Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

After his first start of surprise the Inspector swung round to find himself facing a young man perched insecurely on a pile of débris in the warm murky shelter of the stove. A shaft of light from the furnace lit up the figure, throwing him into sharp relief.

The Inspector had a vision of a lank immaculate form surmounted by a pale face half obliterated by enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. The final note of incongruity was struck by an old-fashioned deerstalker cap set jauntily upon the top of the young man's head.

Chief-Detective Inspector Stanislaus Oates began to laugh. Ten minutes before he had felt that spontaneous mirth was permanently beyond him.

'Campion!' he said. "Who's after you now?"

The young man struggled down from his throne and held out his hand.

'I'm waiting for a client,' he explained airily. 'I've been here half an hour already. What are you looking for?'

'Warmth and a little quiet,' said the other querulously. 'This weather upsets my liver.'

He took off his raincoat, shook it peremptorily and spread it over Mr Campion's late resting-place. This performance he repeated with his hat and edged as near to the boiler as he could without burning himself. His companion regarded him with a faintly amused expression on his slightly vacuous face.

'Quite the little cop, still, I see,' he said. 'What's the idea? "Old Bobby revisits the scene of his first arrest"? "The sentimental journey of a Big Fifth"? I hate to seem inquisitive, Stanislaus, but I'm expecting a client, as I said before. In fact, when I heard your footsteps I thought you were the mysterious she and I don't mind telling you my heart sank.'

The Inspector turned from the furnace and looked at his friend attentively. 'Why the fancy dress?' he inquired.

Mr Campion removed the monstrous tweed erection from his head and looked at it lovingly.

'I called in at Belloc's on my way down here,' he observed, 'and I caught sight of it. They tell me they make one a year for a rural dean, who wears it for a local ratting gala. I had to have it. Just the thing in which to interview a romantic client, don't you think?'

The Inspector grinned. The warmth was beginning to percolate into his bones and his bonhomie was fast returning.

'What an extraordinary chap you are, Campion,' he said. 'I'm never surprised when you turn up in the most amazing places. I shouldn't have said there were half a dozen men in London who knew of this little hide-out. Yet the first time I call here in twenty years I find you sitting here in fancy dress. How do you do it?'

Campion unbuttoned the flaps of the deerstalker meditatively. 'The amiable Lugg put me up to it,' he said. 'He's still with me, you know--bull pup and femme-de-chambre combined. I was looking for some suitable spot to interview a young lady who has been so grossly misinformed that she believes I'm a private detective.'

The Inspector knocked out his pipe against the boiler.

'Funny how these ideas get about,' he said. 'What do you call yourself these days?'

Campion looked at him reprovingly. 'Deputy Adventurer,' he said. 'I thought of that the other day. I think it sums me up perfectly.'

The Inspector shook his head gravely. 'No more Chalices?' he said. 'You put the wind up me last time. You'll get into trouble one of these days.'

The young man beamed. 'Your idea of trouble must be very advanced,' he murmured.

The Inspector did not smile. 'That's what I mean by trouble,' he remarked, pointing through the open doorway to the railed-in patch of grass. 'There'll probably be no one to write "Here lies a Benefactor" at your feet, though. What is it this time? A scandal in High Life? Or are you out to crush the spy system?'

'Neither,' said Mr Campion regretfully. 'You find me here, Stanislaus, indulging in a silly childish desire to impress. Also, incidentally, to get my own back. I'm meeting a lady here--I've told you that about six times. You needn't go. I don't know her. In fact, I think you might add to the tone of the interview. I say, couldn't you go out and borrow a helmet from one of your boys on point duty? Then she'll know I'm telling the truth when I introduce you.'

Mr Oates became alarmed. 'If you've got some silly woman coming here, don't you tell her who I am,' he said warningly. 'What's the idea, anyhow?'

Mr Campion produced a sheet of thick grey notepaper from his inside pocket.

'Here's a lawyer's letter,' he said. 'I like to think it cost him personally six and eightpence. Go on--read it. I'll help you with the long words.'

The Inspector took the paper and read the letter to himself, forming each word separately with his lips and emitting an intermittent rumble as he half spoke the phrases.

2, Soul's Court, Queen's Rd.,

Cambridge.

My Dear Campion,

I have always imagined it more likely that you would eventually come to consult me in a professional capacity than I you. However, the Gods of Chance were always capricious as a woman--and of course it is a woman for whose sweet silly (in the Saxon sense) sake here I am craving your services.

You wrote me such an amusing piece of trivia when I announced my engagement that I feel sure you have not forgotten the incident completely. Still, it is for my fiancée, Joyce Blount, that I now write you.

As perhaps I told you, she is at present--poor child--employing herself as a species of professional daughter-cum-companion in the house of her great-aunt, a prodigious old Hecuba, widow of the late lamented Doctor Faraday, of 'Gnats' (circa 1880). They are an elderly family of quite ridiculous proportions and hers is an invidious task.

This, then, is the thesis. At the moment Joyce is quite absurdly worried by the disappearance of her uncle, Andrew Seeley, one of the household, who has been absent for about a week. I know the man, a veritable type, a sponger, as are most of the family, I am afraid. It seems to me to be most probable that he won a few pounds on a horse (this somewhat second-hand sport was a favourite of his, I know) and has taken the week off from his Aunt Faraday's iron discipline.

However, Joyce is as obstinate as she is delectable, and since she has determined to come to Town tomorrow (Thursday, the tenth), to consult some suitable specialist in the matter, I felt the least I could do would be to give her your name and address and then write to warn you.

She has a very romantic nature, I am afraid, and hers is a dull life. If you could give her at least the thrill of seeing the sleuth himself, perhaps even sleuthing, you would be rendering your eternal debtor he who begs always to remain, my dear fellow,

Your devoted ,

P.S.--Were I only in London--[Greek: eithe genoimên] I should be absurdly tempted to spy upon the interview.

P.P.S.--Gordon, whom you may remember, has at last gone to uphold the British Raj in India, as, of course, he will. Henderson writes me that he has 'gone into drains', whatever that may mean. It sounds typical.

The Inspector folded the letter carefully and returned it to Campion.

'I don't think I should cotton to that chap myself,' he observed. 'Nice enough, I have no doubt,' he went on hastily. 'But if you're set up in a witness box with a chap like that chivvying you he makes you look a fool without getting the case on any further. He thinks he knows everything, and so he does pretty nearly--about books and dead languages--but has he the faintest idea of the mental process which resulted in the accused marrying the plaintiff in 1927 in Chiswick, when he had already married the first witness in 1903? Not on your life.'

Mr Campion nodded. 'I think you're right,' he said. 'Although Marcus is a very good solicitor. But cases in Cambridge are usually very refeened , I believe. I wish that girl would turn up if she's coming. I gave Lugg explicit instructions to send her here the moment she arrived at Bottle Street. I thought this would provide a peep at the underworld which would be at once clean, safe and edifying. The kind of girl Marcus can have persuaded to marry him must be mentally stunted. Besides, her trouble seems to be absurd. She's lost a very unpleasant uncle--why worry to look for him? My idea is to sit up on this convenient structure, array myself in my little ratting cap, and make a few straightforward comments on Uncle Andrew. The young woman, deeply impressed, will return to Marcus, repeating faithfully all that she has seen and heard--that sort always does. Marcus will deduce that I am rapidly proceeding bin-wards, and he will scratch my name out of his address book and leave me in peace. How's business?'