The Beckoning Lady (32 page)

The placid effrontery of the statement struck a mundane and recognisable note in the half-lit magic of the summer night. Luke opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind, and Mr. Campion rose from his seat under the tree.

“Of course, a carbon copy does presuppose a fair one,” he said diffidently, “but I don't know if the Coroner will accept . . .”

“Look sir.” The old Superintendent made no bones about interrupting him. “You're a reputable witness. We've got your evidence that you saw a note addressed to Mr. Robinson in the deceased's office yesterday afternoon. At that time you did not know that Mr. Robinson was the local Coroner. That's one point. Then we have your evidence that subsequent to the discovery of the poor lady's body, and after explaining what you were about to us, you went back to the office and failed to find the said note.
But you did find this here copy. The lady was a secretary and was used, as we are in the Police, to taking a carbon copy of every letter she ever wrote. It was automatic with her, so that it's not extraordinary that in a moment of stress habit asserted itself. That's our case and it's a very very strong one.”

Mr. Campion stood, a tall and secret figure in the half darkness.

“But should the Coroner—” he began.

“The Coroner will accept the truth, sir, and so will the jury.” South spoke with the sublime assurance of one who has known each personality concerned for a very long time. “That's what they're there for. Their job is to settle the matter once the facts are before them, not to make trouble. I'm not saying that all the work is done—it isn't. There are two or three questions to be answered, and we shall have to search for the fair copy of the letter and question everybody who might have had access to it, but the truth is out. Now we know where we are. Half an hour ago we had two unexplained corpses on our hands and very embarrassing they were too, to a lot of persons who shouldn't never have been embarrassed, including the Chief Constable. Now we've got a perfectly reasonable explanation. It's a sad business, but we all know that when a woman is startled she sometimes hits out. Ohman had a phenomenally thin skull. As for the lady's reaction when she saw the body and realised she'd killed the little blighter, well I saw that myself and so did my sergeant and so did the doctor, and so there's no question about that at all.” He sniffed. “I don't really ought to say that it's satisfactory,” he said, “but there's no getting away from it, that's the right word for it. When she found out what she'd done she killed herself, leaving a note in a perfectly proper way.”

Luke made a sound which from any lesser man in any less responsible position might have been mistaken for a giggle.

“What was she doing in Mr. William's room in the first place, Super?” he enquired.

“Interfering,” said South calmly. “That sticks out a mile. And if I may offer an opinion—I'm an older man than you, Chief, even if I am an old country copper—I don't think that's a subject for us to go into. After all, the old gentleman is dead and decently buried, and not really before his time. So no good will be served by discussing him. Now if you're agreeable I shall go up to this house here and borrow the telephone. It's an emergency, and I don't think anyone is going to haul me over the coals for that. I shall instruct my people to come out to the Indian camp direct, approaching it from the main Sweethearting Road so they won't need to go to The Beckoning Lady at all. That house isn't involved at the moment. I take it you'll be waiting for me by the body, Buller? You'll be needed tomorrow, and so will you, Mr. Campion. Is that how you see it, Chief Inspector?”

Luke hesitated. “It's your manor, Superintendent,” he said at last. “What about the gin bottle?”

“I shall take care of all exhibits myself. You can rely upon that. I doubt if that one is very material, because the poor lady probably took enough dormital to put her out without it. But I know my duty. That paper is the important item.”

He held out his hand and the London man handed over the carbon. They all stood watching South as he folded it carefully and placed it in a wallet which he buttoned into the inside of his waistcoat over his heart.

“There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now, the only awkward question which may arise is who put the body into the water. The answer is perfectly obvious but we shan't prove it.”

“When Mr. Campion saw the note to the Coroner yesterday afternoon it was under one addressed to Mr. S. S. Smith,” said Luke, watching him.

“That's right,” South agreed placidly. “And it never got delivered. We can speculate about that, Chief, from now until Christmas but it won't get us anywhere. Privately we can think that if a gentleman was preparing to
wheel a crowd of likely purchasers round an estate he wouldn't hardly want the body of a suicide sitting about spoiling the view. We might think to ourselves that, in his fright after reading her note to himself, he'd tear up both that and the one to the Coroner and tip the body out of sight into the river. But we don't know and we never shall, not for sure. As it happens it doesn't matter. Luckily we've got the truth. Down here in the country there's one thing we never lose sight of. The guilty has got to be punished but the remainder of us has got to live together for the rest of our lives. I'll just slip along to the telephone. Buller.” He peered into the shadows. “Bless the bloke, he's disappeared. Don't worry, he won't go far.”

When his plump form was no more than a distant dot in the moonlight, Luke turned to his friends.

“What d'you know about that?” he demanded.

“Truth is such a naked lady,” Mr. Campion spoke softly. “Apparently in well-regulated country families no one is so indelicate as to stare at all of her at once.”

“That's all very well,” Luke objected as they moved away along the bank towards the lights of the distant boat house. “I see South's point of view but
I
can't leave it like that. What I must know is why Miss Pinkerton poisoned the old gentleman. She must have known the peculiarities of dormital. She took alcohol with it herself when she meant to die.”

“Oh yes, she knew what she was doing.” Mr. Campion's light voice was grave. “I don't know if she appreciated the full enormity of the act.”

“Either she meant him to die or she didn't,” Luke persisted.

“She did but she didn't count it,” put in Amanda startling them both. “Not as murder.”

Mr. Campion was silent for a moment. He was remembering a conversation he had had in the churchyard, and could see again the brisk, efficient woman snipping dead roses from a wreath.

“It's the classic case,” he remarked. “When Miss
Pinkerton set out that afternoon she had no intention of killing anybody. By all the rules she ought to have got away with it.”

Luke grunted. “You think she suddenly noticed that Mr. William's own sleeping pills resembled the dormital in her bag and switched them on the spur of the moment? I'll believe that when I know why.”

Mr. Campion hesitated. “I fancy it's been obvious for some time,” he ventured at last. “But I didn't spot it. You see, Smith encouraged Miss Pinkerton to help Minnie with her secretarial work didn't he? That was because he wanted to find out why Minnie wouldn't sell her house. The Beckoning Lady was vital to his plan to turn the Pontisbright Park Estate into the racecourse which he proposed to sell to the body-snatchers, once it was established. Minnie wouldn't sell the place because she did not need to. William's gift had saved her from the mess she had got into by accepting Tonker's offering, and if only William lived until November there wouldn't be any serious catch in
his
present. Miss Pinkerton knew all about this. She did all the work on both sides. She was an over-efficient person who must have suffered acutely from the exasperating set-up down there with Minnie changing her mind about selling every two minutes.” He paused and touched Luke's arm. “That afternoon Miss Pinkerton pottered about William's room and must have seen him lying there looking useless, incurable and an abominable old nuisance who was holding everything up. At the same time she saw a very simple method of getting rid of him. She took it. My bet is that she deceived herself into thinking that she was being merciful.”

“Also,” said Amanda frankly. “She could almost blame Uncle William for making the dormital poisonous. I mean, if he hadn't taken alcohol with it—and Pinkie didn't approve of wicked old men taking alcohol, anyway—it wouldn't have hurt him any more than it hurt her, and she took it regularly.”

“Right!” Luke laughed briefly and without
amusement. “I know that mentality, and I recognise the type who believes that a rich man's business is sacred. The richer the man the holier his affairs. I suppose Miss Pinkerton merely thought of Smith as someone working for Genappe and therefore all-important. You're quite right Campion, she would have got away with it if Little Doom hadn't looked through the window. How much did he see, I wonder?”

“Not very much,” murmured Mr. Campion. “I don't think Miss Pinkerton thought he had, either. But when he dashed round by the drive in an attempt to cut her off and came up with her at the stile, she was feeling guilty and so she panicked. When he touched her she hit him with the first weapon which came to hand. Unfortunately it was a ploughshare and he hadn't the right sort of skull to withstand it. I don't think she thought he'd seen her with the dormital.”

“Don't you?” Luke turned to him. They had come to the place where the path divided. One arm led down to the garden of The Beckoning Lady and the other meandered towards the single plank footbridge which gave to the uplands and the Indian camp. “Why not?”

“Clear and limpid thought,” said Mr. Campion modestly. “If Little Doom had mentioned medicines when he caught up with her she would have rushed back to restore the position before harm was done. She did nothing of the sort. Why? Because when he suddenly appeared beside her on the bridge I think he started talking about something else, something she thought was an impertinence.”

“Oh. What was that?”

“Frankly, I do not know.” Campion sounded regretful. “But having made an intensive study of the lad and his methods, I should guess that he asked her why he had caught her dusting the sick room when she was employed at ten bob an hour, or whatever it was, for purely secretarial duties. She snubbed him and he caught hold of her and it happened.”

“Horrid,” said Amanda with a shiver. “I'm going back to the garden; I'll meet you there, Albert.”

She vanished into the shadows and Luke and Campion continued on to the plank bridge where they paused for a moment looking down into the moonlit water. Lugg and George Meredith were at the camp with the body, and they had little doubt that by this time Old Harry would have joined them.

From the boat house came the sound of music.

“The woman couldn't have seen Little Doom fall,” Luke said presently. “She must have simply hit out and fled. Then, when she heard no more about it, she put the whole incident out of her mind as people do. No wonder the sight of the body a week later sent her over the edge. A rum business. So simple and ordinary. It might have happened to anybody.”

“Not
anybody
,” Mr. Campion protested gently. “Only an extraordinarily beastly woman would have tidied Uncle William out of existence.” He paused. “If you're not going to need me at the Indian camp I think I'll go back to the party.”

Luke glanced towards the boat house. “You go along,” he said. “I'll follow you. As far as I can see I'm only going to be an embarrassment to the local boys from now on. Keep an eye on Prune, will you?”

It was the first time that Mr. Campion had ever heard him use her name and he tried not to resent it. He was irritated by his own reaction and when he collected himself he found Luke was talking about the girl.

“Prune has been designed to be a smashing wife for a man with a Manor,” he was saying unexpectedly. “Mine may not be quite the kind that was originally envisaged but it's much the same as the others in essentials. Don't let us worry you, my dear chap. It's all right. You'll see. We'll go places, Prune and I.”

Mr. Campion blinked. A vista of years had opened before him in which Luke's genius backed by Prune's influence carried the remarkable couple to heights as yet unguessed.

“I . . . . . . Good gracious me, yes! I believe you will!” he ejaculated.

Luke's smile flashed in the half light.

“We're both quietly confident,” he said magnificently. “What a wonderful girl, Campion! Seriously, have you ever seen anyone like her? Anyone in all your life?”

Mr. Campion went back to The Beckoning Lady.

When he arrived on the lawn the crowds had thinned but an inner core of revellers remained and the proceedings had developed a new intimacy.

Tonker and Minnie, with a sleepy Westy and Annabelle, were sitting on a couch which had been brought out of the drawing-room, listening to Lili Ricki, the new Swedish Nightingale, singing Sydney Carter's lovely song against a lightening sky.

Tonker had relented and put on the beaded waistcoat to please Emma, but he still wore his beautiful blazer and Minnie's posy was pinned to his lapel, where it looked like a loofah in the cold light.

As Mr. Campion came up he was just in time to see him put out a foot absently to trip up an August who was flitting past, but his voice was sad to the point of unsteadiness.

He quoted the lyric softly. “Oh Minnie, how tragic. How awful, Minnie!”

Her snorting laugh echoed quietly in the shadows.

“Cheer up,” she said, putting out a hand apologetically to the man who had stumbled. “It hasn't happened yet. Come on, Tonker, we've got to cook these people breakfast.”