The Fashion In Shrouds (28 page)

‘A proper little Boy Scout,' agreed Mr Campion helpfully. ‘If you are asking me in a delicate way if I am going to play ball with you or if I would rather not because I am afraid my sister may have murdered someone by mistake and I do not want to assist in her apprehension, let me say at once, as an old reliable firm with a reputation to maintain, I play ball. I did not know the young woman who is lying in your icebox, and what I knew of her did not amuse
me particularly, but I don't associate myself with anybody who sticks a bread-knife into any lady. I'm against him, whoever he is. I endorse your point of view in the matter. On the other hand, I do not want to be involved in a lot of unpleasant tittle-tattle or scandal in the daily press, nor do I want my innocent friends and relations to have that degrading experience either. Do I make myself clear?'

‘Yes,' said Oates. ‘Yes, you do.' He was silent for some moments and sat looking at the yellow evening light on the tree-tops with apparent satisfaction. ‘Why did you say “bread-knife”?'

‘Joke,' explained his companion grimly. ‘Why?'

‘It might have been a bread-knife,' said Oates seriously. ‘A thinnish bread-knife. Still, that's conjecture.' He showed no desire to rise but remained with his coat wrapped round him, staring down at his feet, and presently he began to talk about the case with a lack of official discretion which Mr Campion fully appreciated without altogether enjoying it, since any deviation from routine in such a diehard must have some specific purpose.

‘The local bobby found the corpse when he came past here on a bicycle at ten minutes past eight this morning,' Oates began slowly. ‘He was taking a short cut to a farm down here in connexion with some foot-and-mouth regulations. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this place, Campion, but it's not very secret, is it? It's simply the first piece of cover which a fellow would come to if he had taken a chance on a lonely turning off the main road.'

‘Arguing that the fellow who dumped the body need not have had any pre-knowledge of the district?'

‘That's what I thought.' The superintendent nodded his appreciation of his guest's intelligence. ‘As a matter of fact, the choice of this particular place rather argues that he didn't know the village. Do you know what this is, Campion? This is the local sitting-out acre, the petting party field. Every decent village has something of the sort. I remember when I was a boy down in Dorset there was a little wood above a disused quarry. Go down there after tea alone and you'd feel like the one child at the party who hadn't been given his present off the Christmas-tree. The place was alive with boys and girls minding their own affairs.
Now wouldn't that be a silly place to turn up to with a body? You'd walk into trouble the moment you set foot on the grass with a couple of witnesses behind every bush. No, I don't think our feller knew where he was at all. I think he saw a tree or two and thought, “This'll do”. Pullen, who is a good man, saw that at once. He's got the local lads going round talking to country sweethearts now. That'll mean some delicate interviews. Well, that's one point. Then there's another. That girl was stabbed clean through the chest. Sir Henry said the heart was grazed, in his opinion, but he couldn't say for certain until he'd done his examination. We haven't found the weapon, yet she wasn't saturated with blood.'

He paused and cocked an inquiring eye at his companion.

‘The sword, or whatever it was, was removed some time after death?'

‘Looks like it, doesn't it? They're searching for it now, but somehow I don't think they'll find it. If a murderer doesn't throw away the weapon within ten minutes of the crime he's a cool hand and that means we'll never find it, like as not.'

The old detective was working up to his argument and Campion listened, fascinated by the placid common sense which is the essence of all good police work.

‘Then there's the question of rigor.' Oates sounded contemptuous. ‘I don't trust it. I've known it have some amazing vagaries. But we can't afford to ignore it. Rigor is now well advanced and there's no sign of it abating. That shows the chances are a hundred to one that she's not been dead thirty hours yet. So, say the crime took place after one o'clock midday yesterday. She was wearing a black silk dress and a small fur cape. It didn't look to me like a morning get-up. It was the kind of outfit you might go to a cinema in.'

Mr Campion blinked intelligently.

‘Had rigor set in before she was put on the bank?'

‘No, after. That's the expert opinion.'

‘So she must have been brought here within six hours of death?'

‘There's no “must” about it, my lad, and don't you forget it.' Oates sounded irritable. ‘We can only say that
the probability is that it was round about six hours after. Yet rigor was well advanced when she was found at eight o'clock. Therefore it's fairly certain that she was killed before two a.m. at the latest. As we see it, the poor thing was murdered somewhere, probably in London, and the weapon was left in the wound for a time, thus staunching the blood-flow. Then, some little time later, say within six or seven hours at least, she was brought down here by car and dumped and the weapon removed. She was wearing high-heeled black patent shoes when she was found and these were grazed on top of the toes, indicating that she'd been carried face forward, with her legs sprawling behind her. There was also a smear on one of her stockings which looked to me like oil. None of this is proved, of course; the whole thing is pure conjecture; but that's how we see it at the moment. You follow where that takes us?'

‘Nowhere at all,' said Mr Campion cheerfully, his pale eyes belying his tone.

Oates grunted.

‘It takes us to
you
, mate,' he said bluntly. ‘It takes us back to you and your pals, and you know that better than anyone. We've got to go over that girl's immediate past with a magnifying glass and we've got to have a chat with everyone who knew her. It's the motive that's going to put us on to our man and that's what we're after. That's plain speaking, isn't it?'

‘Almost homely,' agreed Mr Campion absently. ‘I've told you all I can, I think. There's one trivial little thing which may be interesting. It's only an impression, but they're sometimes useful. I don't think she was alone when she phoned me yesterday.'

‘An accomplice?'

‘I don't know. An audience, anyway. She hadn't her entire mind on me.'

The superintendent was interested.

‘There you are,' he said. ‘That's corroboration. This isn't an ordinary knifing. I said that to Pullen as soon as I heard the details. In the normal way, when a good-looking young woman gets herself stabbed it's a perfectly straightforward human story, but this is different. This is what I call Number One Murder. It's an honest, done-on-purpose
killing for a reason. There was no “Gawd-I-love-you – take-that” about that stab. Do you know her dress was rolled down neatly off her shoulders and the weapon inserted as carefully as if she'd been on an operating table? Not torn down, mind you, but rolled.'

Mr Campion stared at him in natural astonishment at this bewildering piece of information.

‘What was she doing while all this was happening?'

‘The Lord alone knows.' Oates shook his bowler hat over the mystery. ‘I tell you, Campion, the poor thing was barely untidy. Her hands weren't torn and there wasn't another mark on her skin. She hadn't defended herself at all. I've never seen anything quite like it.' He hesitated and laughed because he was embarrassed at the fancifulness of his own thoughts. ‘There's a sort of inhuman quality about that killing,' he said. ‘It's almost as if it had been done by a machine or the hand of Fate or something. Where are you going?'

Mr Campion had risen abruptly. His face was expressionless and he held his shoulders stiffly.

‘That is a very unpleasant thought,' he said.

‘It's foolishness. I don't know what possessed me to say such a thing.' Oates seemed genuinely surprised at himself. ‘I'm getting light-headed in this country air; that's about it. Well, if he's Dracula himself we'll get him and hang him up by his neck until he's learnt his lesson, and I warn you, Campion, there'll be a lot of questions asked around your part of the world.'

‘I can see that.'

‘So long as you know.' Oates was avuncular. ‘I'm taking you at your word,' he pointed out. ‘You're working with us. You've never been foolish yet and I don't suppose you will be this time.'

‘I'm glad to hear it.' Campion spoke with mild indignation. ‘If I may say so without offence, your rustic personality has been ruined by your association with the police. This perpetual “I know you're a little gentleman because I've got my beady eye on you” embarrasses me. I don't want to shield any murderer. I'm not anti-social. I'm against murder on principle. I think it's unethical and ungentlemanly and also unkind.'

‘That's all right,' said Oates. ‘But don't forget it. That's all I'm saying.'

‘I shall probably visit my sister to-night.'

‘Why shouldn't you?'

‘Why indeed? I'm only mentioning it in case you have me tailed and your suspicious nature suspects conspiracy.'

The superintendent laughed.

‘It's not that I don't trust you, but I wish you were in the Force,' he said.

‘In other words, you don't doubt my honour, but you wish it was a fear of my losing my pension,' commented Mr Campion with acerbity. ‘You embarrass and disgust me.'

Oates was still grinning, the tight skin shining on the bones of his face.

‘So long as that's all I've got to do, it won't hurt,' he said piously. ‘Do you know the party you fancy I may come after?'

‘No. If I did I should tell you. Can't you see I'm not afraid that you may make an arrest. It's the dust you'll kick up snouting round the rabbit burrows which is my concern.'

Mr Campion seemed to have lost some of his composure and his friend was sympathetic.

‘We'll come on tiptoe,' he promised.

Campion regarded him affectionately.

‘The patter of your little boots will sound like a regiment of cavalry,' he said. ‘Rest assured I'll do everything I can. Frankly, I want this man quite as much as you do.'

‘Oh, you do, do you? What for?'

‘A question of personal affront,' said Mr Campion with deep feeling.

Oates eyed him thoughtfully.

‘You were at Caesar's Court when that fellow Ramillies died so suddenly and so naturally, weren't you?' he observed. ‘And you found the body of that young lawyer fellow who shot himself? He was engaged to the present Lady Ramillies at one time, if I remember. You've got no particular party in mind, you say?'

‘No. No one. It may be a Malignant Fate, for all I know.'

‘Ah.' The superintendent grunted. ‘When Fate is as malignant as this I take an interest in it. Well, Mr Campion, since you've failed, we'll see what we can do. We may not
be so delicate with our fancy-work, but we have one great advantage over you, you know.'

Mr Campion glanced down the footpath. Inspector Pullen was striding towards them. His heavy face was animated, for once, and the skirts of his dust-coat were flapping.

‘You have, The Hired Help,' said Campion with feeling. ‘He's got something.'

The inspector was delighted. Satisfaction oozed from him

‘Important new development,' he announced with a rattle like a machine-gun.

‘Let's have it. Never mind Mr Campion; he's going to be very useful.'

Pullen opened his small eyes, but he did not demur. His news was bursting from him.

‘Sergeant Jenner of the local force has found a witness,' he said joyfully. ‘She's a girl who works in the all-night carmen's café on the main road. Her boy's a milk lorry-driver from Eye and apparently he's been in the habit of speeding up his schedule to get half an hour or so extra with this little miss. She can't be eighteen. (I don't know what these country girls are coming to.) Anyway, he got in here at one-thirty last night and hadn't to get to town before four, so she fetched him a meal and then they walked down here. She's going to point out the place where they were sitting. As far as I can make out it's over there behind the tree. About twenty to three, or thereabouts, because her boy was talking of having to get on to London, they heard a car stop in this lane and then there was a lot of movement behind them. The youngsters minded their own business and the girl actually saw nothing, but the young man got up, she says, and looked over a briar hedge. She doesn't know what he saw and no doubt it wasn't anything very sensational, but anyway he sat down again and said, as far as she can remember, “They've gone.” Then she heard the car go off again and they said good night and walked back. This morning when she heard of the crime she was frightened because of the boy-friend's schedule irregularities, but when Jenner put it to her direct she came out with it. We're getting on to the boy now. With luck he saw whoever it was who dumped the body. The whole thing may be in the bag within twenty-four hours.'

‘I wonder,' said Oates and added slyly, glancing at Campion, ‘Don't you leave London. There may be another description for you to identify. Can you see our Nemesis fellow in a bag?'

Mr Campion said nothing. The familiar stab behind his diaphragm was disturbing and he caught his breath.

‘Nemesis?' said Inspector Pullen with disgust. ‘He's a two-legged Nemesis, if you ask me, and if he has two legs the chances are he also has a neck.'

VAL AND MR CAMPION
were in the studio at Papendeik's; not the little office, which was only a semi-private apartment, but the great studio at the top of the house, which was a holy of holies and looked, to Mr Campion's inexperienced eyes, like the inside of a woman's handbag magnified up. It seemed to contain everything except a bath, although there certainly was a business-like sink in one corner of the room, besides a remarkable assortment of tables, cupboards, mirrors and mysterious boxes.