Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

The Inspector shrugged. 'Mustn't grumble,' he said. 'Promotion has always meant trouble, though, as far back as I can remember.'

'Look out,' said Campion suddenly. 'She comes!'

The two men stood listening. Wavering footsteps echoed in the alleyway. They advanced almost to the yard and then retreated a little way.

'A lame man wearing number nine boots, smoking a cheroot and probably a chandler's mate by profession,' Campion murmured, putting on his tweed cap. 'Sounds like "good sensible" shoes anyhow,' he went on more seriously. 'I hope Marcus hasn't picked a thundering English rose.'

Mr Oates glanced though the slit between the half-open door and the post. 'Oh,' he said casually, 'it's that bloke.'

Mr Campion raised an inquiring eyebrow.

The Inspector explained. 'I was followed from the Yard today,' he said. 'I forgot all about the man in the rainstorm, to tell you the truth. I suppose he's been hanging about outside the entrance here ever since I came in. Probably somebody with a grievance, or some lunatic with an invention to offer me for detecting the criminally-minded on sight. You'd be surprised what a lot of that sort of thing I get, Campion. I suppose I'd better see him.'

The rain had stopped for the time being, although the sky was still cold and overcast. Stanislaus Oates stepped out into the court, walked to the mouth of the passage, glanced down at it and then stepped back again into the shelter of the yard. Campion stood in the doorway of the boiler-room to watch the comedy, lank and immaculate, the ridiculous tweed cap perched on the top of his head.

The footsteps sounded again, and a moment later the square man with the hint of lost respectability about him emerged.

At close quarters he presented a more complex appearance than he had shown at a distance. His reddish face was puffy, and coarse skin and deep lines almost obscured the natural regularity of his features. The suit, which he wore with an air, was grease-spotted and disreputable, a condition not improved by the fact that at the moment it was practically soaked. Despite his furtive glance round there was an air of truculence about him, and he fixed the Inspector firmly with his slightly bloodshot eyes.

'Mr Oates,' he said, 'I should like to speak to you. I have a piece of information which may save you and your friends a lot of trouble.'

The Inspector did not reply, but stood waiting for further developments. The man had revealed a remarkably deep voice and an unexpectedly educated accent. Interested, Mr Campion advanced incautiously out of his hiding-place, and the intruder, catching sight of his somewhat unconventional appearance, broke off abruptly, his jaw dropping.

'I didn't know you had a companion,' he said sullenly.

'Or a witness?' suggested the Inspector dryly.

Mr Campion removed his hat and stepped out into the yard.

'I'll go if you like, Inspector,' he said, and paused abruptly.

All three men stood silent. Down the alleyway echoed the sound of high-heeled shoes clicking sharply on the stones. Mr Campion's visitor had arrived.

She came into the yard the next moment, the very antithesis of his expectations. A tall, slender young woman, smartly dressed in the best country-town tradition. She was also young, much younger than Campion had supposed. She looked, as the Inspector remarked afterwards, like some nice person's kid sister. She was not beautiful. Her mouth was a little too large, her brown eyes too deeply set, but she was definitely attractive in her own rather unusual way. Mr Campion was glad that he had removed his 'ratting cap'. Subconsciously his opinion of his friend Marcus improved. He stepped forward to meet her, holding out his hand.

'Miss Blount?' he said. 'My name's Campion. I say, I'm awfully sorry I bothered you to come all this way.'

He got no further. The girl, whose glance had travelled past him to the other two men, now caught sight of the squat stranger who had something of such interest to tell the Inspector. An expression of terrified recognition crept into her face, and the young man was alarmed to see a wave of pallor rise slowly up her neck and spread. The next moment she had taken an uncertain step backward, and he caught her arm to steady her. The Inspector sprang towards them.

'Look out,' he said. 'Bend her head down. She'll be all right in a minute.'

He was fishing for his flask when the girl straightened herself.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm all right. Where is he?'

The two men turned, but of their square acquaintance there was no sign. Rapidly retreating footsteps down the passage told of his escape. Oates started after him, but when he reached the end of the alley and looked up and down the street the evening rush was well under way. The pavements were crowded, and of the mysterious stranger, the sight of whom had so startled Mr Featherstone's fiancée, there was no trace.

It was in the taxicab as they were speeding over the slippery road towards 17A Bottle Street, Mr Campion's Piccadilly address, that Miss Joyce Blount eyed the young man who sat beside her and the Inspector, who sat opposite, with the engaging smile of youth, and lied.

'That man who was with you in the yard?' she said in reply to a tentative question from the Inspector. 'Oh, no, I have never seen him before in my life.' She looked at them straightly, the colour deepening a little in her cheeks.

Mr Campion was puzzled, and his pleasant vacuous face wrinkled into a travesty of deep thought.

'But when you saw him,' he ventured, 'I thought you were going to faint. And when you--er--recovered you said, "Where is he?"'

The red in the girl's cheeks deepened, but she still smiled at them innocently, engagingly.

'Oh, no,' she repeated in her clear, slightly childlike voice, 'you must have made a mistake. Why, I hardly saw him. He conveyed nothing to me. How could he?' There was a distinct air of finality in her tone, and there was silence for some moments after she had spoken. The Inspector glanced at Campion, but young man's eyes were expressionless behind his enormous spectacles.

The girl seemed to be considering the situation, for after a while she turned again to Campion.

'Look here,' she said, 'I'm afraid I've made a terrible fool of myself. I've been dreadfully worried, and I haven't had any food today. I dashed out without any breakfast this morning, and there wasn't time for lunch, and--well, what with one thing and another I got a bit giddy, I suppose.' She paused, conscious that her explanations did not sound very convincing.

Mr Campion, however, appeared to be quite satisfied. 'It's very dangerous not to eat,' he said gravely. 'Lugg will minister to you the moment we get in. I knew a man once,' he continued with great solemnity, 'who omitted to eat for a considerable time through worry and mental strain and all that sort of thing. So that he quite got out of the way of it, and when he found himself at a stiff dinner party he was absolutely flummoxed. Imagine it--soup here, entree there, and oyster shells in every pocket of his dinner jacket. It was a fiasco.'

The Inspector gazed absently at his friend with an introspective eye, but the girl, who had no experience of Mr Campion's vagaries, shot him a quick dubious glance from under her lashes.

'You are the Mr Campion, Marcus's friend, aren't you?' she said involuntarily.

Campion nodded. 'Marcus and I met in our wild youth,' he said.

The girl laughed, a nervous explosive giggle. 'Not Marcus,' she said. 'Or else he's changed.' She seemed to regret the remark immediately, for at once she plunged into the one important subject on her mind. 'I came to ask you to help us,' she said slowly. 'Of course Marcus wrote to you, didn't he? I'm afraid he may have given you an awfully wrong impression. He doesn't take it seriously. But it is serious.' Her voice developed a note of frank sincerity which startled her hearers a little. 'Mr Campion, you are a sort of private detective, aren't you? I mean--I'd heard of you before Marcus told me. I know some people in Suffolk--Giles and Isobel Paget. They're friends of yours, aren't they?'