Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

Mr Campion's habitual expression of contented idiocy vanished. 'They are,' he said. 'Two of the most delightful people in the world. Look here, I'd better make a clean breast of it. In the first place, I'm not a detective. If you want a detective here's Inspector Oates, one of the Big Five. I'm a professional adventurer--in the best sense of the word. I'll do anything I can for you. What's the trouble?'

The Inspector, who had been alarmed by Campion's frank introduction of his official status, had his fears allayed by the girl's next announcement. She smiled at him disarmingly.

'It--it isn't a matter for the police,' she said. 'You don't mind, do you?'

He laughed. 'I'm glad to hear it,' he said. 'I'm just an old friend of Campion's. It sounds to me as if he's the kind of man you want. Here we are. I'll leave you with your client, Albert.'

Mr Campion waved his hand airily. 'All right,' he said. 'If I get into serious trouble I'll let you know and you can lock me up until I'm out of danger.'

The Inspector departed, and as Campion paid the cabby the girl looked about her. They were in a little cul-de-sac off Piccadilly, standing outside a police station, but it was the doorway at the side through which wooden stairs were visible, which bore the number 17A.

'When I was here this afternoon,' she said, 'I was afraid I was coming to the police station. I was greatly relieved to find that your address was the flat above it.' She hesitated. 'I--I had a conversation with someone who told me where to find you. A rather odd person.'

Mr Campion looked contrite. 'He was wearing his old uniform, wasn't he?' he said. 'He only puts that on when we're trying to impress people.'

The girl looked at him squarely. 'Marcus told you I was a kid with a bee in my bonnet, didn't he?' she said. 'And you were trying to entertain me for the day?'

'Don't mock at a great man when he makes a mistake,' said Mr Campion, escorting her upstairs. 'Even the Prophet Jonah made one awkward slip, remember. I'm perfectly serious now.'

After two flights the stairs became carpeted and the walls panelled. They paused at last before a heavy oak door on the third floor. Mr Campion produced a key, and the girl found herself ushered across a little hall into a small, comfortably furnished room vaguely reminiscent of one of the more attractive specimens of college chambers, although the trophies on the walls were of a variety more sensational than even the most hopeful undergraduate could aspire to collect.

The girl seated herself in a deep arm-chair before the fire. Mr Campion pressed a bell.

'We'll have some food,' he said. 'Lugg has a theory that high tea is the one meal which makes life worth living.'

The girl was about to protest, but at that moment Mr Campion's factotum appeared. He was a large lugubrious individual, whose pale waste of a face was relieved by an immense pair of black moustaches. He was in shirt-sleeves, a fact which seemed to dismay him when he perceived the girl.

'Lumme, I thought you was alone,' he remarked. He turned to the visitor with a ghost of a smile. 'You'll excuse me, miss, being in negligee, as it were.'

'Nonsense,' said Mr Campion, 'you've got your moustache. That's quite a recent acquisition,' he added, turning to Joyce. 'It does us credit, don't you think?'

Mr Lugg's expression became even more melancholy than before in his attempt to hide a childlike gratification.

'It's lovely,' the girl murmured, not knowing quite what was expected of her.

Mr Lugg almost blushed. 'It's not so dusty,' he admitted modestly.

'High tea?' said Campion inquiringly. 'This lady's had no food all day. See what you can do, Lugg.'

The lugubrious man's pale face became almost animated. 'Leave it to me,' he said. 'I'll serve you up a treat.'

An expression of alarm flickered for an instant behind Mr Campion's enormous spectacles.

'No herrings,' he said.

'All right. Don't spoil it.' Mr Lugg retreated as he grumbled. In the doorway he paused and regarded the visitor wistfully. 'I suppose you wouldn't care for a tinned 'erring and tomato sauce?' he ventured, but seeing her involuntary expression he did not wait for an answer, but shuffled out, closing the door behind him.

Joyce caught Mr Campion's eyes and they both laughed.

'What a delightful person,' she said.

'Absolutely charming when you get to know him,' he agreed. 'He used to be a burglar, you know. It's the old story--lost his figure. As he says himself, it cramps your style when your only means of exit are the double doors in the front hall. He's been with me for years now.'

Once again the girl subjected him to a long penetrating glance. 'Look here,' she said, 'do you really mean what you said about helping? I'm afraid something serious has happened--or is going to happen. Can you help me? Are you--well, I mean--'

Mr Campion nodded. 'Am I a serious practitioner or someone playing the fool? I know that feeling. But I assure you I'm a first-class professional person.'

For an instant the pale eyes behind the enormous spectacles were as grave and steady as her own.

'I'm deadly serious,' he continued. 'My amiable idiocy is mainly natural, but it's also my stock-in-trade. I'm honest, tidy, dark as next year's Derby winner, and I'll do all I can. Hadn't you better let me hear all about it?'

He pulled out the letter from Marcus and glanced at it.

'An uncle of yours has disappeared, hasn't he? And you're worried? That's the main trouble, isn't it?'

She nodded. 'It sounds quite ordinary, I know, and uncle's old enough to take care of himself, but it's all very queer really and I've got a sort of hunch that there's something terribly wrong. It was because I was so afraid that I insisted on Marcus giving me your address. You see, I feel we ought to have someone about who is at least friendly towards the family, and yet who isn't biased by Cambridge ideas and overawed by great-aunt.'

Campion settled himself opposite her. 'You'll have to explain to me about the family,' he said. 'They are fairly distant relations of yours, aren't they?'

She bent forward, her brown eyes strained with the intensity of her desire to make herself clear.

'You won't be able to remember everyone now, but I'll try to give you some idea of us as we are at the moment. First of all there's Great-aunt Caroline Faraday. I can't possibly describe her, but fifty years ago she was a great lady, wife of Great-uncle Doctor Faraday, Master of Ignatius. She's been a great lady ever since. She was eighty-four last year, but is still quite the most live person in the household and she still runs the show rather grandly, like Queen Elizabeth and the Pope rolled into one. What Great-aunt Faraday says goes.

'Then there's Uncle William, her son. He's sixty odd, and he lost all his money in a big company swindle years ago, and had to come back and live under aunt's wing. She treats him as though he were about seventeen and it doesn't agree with him.

'Then there's Aunt Julia, his sister, Great-aunt's daughter. She never married and never really left home. You know how they didn't in those days.'

Mr Campion began to make hieroglyphics on the back of an envelope he had taken from his pocket.

'She's in the fifties, I suppose?' he inquired.

The girl looked vague. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Sometimes I think her older than Great-aunt Faraday. She's--well, she's "spinster of this parish".'

Mr Campion's eyes were kindly behind his spectacles. 'On the difficult side?'

Joyce nodded. 'Just a bit. Then there's Aunt Kitty, Aunt Julia's younger sister. She got married, but when her husband died there wasn't any money left. So she had to come back home, too. That's how I come in. My mother was her husband's sister. My people died young and Aunt Kitty looked after me. When the crash came I got a job, but Great-aunt Faraday sent for me and I've been a sort of companion to them all for the last eighteen months. I pay the bills and do the flowers and see about the linen and read to the family and all that sort of thing. I play Uncle William at chess, too, sometimes.'