlight poured down on her bent back and on the square of folded newspaper in which she was so engrossed.
She was just within normal vision. Her small squat form was arrayed in an assortment of garments of varying length, and as she sat with her knees crossed she revealed a swag of multi-coloured hems festooned across a concertina'd stocking. At
that distance her shoe appeared to be stuffed with grass. Wisps of it sprouted from every aperture, including one at the toe. It was warm in the sun but she wore across her shoulders something which might once have been a fur, and although her face was hidden Campion could see elf-locks peeping out from under the yellowing folds of an ancient motoring veil of the button-on-top variety. Since she wore it over a roughly torn square of cardboard placed flat on her head the effect was eccentric and even pathetic, in the way that little girls in fancy dress are sometimes so.
The second woman appeared on the path suddenly, as figures do in the bright sunlight. Mr Campion, who had nothing else he wished to think about at the moment, reflected lazily that it was gratifying to see how often Nature employs the designs of eminent artists and was happy to recognize a Helen Hopkinson. She was perfect, the little feet, the enormous bust, the tall white hat, half wine-glass, half posy, and above all the ineffable indication of demure ingenuousness in every curving line. He became aware of the Chief stiffening at his side at the instant in which the shining figure paused. The coat, which some ingenious tailor had evolved to give a torso like a jellybag the inoffensive contours of a jug, hesitated as it were in mid-air. The white hat turned briefly this way and that. The small feet fluttered to the side of the woman on the seat. A tiny glove moved forth and back, and then she was in mid-path again, walking on with the same self-conscious if unsteady innocence.
âHa,' said Oates softly as she passed them, and they saw her face was pink and virtuous. âSee that, Campion?'
âYes. What did she give her?'
âSixpence. Possibly ninepence. It has been a shilling.'
Mr Campion looked at his friend, who was not by nature flippant.
âA purely charitable act?'
âUtterly.'
âI see.' Campion was the most polite of men. âI know it's rare,' he said meekly.
âShe does it nearly every day, somewhere about this time,'
the Chief explained unsatisfactorily. âI wanted to see it with my own eyes. Oh, there you are, Super . . .'
Heavy steps on the grass behind them came closer and Superintendent Yeo, most just if most policemanlike of policemen, came round the tree to shake hands.