Flowers For the Judge (17 page)

Sir Alexander’s history was stormy. Although he was Jacoby Barnabas’s only son, he had avoided publishing and taken to the law, with his father’s full consent and approval, and had made his name as a junior in the great days of Marshall Hall before the bar had followed the stage into a quieter and less rhetorical style. After taking silk his practice had grown and he had been greatly sought after as a leader, until the unfortunate quarrel with the Judge in the Leahbourne case had done his reputation irreparable damage.

However, although it was still felt that his temper was not to be trusted, his triumphal return in the Dallas trial had restored him to popular, if not academic, favour, and he was now considered a fine showy counsel for the defence in sensational criminal trials and was often briefed by solicitors whose clients were backed by a newspaper.

Campion thought he understood Mr Scruby’s apprehension. A remark from Ritchie recalled his attention.

‘Thought of something. Ought to mention it.’

The man had turned in his chair and was looking up anxiously.

‘Hose-pipe – car exhaust – locked room – all that, not original,’ he blurted out at last. ‘Plagiarism. All in a book.’

‘In a book?’ inquired Mr Campion, a trifle mystified.

A vigorous nodding affirmed the question.

‘Book called
Died on a Saturday
. Most of it in there. Read it myself. Recognized it in court.’

‘Who published it?’

Ritchie’s face lengthened. ‘Us. Ten – twelve months ago. Not much of a sale.’

Mr Campion was looking at him anxiously.

‘Who read this book besides you? – in the office, I mean?’

Ritchie’s tremendous bony shoulders hunched in a shrug.

‘Anyone. Handled by Mike’s department.’

‘Are you saying that Mike brought out a book describing the method of murder which was used to kill Paul less than a year ago?’ Campion demanded, aghast.

Ritchie’s wretchedness increased.

‘Fifteen months perhaps,’ he suggested.

Mr Campion passed his hand over his sleek yellow hair and whistled.

Ritchie was silent for some moments, his awkward figure twisted over the arm of his chair.

‘Somebody did it,’ he said at last. ‘Evidence showed that.’

Campion looked down at him.

‘What’s your private opinion?’ he inquired unexpectedly. ‘You were much closer to it all than I was. Who did it?’

Ritchie shook his ponderous head.

‘Anyone,’ he murmured, and added with a sigh and a flail-like gesture: ‘No one.’

Mr Campion pursued his private thoughts.

‘That Miss Netley, tell me about her.’

Ritchie wrinkled his nose and achieved a masterpiece of pantomimic disapproval.

‘Affected girl,’ he said. ‘Silly. Sly. Superior. Little snob. Stupid clothes.’

‘Anything else?’

The other man hesitated.

‘Don’t know much. Only seen her about. Fond of the ballet. Has a Post Office Savings Book. Arch,’ he added in triumph. ‘That’s it – she’s arch. Don’t like her.’

He rose to go shamefacedly, evidently feeling that he had not been very helpful in the cause, for he shook hands earnestly and, his blue eyes peering beseechingly into Campion’s own, made a long and for him coherent speech.

‘Do what you can, Campion. Mike’s a good fellow – decent fellow. Never hurt a soul. Kind fellow — kind. Pleasant, friendly to me. Couldn’t possibly get anything out of it. If we don’t find out who killed affected ass Paul they’ll bang Mike – kill him. Stop it, there’s a dear chap.’

After he had gone Mr Campion sat at his desk and
scribbled
idly on the blotting-paper. He had no illusions concerning the task in front of him. Events had moved more swiftly than he had contemplated and the need for urgency was great.

Suddenly the thought which had been playing round the edges of his conscious mind so irritatingly for some time past came out into the open. He reached for the telephone directory and got on to Miss Curley just as she had entered her home in Hammersmith.

She heard his question with surprise.

‘Mr
Tom
Barnabas?’ she echoed. ‘The one who – who disappeared?’

‘That’s the man.’ Campion’s voice sounded eager. ‘What sort of person was he? What was he like?’

Miss Curley cast her mind back twenty years.

‘A nice man,’ she said at last. ‘Good-looking, inclined to be reserved, but very odd. Why?’

‘Odd?’ Campion seized upon the word. ‘In what way?’

Miss Curley laughed, but when she spoke her words had a flavour of the macabre.

‘He could walk upstairs on his hands,’ she said.

IT WAS WET
and bitterly cold, with sludge on the pavement and dark grey blankets in the sky, when Mr Campion walked thoughtfully down Nemetia Crescent, Streatham, and tried to imagine it as it had been on a May morning, twenty years before.

To his relief, there was no sign of any recent building operations, and, although the neighbourhood had gone down a little, he suspected, there was no evidence of any structural alteration.

It was a melancholy little enclosure, a half hoop of flat-fronted
houses
looking out across a strip of wet tarmac at a bank of dilapidated shrubs.

He found the house out of which Tom Barnabas had walked on May the eighth, nineteen hundred and eleven, and stood in the rain looking at it. Dingy lace curtains covered the windows and a fly-blown black card in the transom over the unexpectedly nice door announced in silver letters that there were apartments within.

Mr Campion passed on and turned the corner at the end of the crescent. To his relief he saw that the deserted road in front of him tallied exactly with the description Miss Curley had given. A wall over six feet high and completely blank ran down the whole length of the road on the side nearest the crescent, while on the other a row of little villas recessed from the road by overgrown gardens straggled down to the trams and the main street.

Campion paused and let his imagination dwell upon the facts of the story as he knew them.

It had been about nine o’clock in the morning. Mr Barnabas had come striding from his house in the crescent, had turned the corner, and was apparently marching on to the little tobacconist’s at the end of the street, where it was his custom to stop and pick up a copy of
The Times
and the
Standard
, when unfortunately he stepped into the fourth dimension or was the victim of spontaneous combustion or some sort of accident to an atom.

The tobacconist’s was still there. A row of newspaper boards decorated the far end of the wall, in spite of the rain. Mr Campion wandered on, pausing now and again in spite of the weather and reflecting upon the few facts he had been able to glean that morning from the files of a newspaper.

For May 8th, 1911, the prophets had predicted fair to fine weather, warm temperature and slight mist. There had been an air smash in the Paris to Madrid race on the day before, when Monsieur Train had crashed at Issy, killing himself and seriously injuring Monsieur Monis, Premier of France, who had been present to see him start. The Court was just out of mourning for Edward VII, the Imperial Conference was opening the following day, and
Freeman
(J.) had been bowled by Hobbs for twenty-one in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales and Prince George.

The information was not very helpful. The world, in fact, seemed to have been going on in much the same way as ever. And since it is always easier to believe in a miracle which happened twenty years ago than in one of yesterday morning, Mr Campion felt his suspicions aroused.

He looked at the wall. There was no way of telling what was on the other side. It might have hidden a pool, a back garden, or fairy-land itself.

He walked on to the newspaper and tobacconist’s shop. As he entered it his spirits rose. This stuffy little room with its doorway narrowed to the verge of the impassable by ancient paper-racks filled with brightly coloured periodicals, its acrid smell of newsprint, its two counters, one piled high with papers and the other decorated with every known brand of tobacco grouped round an immense pair of shining scales, could not have altered for forty or fifty, much less twenty years.

He stood hesitating on the square foot or so of floor space for some moments before he realized that he was not alone in this sanctuary of smoke and light literature.

Over the paper department there was a species of canopy composed of yet more periodicals clipped into wire frames, and in the narrow opening between this and the counter he caught sight of two very bright eyes peering at him from out a pepper-and-salt wilderness of hair and whisker.

‘Paper or a nice box of cigarettes, sir?’ said a voice at once friendly and a trifle pert.

Mr Campion bought both and had the satisfaction of seeing the remainder of the man as he came running out of his lurking-place to attend to the tobacconist’s side of his business.

He was very small, spry and compact, and his feet, which were tiny, were thrust into old sheepskin slippers which flapped as he walked.

‘Haven’t seen you about here before, sir,’ he inquired. ‘Moved into the district?’

‘Not yet,’ said Mr Campion cautiously.

‘No offence meant and none taken, I hope,’ said the old man, running all the words together until they formed a single apologetic sound. ‘Only I saw you wandering up and down the road just now and it came into my head that you might be looking for lodgings. This part isn’t what it used to be, but I could put you on to several nice respectable women who’d look after you very well. Perhaps you’d like a widow, now?’ he finished, his little bright eyes watching Campion with the inquisitive yet impersonal interest of a sparrow.

‘Not at present,’ said Mr Campion, who had a literal mind. ‘As a matter of fact, I came down here on a sort of sentimental errand. A friend of mine disappeared, or is supposed to have, disappeared, walking along this street.’

Tremendous interest appeared at once on the small face.

‘I believe you’re referring to my phenomenon,’ he said. ‘I always call it mine, although it wasn’t really. I just happened to be there. Now that
was
a funny thing, if you like.’

‘Do you remember it?’

‘Remember it? Wasn’t I in this very shop?’ The little man seemed hurt. ‘Wasn’t it me who gave interviews to all the newspapers –? or would have done, only they didn’t believe me. It was hushed up really. Did you know that? In my opinion, sir,’ he went on, eyeing Mr Campion with portentous solemnity, ‘that was the most important thing that ever happened to me in all my life. And, luck being what it is’ – he spread out his hands and hunched his shoulders in a gesture of resignation – ‘I turned me back on it.’

‘Infuriating,’ murmured Mr Campion sympathetically.

‘It was,’ said his informant and, returning to his position behind the paper counter, leant across it and took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t always talk about this,’ he began. ‘My name’s Higgleton, by the way.’

‘How d’you do?’ said Campion pleasantly.

‘Pleased to
meet you
, sir,’ complied Mr Higgleton, with grace, and plunged into his story. ‘It was on a Monday – no, a Tuesday morning, I think it was. Or it may have been a Thursday – I can’t really remember – but I can see it as
plain
as daylight. I didn’t talk about it much at the time because – well, you know what people are. Once you start seeing things that other people know can’t have happened, you’re apt to get the reputation of being a little queer.’

‘Fanciful,’ suggested Mr Campion.

‘Exactly. But I remember that Wednesday morning as though it was yesterday. Only it was May then, not February like it is now. It was a beautiful clear morning, bright sunlight, we didn’t have summer-time then, so there was no hanky-panky – just a bright clear summer’s day. This place is very pretty in the summer, though you might not think so. When there’s leaves on those trees over there you can’t see the houses. There were more trees in those days. It was when the children kept getting run over that they had one or two of ’em down. The children couldn’t see the road from the gardens because of the trees and they used to run out and – there you are, as the saying is.’

‘I suppose that’s why no one saw Mr Barnabas from the houses?’ said Mr Campion.

‘Barnabas!’ said Mr Higgleton, pouncing on the name. ‘That’s it! That’s it! Couldn’t remember it for a moment, although it was on the tip of me tongue. That’s why I was hedging about. Oh, I knew him as well as I know – you, I was going to say. Used to come in here every day for his papers. He was an ornament to the neighbourhood. I don’t know what his business was; it was something in the City. But he used to turn out to it as though he was going to a Mr Higgleton paused and searched in his mind for a simile.

‘Ball?’ suggested Mr Campion idiotically.

His new friend glanced at him reproachfully.

‘Well, not exactly a ball, but a wedding. City gentlemen used to dress more tastefully then than they do now. You probably wouldn’t remember it very well, but they did. Silk hats and tail coats and fancy trousers were all the go, and a nice pair of yellow gloves to top everything off.’

‘And was Mr Barnabas dressed like that when he disappeared?’ said Mr Campion.

‘He was. A very well-dressed man indeed was Mr
Barnabas
. I can see him now – in me mind’s eye, of course – silk hat, nicely brushed, gold-topped cane, and spats. A big handsome man he was, too, and very nicely spoken.’

‘How did it happen?’ The question escaped Mr Campion involuntarily.

‘In the twinkling of a hand – like that!’ said Mr Higgleton, and snapped his fingers.

He had an odd trick of pausing after he had made an announcement and surveying his listener with a wide-eyed expression, as though inviting him to join in a wonder.

Mr Campion, who had liked him from the start, began to feel a positive affection for him.

‘I’ll show you how it happened,’ said Mr Higgleton, and, running out from behind the counter, he planted himself on the doorstep. ‘Now here am I – see?’ he said over his shoulder, ‘standing on the corner of the street. It’s nine o’clock in the morning, but I’m not so busy as all that, and I’m just standing here taking a deep breath of the ozone.’