Margery Allingham - Police at the Funeral

Mr Campion rose to his feet. She feared that he was debating how to make a polite refusal without sounding sulky, when Lugg appeared in the doorway.

'Telegram,' he said. 'The kid's waiting. Any answer?'

Campion tore open the orange envelope and spread out the flimsy sheet of paper within.

'Hullo,' he said, 'This is from Marcus. A real Cambridge telegram. Must have cost a fortune. Listen. " Can you come back with Joyce at once? Rather terrifying developments here. Would appreciate your professional assistance in the matter. I am having your room prepared for you in anticipation. See evening papers. The 'Comet', if I know them. Marcus. "'

Joyce sprang to her feet and looked over his shoulder.

'Terrifying developments,' she said huskily. 'Oh, what's happened? What's happened?'

Campion turned to Lugg, who was watching the scene from the doorway with a certain professional interest.

'No reply,' he said. 'By the way, you might drop out and get a Comet .'

'The late special is in the kitchen,' said Mr Lugg majestically. 'And I think I know what you're lookin' for. 'Arf a tick.'

Two minutes later he returned. ''Ere you are,' he observed, pointing to a paragraph at the top of a front page column. Joyce and Campion read the headlines together.

CAMBRIDGE, THURSDAY.

(From our Special Correspondent.)

The body of a man, bound hand and foot with cord and with a bullet wound in the head, which was taken from the River Granta this morning near the University bathing pool, has now been identified as that of Mr Andrew Seeley, nephew of the late Doctor Faraday, of St Ignatius College. Mr Seeley had been missing from his residence on the Trumpington Road for the last ten days. The Cambridgeshire Police have not yet decided whether to appeal to Scotland Yard in clearing up what may prove to be one of the most sensational mysteries of the year.

The discovery, as reported exclusively in our earlier editions, was made by two Indian students of the University.

'If you don't mind pulling up here I'll get out. This is the house, you see.'

The words were murmured apologetically into Mr Campion's ear as the elderly Bentley sped down the London Road towards the towers and spires of a deserted Cambridge out of term. He slowed down obediently and glanced with curiosity at a great dark house on the opposite side of the road. From where they sat a large portion of the building was visible through the decorated iron-work of the drive gates.

Mr Campion's pale face wore an inquiring expression. 'It hasn't altered outside,' he said.

'Or inside,' said Joyce. 'Does it occur to you,' she added, lowering her voice a little, 'that there's something rather--rather awful about it?'

Somewhat to her relief the extraordinary young man at her side took her remark quite seriously, or at any rate he appeared to do so, for he turned again to the house and sat staring at it thoughtfully for some moments.

It was in darkness save for the half-circle of light above the front door, but nevertheless, in spite of the misty twilight of the late evening, its shape and general details were clearly discernible. Built some time in the beginning of the last century it was spacious, L-shaped and gabled. The windows were small, however, and the creeper-covered walls looked gloomy. The cedars on the lawn in the angle of the building made fantastic shapes against the night sky. There was nothing definitely unpleasant about the house, but it had some of the grim dignity and aloofness of an institution and the sightless expression of a house in which all the blinds have been drawn.

Mr Campion returned to the girl. 'Are you sure that you want to go in at once?' he said. 'Why not come down to see Marcus first?'

She shook her head. 'I don't think I will, if you don't mind. They're all a little helpless. They may need me rather badly, if it's only to get them all hot-water bottles. Good-bye. Thank you for coming.'

She slipped out of the car before he could stop her, and he watched her hurry across the road, through the iron gates and down the drive. He waited until the dark hall door opened, and the sudden rectangle of light appeared and swallowed her up. Then he let in the clutch and proceeded down the gentle slope into the town.

A thick mist from the fens had settled over the whole valley. Campion's big car wound its way carefully through the narrow streets, now ghostly and deserted, save for a few townsfolk hurrying to their homes to escape the dank vaporous air. As he drove he was conscious of a vague sense of disappointment: this was not the Cambridge of term time, the Cambridge he had known, but a chill medieval city, whose carved stone porticos encircled only closed doors.

As he turned off Queen's Road and entered Soul's Court he found the precise tidy little square in darkness also, although every house was occupied. Here was one of those last remaining fortresses in England where the modern code of familiarity with one's neighbours had not yet penetrated. Here shutters were closed, and silence was preserved, not so much in order to hide one's affairs as from a polite desire not to embarrass one's acquaintances by obtruding any aspect of one's private life upon them.

As he pulled up outside Number Two, Soul's Court, the gracious Queen Anne front was dark as the others. No flicker of light escaped the old-fashioned wooden shutters across the big lozenge-shaped windows.

He dismounted and pulled the iron bell. Heavy footsteps on the tiles within brought him to attention and the next moment, as the door swung open, he was met by that strange individual odour of a well-ordered, lived-in house, a pleasant mixture of furniture-polish, warmth and tobacco. The maid who admitted him was a gaunt Cambridgeshire woman well past middle age, the severity of whose uniform had not been modified by the recent emancipation of her sex. To modern eyes her starched embroidered cap had some of the glamour of an archaic head-dress. She allowed herself a single withered smile in the young man's direction.

'Mr Campion,' she said. 'Mr Marcus is in the dining-room. Cook has set something cold for you.'

Campion, somewhat startled by the discovery that a decade had made no change in the Featherstone household, or indeed in the good woman's appearance, smiled affably and parted with his hat and coat.

'How's the rheumatism?' he said, not daring to risk a guess at her name, but backing on the ailment.

He was rewarded by a half-hearted flush of pleasure, and a 'still hangs about me, thank you, sir'. Then she set off down the panelled corridor, her white apron crackling and her heavy shoes clattering on the coloured tiles. A moment later Campion found himself confronting his old friend.

Marcus Featherstone rose from a high-backed chair by the fireplace and advanced to meet him. He was a man of about twenty-eight and of a type peculiar to his age and upbringing. His big figure was clothed with a species of prearranged carelessness; so that his suit, although well-cut, was definitely on the loose side, and his curling reddish-brown hair was uncontrolled and a little too long for the fashion. He was not unhandsome in a dry ascetic way, although it was evident from his manner that he endeavoured to look older than he was. But at the moment, in spite of his air of faint conscious superiority, he was frankly in a state of panic. He came across the room and shook Campion by the hand.

'Hallo, Campion, I'm so glad you came,' he said. 'I'm afraid my molehill has turned out to be a mountain after all. Have some food, won't you?' He waved vaguely to the dining table. He spoke jerkily, creating an odd impression of shyness which was flatly contradicted by his casual manner.