The Fashion In Shrouds (24 page)

‘It's very naughty of Georgia,' she observed, somewhat Inadequately, when the silence had gone on long enough. ‘What shall one say to Emily?'

‘She's seventy.' Val sounded tolerant. ‘Say you'll do all you can. She's a hundred and fifty miles away and a hundred and fifty years off. She's living in the past, somewhere just before the Napoleonic Wars. You get like that down there. The house hasn't changed and nor has she. If she weren't so gloriously hard it would be pathetic. Still, it's idiotic. You can't behave like Queen Charlotte just because you live in a Georgian pile.'

Lady Papendeik nodded regretfully.

‘Will you mention this to Georgia?'

‘Oh no.' Val was standing with her back to the room, the sun turning her hair into a blazing halo. ‘No. She'll forget it in a day or so. If I talk to her it'll give her something else to add to it, or else she'll be broken-hearted and contrite and have to confess to someone terribly confidentially, and the whole thing'll blaze up again.'

‘You're very wise for your age.' Lady Papendeik seemed to find the fact a pity. ‘Perhaps this niece of Emily's has exaggerated.'

‘Perhaps so. Let us look on the bright side by all means.'

‘You are afraid the man will hear of it?'

‘I'm afraid he has.' Val's tone was commendably matter of fact. Ever since she had read Dorothy Phelps's letter the
full significance of Dell's muttered injunction on the church step had been slowly sinking into her mind. It is the little unexpected nicenesses which creep through the armour chinks, and suddenly her restraint shivered. She laid her forehead against the pane.

‘
My dear, oh my dear, my dear, my love, oh sweet, sweet, oh my dear
.' The idiotic refrain made existence just bearable until the moment was over.

She turned away from the window and glanced at Tante Marthe.

‘It passes,' said the old woman, answering her thought. ‘Of all the things that pass that passes most completely. Enjoy it while you can.'

‘Enjoy it?'

Lady Papendeik looked down at her hands with the little brown mottles on them.

‘There's a great deal to be said for feeling anything,' she remarked. ‘I don't.'

Val sat down at her table and began to scribble. Presently the other woman rose to look over her shoulder.

‘What's that?' she demanded. ‘A nightgown?'

Val ran a pencil through the design. She looked up, her cheeks red and her eyes laughing.

‘A tiddy little shroud,' she said. ‘It should be made in something rather heavy and expensive. Berthé's new corded
chine-chine
, I think.

‘Morbid and silly,' said Lady Papendeik. ‘I like the little bows. What's the pocket for?'

‘Indulgences,' said Val cheerfully. ‘They're always in fashion.'

‘
I TELL YOU
wot, cock,' said Mr Lugg, looking at an enormous gold hunter which had been entirely ruined, from his point of view, by an engraved tribute in the back which rendered it of little interest to pawnbrokers. ‘I tell you wot. She's not coming.'

Mr Campion turned away from his sitting-room window and wandered across the carpet, his lean dinner-jacketed shoulders hunched.

‘A nasty little girl,' he observed. ‘Take the
crème de menthe
away. Drink it if you like.'

‘And smell like a packet o' hiccorf suckers. I know.' Lugg waddled to the coffee-table and restored the offending bottle to the cocktail cabinet. ‘You treat me as a sort of joke, don't you?' he remarked, his great white face complacent. ‘I'm a regular clown. I make you laugh. I say funny things, don't I?'

His employer regarded him dispassionately. In his velvet house-coat, his chins carelessly arranged over a strangling collar and his little black eyes hopeful, he was not by any means an uncomic figure.

‘Well, go on, say it. I'm a laugh, ain't I?'

‘Not to everyone.'

‘Wot?' He seemed hurt and also incredulous.

‘Not to everyone. A lot of my friends think you're overrated.'

‘
Overrated?
' The black eyes wavered for a moment before a faint smile spread over the great face. ‘Reelly?' he said at last, adding tolerantly, ‘it takes all sorts to make a world, don't it? It's a funny thing, I often give meself a laugh. I think we'd better give 'er up, don't you? It's no use me sitting around dressed like a parcel if company's not expected. That's
makin
' trouble. Mr Tuke advises me to wear lower collars. One inch above the shirt-band, in 'is opinion, is quite sufficient if a gentleman 'as an 'eavy neck. What would you say?'

‘What's the time?'

‘Close on arf-past. She's not comin'. She's led you up the gardin. That's a woman all over. I don't know what you want to bother with them for. Two blokes 'ave died and are tucked up tidy, and what if there is a lot of talk about your Sis and a sleepin' tonic? That's nothin'. Leave it alone. Fergit it. Be a gent and look it in the face and don't see it.'

‘A sleeping tonic?' Mr Campion's pale eyes were cold behind his spectacles and Mr Lugg perceived the pitfall too late.

‘A naspirin, then,' he said defiantly. ‘Fergit it. Don't roll in the mud. Don't
bathe
yerself in it.'

‘When did you hear this?'

‘Oh, ages ago. Months, it was. Last week per'aps.' Mr Lugg was throwing the subject about until he lost it. ‘I changed the conversation, if you want to know, same as any gent would 'oo 'adn't fergot 'isself.'

‘Where was this? At your beastly pub?'

‘I may 'ave 'eard a careless word at the club. I really fergit.' Mr Lugg's eyes were veiled and his dignity was tremendous.

‘The club!' said Mr Campion with a force and bitterness which were unusual in him. ‘All the blasted clubs. Oh, my God, what a mess! There's the bell at last. Let her in, there's a good chap. Where on earth has she been?'

Mr Lugg raised his eyebrows, or rather the ridge of fat where his eyebrows should have been, and shuffled out of the room. His voice came back from the passage a moment or so later.

‘No luck. It's only Miss Amanda. This way, yer Ladyship. She's let 'im down. No, 'asn't showed up at all.'

Amanda came in full of sympathy. She did not take off the thick ivory silk coat which covered her from throat to toe but seated herself on the arm of a chair and regarded her host inquiringly.

‘What do we do now?'

He grinned at her. Her enthusiasm was infectious and comforting and it occurred to him then that she would retain it all her days. It was part of her make-up and sprang from a passionate and friendly interest in all the many and exciting surfaces of life.

‘I was considering,' he said seriously. ‘At the moment we face an impasse. The old
maestro
allows beautiful suspect to slip through nicotine-stained fingers. I had been all over London for that wretched girl and I was lying harmlessly in bed this morning, wondering if the Salvation Army wasn't the next most likely hunting ground after all, when she phoned me. I recognized the jews'-harp voice immediately and promptly fell out of the bed on to the bear I shot in the Afghanistan campaign. She gave her name at once and plunged into business. “It's Miss Caroline Adamson speaking. Is that Mr Albert Campion? Oh, it is?”
Light laugh
. “I don't know if you remember me?”
Pause
.
“Oh, you do? That's divine of you.”
Gasp
. “Well, Mr Campion, would you be in to-night about eight if I was to call round? I think you've been looking for me and I think I know what you're interested in. You want me to tell you something, don't you?”
Seductive, upward inflection.
“I'll call then. Oh no, no thanks, that's sweet of you. No, I won't dine. I just want a little business chat. You understand it will be business, don't you?”
Firm, straight-from-the-shoulder tone.
“Oh, you do? I thought you did.”
Relief
. “I've only seen you once to speak to, but I thought I was right about you.”
Unnecessary laugh.
“Well, I've got your address so I'll drop in about eight, then. What d'you want to know where I live for?”
Hur hur hur
. “I'll come round to you. No, really, I'm on a diet, I am really. About eight then. Righty-ho”.'

He finished his impersonation with a realistic giggle.

‘There you are,' he said. ‘I couldn't discover where the call came from. Never try to trace a London telephone call unless you're a Superintendent of Police. So I washed my hands and face, bought three pennyworth of mimosa for the desk vase, lassoed Lugg into a collar and sat down to wait. When I asked you to come along at half-past nine I thought we'd have some jolly gossip to discuss. Instead of that the little canine has ditched me and here I am, disconsolate and foolish.'

‘You'd look more foolish if she'd fixed up to meet you outside the Leicester Square tube. It's raining like stink,' said Amanda with typical practicalness. ‘What does she know? It must be something fairly good or she'd never approach you. She must have some sort of information to sell.'

Campion glanced at her with mild surprise.

‘Without wanting to wound your finer susceptibilities, I should have thought that was fairly obvious,' he said at last. ‘I take it that Miss Adamson knows where Ramillies went when he rushed away from his farewell party at Caesar's Court, and where he got the alcoholic drenching which was so tactfully avoided in Doctor Juxton-Coltness's report.'

Amanda looked up. She was quietly pleased with herself, he noticed.

‘She may, of course,' she said, ‘but I doubt it. I know where Ramillies went that night. He went to Boot's Hotel.'

‘Boot's?' Mr Campion was frankly incredulous.

Boot's Hotel is one of those curious survivals which still eke out a failing existence in odd corners of London's mysterious western end. It had been founded early in the nineteenth century by a retired royal servant, and something of the stuffy, homely dignity of the court of Silly Billy still persisted inside its dusty crimson walls. The place had possessed a distinguished clientele in the days when a fine country lady and her husband were at a disadvantage if their relatives were out of town and could not offer them hospitality for their visit, since hotels which were not also public-houses were scarce. But now its period was long past and only its tremendously valuable freehold and the sentiment of its owners stood between it and the housebreaker. So far as Mr Campion knew, the Fitton family were the only people wealthy enough to face the tariff yet sufficiently hardy to stand the discomfort. There was a legend that hip-baths were still provided in the vast bedrooms and were filled from small brass cans by ancient personages in livery, but Amanda said it was a good hotel and gave it as her opinion that once they got rid of the rats it would be very healthy.

Boot's?' Campion repeated. ‘Boot's and Ramillies? Ramillies left Caesar's Court and beetled off back down the years to Boot's? Why?'

‘To get a little peace, perhaps,' suggested Amanda. ‘He wasn't awfully young. Love and the dance band may have got him down between them. It's not unlikely. Anyway, he was there on the nineteenth because I saw his name in the book when I signed mine to-night. It was on the top of the page before mine. (I don't think they're doing very well.) I asked George about him. He's that old man in the office place, and he remembers him coming in very well. Ramillies arrived fairly late and went up to his room, and, what's more, George doesn't think he came down again until the next morning, rather late. He's going to find out that for certain. Also – and this is the funny thing – George doesn't think he was drunk then.'

‘My dear child, he must have been.' Mr Campion was almost dogmatic. ‘Otherwise no man on earth could have done it in the time. I diagnosed at least a twelve-hour blind
when I saw him after lunch. The whole story sounds fantastic. He may have taken a quart of whisky to bed with him at Boot's and privately drunk himself pallid. It's a form of vice which I don't understand myself, but, having seen Ramillies, I'm open to concede that such a form of perversion might conceivably appeal to him. I say, are you sure you've got the right date and the right man?'

‘Raymond Ramillies, The Residency, Ulangi,' said Amanda, ‘
and
George described him.'

‘George also says he wasn't tight,' objected Mr Campion.

‘George is a wonderful smart old man,' She dropped into her native Suffolk by way of emphasis. ‘If George said you were tight now I'd take his word for it against yours, and as for the date, if Ramillies went and stayed alone on any other night at Boot's for no good reason whatever, that
would
be astonishing. But if he suddenly got fed up with Caesar's Court and Georgia and the noise and wanted somewhere quiet to sleep, then it would be a perfectly normal thing to go to Boot's, where there's not even any plumbing to uggle-guggle at you from inside the walls. That's all right. That's the kind of thing I'd do myself.'

Campion was silent. There was a great deal of common sense in Amanda's remarks. It was the kind of thing Amanda would do herself, and Ramillies, for all his vagaries, came from much the same background as Amanda. He stood frowning down at her.

‘Suppose you're right,' he said. ‘Suppose all this is true. Where and when did he get in the condition in which he arrived at Caesar's Court and what in the name of good fortune has Miss Adamson to tell us that is sufficiently interesting for her to think we might buy it?'

‘That's what I was wondering,' said Amanda. ‘We ought to get hold of her, you know. This is a filthy tale that's going round about Val.'