Police at the Funeral (5 page)

Mr Campion did not answer for some moments, but remained staring in front of him, a completely vacant expression on his face. Then he glanced up at her.

‘You may be right,' he said. ‘But I think we ought to start square. I loathe going into things with my eyes shut.'

She took a deep breath. ‘He had nothing to do with it,' she said. ‘
Please
forget him. Are you going to help me or not?'

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.

FAMOUS SCHOLAR'S NEPHEW FOUND

SHOT DEAD IN RIVER

MISSING FOR TEN DAYS

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 as 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 headdress. 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, nor 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.

In the bright light from the enormous crystal chandelier over the table Mr Campion looked even more vacant and foolish than usual, and when he spoke his voice was vague and inconclusive.

‘I read the papers before I came down,' he said. ‘Quite a bad business.'

Marcus glanced at him sharply, but there was no sign of anything but the utmost gravity in the other's face. He went on, still speaking with that faint inconsequential air which irritated so many of his acquaintances.

‘I left Miss Blount at Socrates Close. A charming girl. Congratulations, Marcus.'

The over-bright lights, the polished walnut and gleaming silver, combined with the slightly low temperature of the room, contrived to foster the extraordinary formality which distinguished this odd reunion. Campion became more and more vague, and Marcus's natural frigidity nearly succeeded in silencing him altogether.

Mr Campion partook of some cold ham with ritualistic solemnity, Marcus attending to his wants with grave politeness, clinging resolutely to the hard and fast law of etiquette, which demands that a newly-arrived guest must be instantly fed, preferably upon something cold.

As for Mr Campion, he seemed completely unaware of anything out of the ordinary in the situation. To be summoned to a catastrophe and met with cold ham might have been the most usual of his experiences. It was only after he had finished his meal and accepted reverentially the proffered cigarette that he glanced up at the other, a polite smile upon his lips, and remarked in a slightly high-pitched conversational tone: ‘Many murders for the time of year?'

Marcus stared at him and slowly reddened disarmingly.

‘Still the same damn fool, Campion,' he said explosively. ‘I've had a feeling you were laughing at me all the time you've been eating.'

‘Not at all,' said Mr Campion. ‘I was remembering. You got your blue for deportment, didn't you?'

Marcus permitted himself a smile which humanized him instantly. The next moment, however, he was his grave and anxious self again.

‘Look here,' he said, ‘I don't want you to think I've got you down here under false pretences, but the fact is I'm in a hole' – he hesitated.

Mr Campion waved his hand. ‘My dear fellow,' he said deprecatingly, ‘of course I'll do anything I can.'

Marcus looked relieved and, since the rheumatic maid had returned to clear the table, suggested that they should retire to the privacy of his study. As they went up the narrow polished oak staircase he turned to Campion, once more apologetic.

‘I expect you're rather accustomed to this sort of thing?' he murmured. ‘But I may as well admit that I've got the wind-up.'

‘I seldom get more than one body a quarter,' murmured Mr Campion modestly.

The room they entered was a typical Cambridge study, aesthetically impeccable, austere, and, save for the two deep arm-chairs before the fire, slightly uncomfortable. As they entered, a wire-haired fox terrier of irreproachable breeding,
rose from the hearth-rug and came to meet them with leisurely dignity. Marcus effected an introduction hastily.

‘Foon,' he said. ‘Written “Featherstonehaugh”.'

Somewhat to his host's embarrassment Mr Campion shook hands with the dog, who seemed to appreciate the courtesy, for he followed them back to the hearth-rug, waiting for them to be seated before he took up his position on the rug again, where he sat during the rest of the proceedings with the same air of conscious breeding which characterized his master.

Marcus Featherstone presented the unhappy spectacle of a man who has reduced at least the trivialities of life to a thought-saving if somewhat rigid code, suddenly confronted by a situation for which even the best people have no set form of behaviour.