Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories (11 page)

“Your relations?”

That made him laugh so much that I thought he was going to choke.

“Oh, no!” he said. “I haven’t got any relations. Not mine. You’ve got less brains than I thought you ’ad. I sell ’em to the relations of people who’ve died. Every morning I buy up all the local papers and I look for the announcements of people who’ve popped off. Then I trot round to the ’ouse—you’ve got to go at once; it’s no good waiting till the shock’s passed off—I knock at the door and I ask to see the party who’s dead.

“Well, perhaps some sorrowing relative comes to the door and tells me the news. Then I pretend to be very upset. I say I’m very sorry. I explain that it’s very awkward for me, because the dear departed has ordered six hymn-books from me, had ’em specially bound. It was going to be a surprise present, I tell ’em.

“Well, you’d be surprised how they fall for it. Nine times out of ten I get my money on the spot. It’s partly to get rid of me, partly because they’re in the mood. It’s as easy as falling off a log if you know how to do it. You’d never do it, though, not in a million years.”

“No,” I said rather weakly. “No, I don’t think I should.”

The story was so very shocking that I could hardly speak to him.

“Some of ’em ask me for a receipt,” said Mr. Cough. “That’s why I’m ’aving this heading. Of course, some of ’em don’t bother. They just give me my money and off I go. It’s my knowledge of psychology that does the trick. I go at the right moment you see, as soon as I see the announcement.”

“You say nine out of ten?” I said. “Doesn’t the odd one prove rather difficult at times?”

A thoughtful expression passed over his face.

“Oh I have awkward moments,” he agreed after a pause, “but I’m very smart. I’m quick-witted. I know when to fade away.

“Sometimes, of course, there’s been a mistake. That doesn’t happen often, but when it does it gives you a bit of a shock. I’m very careful meself but sometimes the papers get a name wrong and you find yourself askin’ to see the husband when it’s the wife who’s dead.”

He really was insufferable. As I stood looking at him I thought he was the most revolting specimen I had ever seen in my life, and looking back from this distance I am inclined to be of the same opinion.

“Had a good day to-day?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Not bad,” he said, helping himself to another cup of tea. “Only one dud. That was in a house in Putney, rather a nice old ’ouse near the river. I couldn’t get the woman to understand what I was talking about. Thinking it over, I fancy she must have been a foreigner. It was annoying because the old man who had died—Parkinson, his name was—seemed to be a wealthy bird from what I could read in the paper. There was quite a bit about his philanthropy.”

I changed the subject, and we got back to haggling about the drawing. I had actually got the money in my pocket when there was a tap on the door and the landlady admitted a visitor. He was a tall, thin, distinguished old gentleman with very bright blue eyes and he stood hesitating in the doorway with a rather simple smile on his face.

“I’m so sorry to intrude,” he said, “but I want to speak to Mr. Walter Cough.”

My host got up, wiping his mouth hastily with a handkerchief. He was the professional salesman at once, bright, friendly, almost a little obsequious.

“Glad to see you, sir,” he said. “What can I do for you? Won’t you sit down?”

I made way to leave but Mr. Cough indicated that he wanted me to stay and I drifted into a corner where I stood watching them. The newcomer seemed delighted.

“I’m so glad to have found you,” he said. “When Mrs. Simmez told me that I’d missed you this morning, I was so disappointed. She said you had some beautiful hymnbooks and I did want to see them. Oh, forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself. This is my card.”

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out an ancient wallet.

“Here we are,” he said. “Mr. William Parkinson, Chantrey Hall, Putney. It ought to have the name of the street on it, but I’ve been there so many years that everybody knows me.”

I glanced at Walter Cough out of the corner of my eye. The whole thing looked a bit fishy to me and, after my brief acquaintance with him, I hoped he was going to get caught. He looked a little put out but not at all suspicious, I was glad to see.

“I did come round this morning,” he said cautiously. “A Mr. Earnshaw told me that you might be interested to see the new hymn-book I’ve just brought out. It’s a beautiful thing, well worth the money.”

“I don’t remember Mr. Earnshaw,” said the visitor, blinking thoughtfully, “but whoever he is he’s quite right. A most awkward thing has happened to me. A local paper has published my obituary notice. I have been very ill, but their interest in me was a little premature.

“This is the first time I’ve been out for some weeks. There’s a little chapel I’m very interested in at the moment and I was going there tonight. In view of everything I thought it would be seemly to make a small present to the place, and when Mrs. Simmez told me that someone had been round to show me some hymnbooks it seemed to me that they had been sent by providence. She remembered your name and I looked you up in the telephone book. Have you one of the volumes here?”

I was glad to see Mr. Cough looked a little shamefaced as he produced that dreadful book, but Mr. Parkinson was not as shocked as I had been. On the contrary he seemed delighted with it.

“The old hymnal of my boyhood,” he said, “and what lovely binding! This is delightful. I can’t think of anything more fitting. I should have written you, of course, but the matter is rather urgent. That’s why I came myself. Have you got fifty copies of this?”

I thought Mr. Cough was going to faint.

“Well yes, I have,” he said. “They’re rather expensive, you know, but one has to pay for a production like that.”

“One does indeed,” said the old man, turning over the monstrosity with an admiration that made me feel a little sick.

“A guinea,” said Walter Cough defiantly.

“Really?” said the visitor. “Yes, well, it’s not dear for a present, is it? Let me see, that’ll be £52.10.0. I think you ought to deliver for that.”

“Oh, I’d be happy to,” said Walter Cough in a tone in which I thought I detected a trace of hysteria. “Any time, day or night, I’d be happy to. Anything to oblige.”

Mr. Parkinson glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“Half-past six,” he said. “I should like them there by eight at the latest. Shall we say a quarter to eight? Bring them to the chapel. I don’t know if you know Baghdad Road?”

“I’ll find it.” Walter Cough was a little too enthusiastic and I thought the visitor must notice his jubilation. However, he was a very old man and there was a simplicity in his bright blue eyes which was the very essence of guilelessness.

“Get off the bus at the Fellowship Arms, Baghdad Road, and walk down about a hundred yards,” he said. “There you’ll find quite a narrow footpath between two houses. If you go down there a little way you’ll come to a gate in a brick wall. It won’t be open but it won’t be locked. If you go through there you’ll find yourself in a garden. You’ll see the chapel at once.

“Take the books to the side door and I’ll be waiting for you. it’s quite a small place. I don’t want people to know the present comes from me, so I’d like to get the books put round before the others arrive. Will you do that? I’ll give you the money there. You’d like cash, wouldn’t you? At a quarter to eight, then.”

Walter Cough showed him out with a perfectly straight face, but when he came back he laughed until he was nearly sick. I have never heard anyone laugh so long or so offensively.

“Didn’t I handle him?” he said. “He’s one in a million. They’re not all like that. That’s a bit o’ jam. I’ve never had that happen to me before. Now p’raps that’s learnt you. There’s a lot of truth in what the poet says. There
is
a mug born every minute, a real mug. You can’t say he bought with his eyes shut. He saw it and he
liked
it. That’s the miracle of this game. A real mug is a genuine mug, he’s a mug all through. He likes being done. He’s satisfied. Now you run along, my dear.”

I left him counting out fifty hymn-books from the great cupboard in the corner, and as I trudged down the road to look for a bus I felt very bitter.

I heard of Mr. Walter Cough again the following morning when I picked up our communal newspaper. A little paragraph at the bottom of one of the news pages caught my attention.

“Man Found Dead on Chapel Steps.”

I read the paragraph with interest. “Walter Cough, 56, itinerant bookseller, of Inkermann Avenue, was found dead on the steps of a mortuary chapel in Baghdad Road, Putney, late last night. Cough was a stranger to the district and is thought to have had a seizure. He was carrying a large parcel of books at the time.”

For two or three days I wondered about Mr. Walter Cough. The whole incident had left a very unpleasant impression on my mind and at last, when I could control the impulse no longer, I went down to Putney and inquired my way to Chantrey Hall.

It was a large, old-fashioned suburban house standing by itself in a big garden in a backwater which was quiet and forgotten. I didn’t like to go in, naturally, but I hung about outside the iron railings which bordered the garden and spoke to an old man who was sweeping up leaves on the other side of the low privet hedge.

“Excuse me,” I said rather nervously, “but does Mr. William Parkinson live here?”

The gardener straightened his back and surveyed me with not unfriendly interest.

“You’ve come too late, miss,” he said. “He’s dead.”

I suppose I looked rather pale because he hastened to soften down the baldness of the announcement.

“Yes, the poor old boy died last Wednesday,” he said, “a week ago today. He was ill for a long time. They had him down at the nursing home. His wife went to stay with relations and the house has been shut up for several days now. There’s no one in but Miss Simmez who caretakes.”

I stood there helplessly. It had been Friday when I had visited Walter Cough and if Mr. Parkinson had died on Wednesday…?

“Is the funeral over?” I said unsteadily.

He nodded. “Yes. They had it from the mortuary chapel in Baghdad Road. There was hundreds came to it.”

“I daresay there were,” I murmured. “He was a great philanthropist, wasn’t he?”

My informant sighed.

“He was,” he said. “But he was wonderful sharp. A wonderful sharp old man, that he was. There weren’t nobody ever got the better of him.”

It was London, it was hot and it was Sunday afternoon. The billiard room in Prinny’s Club, Pall Mall, which has often been likened to a mausoleum, had unexpectedly become one.

Superintendent Stanislaus Oates glanced down at the body again and swore softly to Mr. Albert Campion who had just been admitted.

“I hate miracles!” he said.

Campion drew the sheet gently back from the terrible face.

“Our friend here could hardly have been taken by this one,” he murmured, his pale eyes growing grim behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. “Strangled? Oh yes, I see—from behind. Powerful fingers. Horrid. Who done it?”

“I know who ought to have done it.” Oates was savage. “I know who’s been threatening to do it for months and yet, he wasn’t here. That’s why I sent for you. You like this four-dimensional stuff. I don’t. See anyone in the hall as you came up?”

“About forty police experts and two very shaken old gentlemen, both on the fragile side. Who are they? Witnesses?”

The Superintendent sighed. “Listen,” he commanded. “This club is partly closed for cleaning. The only two rooms unlocked are the vestibule downstairs and this billiard room up here. The only two people in the place are Bowser, the doorkeeper, and Chetty, the little lame billiard marker.”

“The two I mentioned?”

“Yes. Bowser has been in the vestibule all the time. He’s a great character in clubland. Knows everybody and has a reputation for infallibility. You couldn’t break him down in the witness box.”

“I’ve heard of him. He gave me a particularly baleful stare as I came in.”

‘That’s his way. Does it to everybody. He’s become a bit affected as these old figureheads do in time. He’s been a power here for forty years, remember. Surly old chap, but he never forgets a face.”

“Beastly for him. And who’s this?” Campion indicated the white mound at their feet. “Just a poor wretched member?”

“That,” Oates spoke dryly, “is Robert Fenderson, the man who exposed William Merton.”

Campion was silent. The story of the Merton crash, which had entailed the arrest of the flamboyant financier after a thousand small speculators had faced ruin, was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Merton had been taken to the cells shouting threats at Judge, jury and witnesses alike, and photographs of his heavy jaw and sultry eyes had appeared in every newspaper.

“Merton broke jail last night.”

“Did he, by Jove!” Campion’s brows rose. “Was he a member here once?”

“Until his arrest. Knows the place like his own house. More than that, someone sent Fenderson a phony message this morning telling him to meet the club secretary here this afternoon at three. The secretary is away this weekend and knows nothing about it. I tell you Campion, it’s an open and shut case—only Merton hasn’t been here unless he flew in by the windows.”

Campion glanced at the casements bolted against the heat

“He hardly flew out again.”

“Exactly, and there’s nowhere for him to be hidden. Bowser swears that he went all over the club after lunch and found it deserted. Since then he’s been on the door all the time. During the afternoon only one member came in, and that was Fenderson. The only other living soul to cross the threshold was Chetty, who is far too frail to have strangled a cat, let alone a man with a neck like Fenderson’s. Bowser has a perfect view from his box of the street door, the staircase and this door. He insists he has neither slept nor left his seat. He’s unshakeable.”

“Has the unyielding Bowser a soft spot for Merton?”

Oates was nettled. “I thought of that at once, naturally,” he said acidly, “but the evidence is all the other way. One could even suspect Bowser of having a grudge against the chap. Merton made a complaint about him just before the crash. It was a stupid, petty quarrel—something about who should say ‘Good morning” first, member or club servant? Merton is like that, very self important and a born bully. Bowser is a graceless, taciturn old chap, but I swear he’s speaking the truth. He hasn’t seen Merton this afternoon.”