The Beckoning Lady (8 page)

“I know he hadn't and, even so, my dear girl, he couldn't have bought this kind of care for any money on earth.”

“That's what I thought.” She sighed. “Oh my dear, I can't bear it, let's go out of here and look at some pictures.”

Mr. Campion was sealing an envelope he had taken from his pocket, and he tucked it away before moving.

“Doctor sensible?” he enquired casually.

Minnie rose. “Very young,” she said, “but quite all right. I think he felt we were making a lot of fuss over a foregone conclusion.”

The tall man smiled at her. “All the same, he wasn't surprised when it happened.”

“Well he
was,
rather, oddly enough.” Minnie was fastening the window. “So were Gordon Greene and Sir Frederick Hughes. They came down to give the old darling a complete check-up last spring, and they said then he ought to be good for a couple of years. However, go he did, poor pet, so it couldn't be helped. Well, there it is. Come along.”

She led him out and relocked the door after them. “I just want to leave it exactly as it was for a bit,” she said.

Mr. Campion spoke on impulse. The matter had been in his mind for some time, but his curiosity brought it to a head.

“I was going to approach you professionally, Miranda
Straw,” he began. “I was wondering if we ought not to have a portrait of Amanda while her hair is still red.”

Minnie appeared interested but embarrassed.

“The full treatment?” she enquired. “I'm afraid it would have to go through Fang's.”

“So I should hope. None genuine without,” he agreed lightly as she paused to look at him, her head on one side.

“I'd love it. There's something there to put down. I could fit it in too, I think, but it'll cost you a pretty penny, my lad.”

He was undisturbed. “I thought it might. But Rupert will bless us later on. I'll talk to Copley of Fang's.”

“If you do, I'll do my damnedest to get it in this year. I've got to start on an Australian beauty next month, but the rest can move back one.”

“Right. I'll hold you to it. Things are booming, are they? Did I see something about the Boston Art Gallery?”

Her strange fierce face glowed. “You did, thank God,” she said. “It's marvellous. Four. Two flower-pieces, Mrs. Emmerson, and Westy. It's a queer mixture, isn't it, flowers and women and kids? And yet I suppose you can't really photograph any of them without either sentimentality or brutality, and mine's an essentially realistic approach, even if it is a bit individual. Remind me to show you something.”

They were back in the kitchen again when he put his last question.

“Have you seen a stranger near here lately, Minnie?” he enquired. “About eight or nine days ago; a man in a raincoat?”

He got no further. Behind him there was a crash like the end of the world as Miss Diane dropped a zinc bath on the flagstones. In the instant before he swung round he saw that Minnie's expression of mild curiosity had not changed. However, there was still sensation to come. As if the clatter had been a roll on the drums, a shadow fell over the bright doorway to the yard and Mr. Lugg, breathing like a porpoise, and indeed looking not unlike
one, his face dark with exertion, stepped heavily into the room with a limp body in his arms.

“'Ere's another,” he gasped as he planted it on the table, where it stirred and moaned. “Cut 'er stay lace. She ain't 'arf 'ad a shock.” He turned to Miss Diane by instinct.

“Give us a drink, duck. Anythink but water. I 'ad to carry 'er the last few yards.”

Mr. Campion's horrified stare left Lugg for the sufferer on the table and he saw to his astonishment that it was his grave-tending friend of the morning, the secretary to the bird-watching Fanny Genappe, Miss Pinkerton of the Pontisbright Park Estate.

WHEN MISS PINKERTON
regained command of herself, she became very angry, as people who feel they have been trapped unfairly into a show of weakness often do. Her sensible face was patched red and white, and her nose and mouth were pinched.

“Thank you, Mrs. Cassands. Thank you, Mr. Campion. I'm perfectly all right, perfectly.” She sounded outraged. “Just leave me alone. I shall lie down for a moment. I don't want to give any trouble. Just throw me into Mr. William's old room. I shall be quite myself in a moment. It was coming on it suddenly like that. Really, the police should have warned me. So very, very revolting and unpleasant.”

“What is it? What's happened? Pinky, you look like death.” Minnie took her arm firmly and led her into the body of the house. “Come upstairs. You'll be all right in a moment. What on earth is it?”

Mr. Campion did not follow them but turned to Lugg, who was sitting on the edge of the sink taking a pull at a brown glass bottle which Miss Diane had miraculously produced from somewhere beneath it.

“Now what?” he demanded.

Mr. Lugg handed the empty vessel back to his benefactress, who was looking at him with a hard incurious stare, and wiped his mouth.

“Thank you, mate,” he said. “I'll be seeing you again.” Then, heaving himself upright, he winked at his employer and jerked his chins towards the door before lumbering out. “Bloomin' woman stuck 'er 'ead right over the corp,” he said as they paused by the pump, just out of earshot of
the kitchen. Mr. Campion had to screw up his eyes to see at all after the dimness indoors. Out here the light was like diamonds, and Lugg's face, vast and slightly mischievous, loomed against a blaze of green and white. “It wasn't nobody's fault.” The fat man's growl was lowered confidentially. “She came 'opping along the path like an ole she-'are, sniffin' this way and that. There we all was, me and the Super and the Sergeant and the bobby and the doctor 'oo'd just arrived. None of us saw her until she was right on top of us. I put up me 'and but I might as well 'ave tried to stop an 'en taking sights of a bit o' grub. She darted round me and give a refined laugh. ‘Oo, what's a-goin' hon 'ere?' “ He sniffed. “She fahnd out. Just then orf come 'is 'at, and lord luvaduck!”

“Did she recognise him?” enquired Mr. Campion with interest.

“Couldn't say.” Lugg was thoughtful. “Might 'ave done. But just as easy might not. The way 'e was lookin' I doubt if 'is wife could have took to him.”

“Did she scream?”

“More of a whistle, like a train. Then she started to 'eave. The old Super, 'e's no amachoor, give me the sign to take 'er away and no loiterin'. I supported of 'er in.”

He was pleased about something. A fresh masculinity appeared to have been aroused in that well-bolstered breast, and his small black eyes turned towards the door. “Pore ole maid,” he said.

“Did you find out anything new about the corpse.”

“Fracture of the occiput. I made that out as I was supporting of her orf. The bloke was only sayin' the obvious, you could 'ear that. 'E 'adn't got down to nothing.”

A foolish little ditty from his undergraduate days crept into Mr. Campion's mind and mingled with the hum of the bees and the bird song.

“Any sign of a weapon yet?” he enquired.

“No.”

“You'd better get back.”

“In a minute.” The small eyes had developed porcine indignation. “D'you know what you remind me of? A midwife, knowin' a confinement's goin' on in the next room and can't get at it. For 'eaven's sake! I thought you'd got private business 'ere to see to.”

He broke off. A small girl clutching the inevitable bottle to her bosom passed slowly across the end of the yard and vanished into the flower garden. A beatific smile spread over the white countenance.

“Ho,” he said, “perhaps you know what you are a-doin' of.” He paused, and added “Sir” as an afterthought. “Yus, I see,” he went on with new enthusiasm, “this 'ere 'ouse must be pertected. I'll just step back into the kitchen to 'ave a dekko at something I noticed and then I'll get back to the flics. They call rozzers that in France, did you know? I learnt it on the pickchers.”

Mr. Campion made no comment but followed him into the cool gloom of the house once more. Minnie and Miss Pinkerton were not visible, but Miss Diane was scrubbing the table, her huge red arms glowing and her earrings shaking until it seemed that the birds upon them must take flight. Mr. Lugg paused at the clean end of the board and leant upon it, his hands placed squarely on the damp surface. Miss Diane promptly ceased her toil to imitate him, so that they faced one another like poised buffalo, heads down for the charge.

“I seen you before,” said Lugg without preamble.

“I thought you 'ad,” she said woodenly, her clear skin bright in the shadowy room.

The fat man's eyes were lost as he narrowed them in an effort of recollection.

“You was on top of one of those ruddy great railway delivery vans, 'orse-drawn,” he said at last. “You was in tight trousers and you 'ad a pinky bow in your 'air, and you was eatin' a bite of bread and Bovril.”

“Marmite,” she corrected him, laughing.

“So it was, I daresay,” he agreed. “We was 'eld up in the traffic for an hour and an 'arf outside the old Mansion 'Ouse. . . . .”

“You was in your bus. . . . .”

“Call it a car, missis.” He was affronted. “That was 'is Lordship 'ere's reconditioned second-'and mechanic's snip. I was in me shover's uniform . . .”

“I know you was,” she said. “It's years and donkey's years ago. Fancy you rememberin'. I frew you an orange.”

Mr. Lugg raised a hand as large as a Bath Chap. “You frew me a happle, my girl,” he said, “and don't you forget it. Well, I got to git on now. Got a spot of trouble on me 'ands. But—” his eyes wandered to the flower garden whence the child had vanished, “—I'll be back, I shouldn't wonder.”

“That's right,” she said. “I'm always 'ere except when I'm at 'ome. Cheery-ho. I thought I'd seen you before when you first come in.”

“Cheery-ho ducks,” said Mr. Lugg, and smiled at Mr. Campion as they went out together. “'Er and me is old friends.”

“So I see.” Mr. Campion was amazed by the coincidence. “I'm very glad to hear it because she knows something about that corpse.”

“Getaway!”

“I think so. Do you know her well enough to find out what it is?”

Mr. Lugg began to laugh with a skittishness Mr. Campion never remembered seeing in him before.

“I never set eyes on 'er before this afternoon in all me natural, Cock,” he said, “but since you arsk, I don't think she'll 'ide much from me.”

Mr. Campion stared at him until the fat man began to fidget.

“Oh all right, all right,” he said at last, “I ain't comin' out in leaf. She's rather my type, though. Vi-vacious. This isn't arf a funny place, orf the map but it's got hatmosphere. Let me get 'er down to the local and I'll tell you
anythink you want to know. Don't you go shaking her up. The idea is to keep the cops away from this 'ouse, isn't it? Well, I'll get back to these 'ere flickerers. So long. Be good.”

He waved a careless hand towards the flower garden.

“Nachure in the spring,” he said, and rolled off towards the small white gate to the meadow.

As he vanished behind the barn a strange sound reached the speechless Mr. Campion. Mr. Lugg was singing.

Old Straw, Minnie's father, had transformed the inside of the tithe barn into a studio in 1905, when he was at the height of his fame and had given his mind and about half his money to the enterprise. As Mr. Campion stepped into it on that brilliant afternoon, when the east doors which could accommodate a loaded haywain were open to the sky, he wondered at it afresh. The original building, which was of solid oak and the same size and shape as the parish church, had always proved too expensive to heat, and after various experiments the painter had retired from the struggle and had constructed in the northern transept a studio within a studio.

This room was built eight feet above the main body of the hall, so that the effect was not unlike a stage-set, with the north window as a drop at the back. A carved balcony, railed and balustered, prevented one from falling from the smaller room to the larger, and turned at one end into an elegant staircase. In winter a partition could be erected behind the rail, leaving a large light room within. It was here that Minnie worked, and as Mr. Campion stood on the red-tiled floor of the main building he could hear Amanda moving tea-cups above. He coughed discreetly.

“He jests at scars,” he remarked conversationally,
“who never felt a wound. Is that an otter that I see before me?”

There was a moment's silence and then to his gratification a scramble as someone skidded to the balcony.

“Deny thy father and refuse thy name,” said a cheerful New England voice forthrightly, “or if thou wilt not, be but sworn by love and I'll no longer be an old Capulet. The otter's wrong.”

A thirteen-year-old face, bright as a buttercup and handled like a loving cup with yellow pigtails, beamed at him over the rail.

“Hullo, I'm Annabelle. Your wife's up here. I know nearly all that.”

“Nice for you,” said Mr. Campion.

“Yes,” she said airily, “not bad. Come and have some tea. I'm going to fetch the children. We mean to polish the table.” She pointed downwards and he saw for the first time the piece of furniture which was so large that his eye had rejected it. It was a twelve-legged Carolean banqueting board, twenty-five feet long, heavily carved below and smoothly shining above, and it took up half the centre of the main hall.