The Fashion In Shrouds (15 page)

She held out her free hand and, after fidgeting with the split-pin that held it in place, he gave it to her unwillingly. It was a small silver medallion, not particularly distinguished in design but of exquisite workmanship, as these things sometimes are. Georgia turned it over.

‘It's rather sweet,' she said ‘I like the little propeller things, don't you, Val? But you can't wear it, dear, you simply can't. I'll keep it.'

Dell hesitated. He looked profoundly uncomfortable.

‘I'm afraid you mustn't,' he said awkwardly. ‘I'll put it back.'

‘You won't.' Georgia was laughing. ‘If anyone wears it I will. It looks rather sweet on this
revers
.'

There was a force in her voice that he seemed to find unanswerable and Mr Campion felt himself led firmly out into the garden.

‘Sorry, but I thought I was going to protest,' said Amanda, striding across the grass plot. ‘That's the
Quentin Clear
. The woman must be nuts. He is, God knows.'

‘That's rather special, isn't it?'

‘Special?' Amanda made a noise like an angry old gentleman. ‘It is. It's
the
one. Only about three men in the world have it. A.D. wouldn't wear it if it wasn't for this “do” this afternoon. She's simply ignorant, of course, and evidently
doesn't understand that he isn't just anybody, which is what I've complained of all along. He ought to be taken home and given a sedative, of course, but if Sid or any of the boys see her wearing that thing there'll be a riot. It's a howling insult. Can't we tell her?'

‘I'm afraid that's his pigeon, my dear.' Mr Campion spoke mildly. ‘Anything we do reflects on him, doesn't it?'

Amanda kicked the edge of the lawn with a small neat toe and glanced up at him.

‘The older one gets the more one understands that the small things are those that matter,' she remarked. ‘It doesn't get easier, does it? I'm sorry I cleared out. I suddenly felt it was all a bit beyond me. Hullo!'

Her final remark was addressed to a small boy who was seated on a wooden settle against a southern wall. He had been hidden from them as they came out by the angle of the house and was sitting very quietly all by himself, a book on his knee. He rose politely and pulled off his Haverleigh cap as Amanda spoke and Campion recognized him as the child he had seen at Papendeik's. He looked now much as he had done then, self-contained and patient, like somebody waiting on a railway station.

‘It's very pleasant out here in the sun,' he remarked, more, they felt, in an attempt to put them at their ease than to cover any embarrassment of his own. ‘I like this little garden.'

He was an undersized fourteen, Campion judged, and he tried somewhat hurriedly to remember his own mentality at that age. Meanwhile, however, Amanda came to the rescue.

‘Haverleigh is shut, isn't it?' she said. ‘What was it? I.P. in the village? Do you think you'll get back at half?'

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled wryly.

‘We hope so. The last case was reported three weeks ago. Meanwhile one can only wait. It's rather rotten. It's only my second term.'

The confidence was the first sign of immaturity he had shown and Campion was relieved to notice it.

‘I saw you in Town the other day,' he said, trying to avoid the accusing tone one so often uses to children.

The boy looked up with interest.

‘With Georgia and Raymond at Papendeik's?' he said. ‘Yes, I remember you. I'm afraid I'm not as interested in clothes as I should be,' he added apologetically. ‘Mother – that's Georgia, you know – is doing her best with me, but I'm not really keen. That sort of interest grows on one later, don't you think?'

‘It's not a thing you're born with, necessarily,' remarked Amanda cheerfully. ‘We're going back to the party. Are you coming?'

‘No, I don't think I will, thank you very much,' he said, reseating himself. ‘I've got this that I must read, and it's very warm out here in the sun.'

Amanda eyed the solid green volume on his knee.

‘Holiday task?'

He nodded. ‘
Ivanhoe
,' he admitted, a touch of amused embarrassment in his eyes.

‘Heavy going?' inquired Campion sympathetically.

‘Well, he wrote in a hurry, didn't he?' There was no affectation in the pronouncement, nor did he censure, but appeared to be offering an explanation merely. ‘It's a bit theatrical, you know, or at least I think so. The people aren't like anyone I've met.' He paused and added, ‘So far,' with a cautiousness which gave his age away again.

‘That's all very true,' said Mr Campion, ‘but I shouldn't put it in your essay if I were you.'

The child met his eyes with a startled expression.

‘Good lord, no,' he said fervently and smiled at Campion as if he felt they shared a secret about schoolmasters.

They had been longer in the garden than they realized and the party had broken up when they returned. The room was deserted and the débris of empty glasses and overfilled ash-trays made it look forlorn in spite of its essential gaiety. Through the front window the departing crowd was visible, straggling towards the wicket gate.

Amanda turned aside to look for her handbag and Campion went on to the hall alone. In the doorway he paused. Georgia was standing with her back to him looking up the staircase, and as he appeared she spoke to Dell over her shoulder.

‘I shan't be a moment. You start the little Bath chair thing.'

With some vague idea of allowing them to get away first Campion remained where he was and he was still in the salon doorway when Val came hurrying downstairs, a small square box in her outstretched hand.

‘There's only one left,' she said. ‘You know how to take it? Soften it in water and gulp it down.'

‘Bless you, darling, you've saved my life.' Georgia took the box without glancing at the other woman. ‘I must fly. He's waiting for me like a little dog on the step, the sweetie. Thanks so much.'

She hurried across the hall and Val stood on the lowest stair looking after her. There was a startled expression upon her face and her lips were parted. Campion stared at her and she turned and saw him.

She did not speak but stared violently, made a little inarticulate sound and, turning, fled up the staircase, leaving him bewildered and, in spite of every ounce of common sense that he possessed, alarmed. He had half a mind to follow her, and would, of course, have altered a great many things had he obeyed the impulse, but Georgia's precipitate return drove the incident from his mind.

‘Where's Gaiogi?' she demanded, flying into the hall, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘My dear, he's turned up! Raymond's back. They say he's tight as forty owls, the abominable old brute. He must have been drinking like a fish all night. He's gone straight to his room. He says he'll sleep for an hour. I think it's best to let him, don't you? He's got to go on that plane. If it's the last thing he does he's got to go back to-day.'

THE ULANGI FLIGHT
Luncheon given by Alan Dell in the Degas Room at Caesar's Court was, as is the fashion, strictly informal. In spite of the fact that Towser spoke, Dell spoke, the heads of the various departments in the huge Alandel works responsible for the machine spoke, a wit from Towser's party who
could
speak spoke, and even the pilot drawled
a few shy, halting words, the informality was strictly preserved. In spite of the amusing aeroplane of flowers suspended in a block of ice on a pillar in the centre of the horseshoe table, in spite of the silver-gilt souvenirs that Gaiogi had so thoughtfully provided, in spite of the Ulangi pears, a rather dreadful fruit imported at great trouble and expense for the occasion and served mercifully soaked in kirsch to deaden their own unpalatable flavour, the happy-family-party atmosphere was firmly maintained.

The one genuinely unconventional note was provided by Ramillies's absence and a great many excuses were offered, both publicly and privately, for that omission.

Towser, who was one of the older school of politicians with a big head and such an affectation of plain-mannishness on top of a natural bent in that direction that one automatically suspected him, most unjustly, of every sort of insincerity, explained at laborious length what he honestly understood about Sir Raymond's slight indisposition. It came out an overpowering story, hinting at sickly relatives dying in inaccessible parts of the island, cross-country journeys, and a noble if exhausted Ramillies crawling gamely home, to be persuaded by an adoring wife to snatch what rest he might before attempting the feat of endurance which lay before him as a passenger on an almost epic flight.

It was unfortunate that the impression which this recital conveyed to that experienced audience was even worse than the facts. By the time the distinguished speaker had gone on to something else there was a universal conviction that Sir Raymond had been brought in drunk on a police stretcher and was even now lying unconscious on the floor of a private cell in the barber's shop. The pilot and the navigator exchanged glances and shrugged their shoulders philosophically. They were both lean stringy youngsters with faded hair and the curious clear-eyed, unimaginative stare of that new and magnificent breed that seems to have been created by or for the air. So long as their cargo avoided delirium tremens they did not care.

Sir Raymond's adoring wife, who was getting on very nicely in her place of honour between the minister and the host, looked properly tolerant of her husband's misfortunes, and the meal progressed happily with everyone being as
charming as possible to the one uncertain element in their midst, the bored but ungullible Press.

Mr Campion was not present. He lunched alone in the open-air restaurant in the water garden and avoided the eyes of more acquaintances than he had realized he possessed. Caesar's Court was flourishing. Gaiogi's principality was in its golden age.

With Ramillies safely in his room recovering from a night out, his own immediate charge was at a standstill. Like all professionals who are doing a little work on the side to oblige a friend, he felt at a disadvantage. Friendship is a hampering thing at the best of times, and the demands made in its name are often unreasonable. As far as he could see, everybody in his immediate circle was beseeching him to avert something different. Looking round this pleasant and expensive scene, it struck him forcibly that such universal alarm was quite extraordinary. Ramillies appeared to be the focal point of the general anxiety. Ramillies was clearly expected to do something spiteful or sensational or both. So far, it seemed to Campion, he had simply behaved like a spoilt undergraduate with a gift for the offensive, yet neither Val nor Gaiogi was unduly nervous or even inexperienced. He reminded himself that he knew all these decorative, volatile people very slightly. They were all such natural exhibitionists, all so busy presenting various aspects of themselves, that to meet them was like watching a play in which, by the end of the evening, all the actors seem old friends and yet, in the back of one's mind, there is the conviction that ten minutes behind the scenes would make them all strangers again. He decided to wander up and take a look at the patient.

He located the bedroom and was bearing down upon the door when it opened six inches or so and remained dark and ajar. He paused. Of all the minor incidents of life a door which opens at one's approach is perhaps the most disconcerting. An eye regarded him through the aperture.

‘Campion.'

‘Yes?'

‘Come in. Are the others still eating? Come in, will you?'

The thin sharp voice was not so strident as usual, but the note of insolence was still there. Campion walked into a
room whose only light crept in round the edges of drawn curtains and the door closed behind him. A shadowy figure laid an unsteady hand on his arm.

‘I'm going to take my things down to the plane now.' Ramillies sounded excited and the confidential tone was new to him. ‘I'm not travelling much. They're sticky about the weight because she's carrying so much extra juice. My man's gone on by sea and rail like a Christian and I don't want any damned hotel servants touching my stuff. That's natural, isn't it?'

A querulous anxiety in the question confirmed the general diagnosis, and his visitor made haste to reassure him. Ramillies tittered. It was an unpleasant sound in the gloom and reminded Mr Campion that he never had liked the man.

‘I'm going to shift it myself,' Georgia's husband continued huskily. ‘You come down with me and see it weighed. You bear witness that I haven't got that gun. I've had my head talked off about that gun and I'm bloody sick of it. You come along. I've been on the look-out for a stranger, but you're better. You'll do nicely.'

Campion disengaged himself from the gripping fingers.

‘Anything you like,' he said easily. ‘Are you all right? I thought you weren't feeling too good.'

‘I've been drunk. God, I've been drunk!' He made the words a breathy little prayer of satisfaction. ‘I'm sobering up now. It's rotten sobering up, but it won't last. Nothing gets me down for long. Besides, I've got something to do. I've got something on. I can always snap out of it if I've got something on. It doesn't really affect me.'

The bravado sounded a trifle forlorn to Campion.

‘Have you packed?' he inquired.

‘Lord, yes, packed in Town. What the hell are we doing chattering here in the dark?'

This was a question which had occurred to Mr Campion himself and he said so.

‘Georgia pulled the curtains to keep the blasted light out of my eyes.' Ramillies was blundering slowly across the room as he spoke. ‘She's full of wifely concern, isn't she? Have you noticed it?'

He turned round suspiciously on the last word, letting in a shaft of sun with the same movement, but apparently the
younger man's expression was satisfactory, for he seemed content.