Mr Campion's Seance, page 15
‘Thaddeus P. Honeycutt,’ he announced proudly, as if introducing the top-of-the-bill act. ‘Lovely fella, and no mean tinkler of the old ivories. Came over with the GIs in the war and drove supply trucks all over Normandy in ’44. Couldn’t believe how friendly we Londoners were; very friendly in the case of Rags Donovan’s sister, and they fell for each other hook, line and sinker. But Thad, as I call him, couldn’t go back to Alabama with a white wife; they’re very funny about things like that over there. So they stayed and now have two kiddies and a house in Brixton, one of the bomb-damaged ones they bought for a song and they’re doing up. Rags got Thad to play at the Grafton when he was off-duty and then a regular job there after his demob, though he does jam sessions and recording sessions on the side.’
‘You’re not his agent by any chance, are you?’ asked Campion. ‘Never mind, do carry on.’
Lugg took a breath deep enough to strain his shirt buttons. ‘Well, even though Rags had left the Grafton for pastures new, she kept in touch with Thaddeus and occasionally popped into the Grafton to make sure they were treating him right, buy him a Guinness or two – he likes his Guinness does Thad. Anyways, last week she got a message to him, wanting a meet before he went to work and after she’d finished work, so they went for a drink early evening in the Fitzroy. That would have been a couple of days before …’ Lugg glanced at Rupert who was fortunately concentrating on polishing cutlery, ‘… she wrote that letter to you.’
Lugg drained his wine glass and smacked his lips, as if such an incantation would magically refill it. ‘According to Thaddeus, Rags wanted to know if he remembered the foreign chap who had brought your writer-lady friend to the Grafton that time. You know, the year Tony … the year of the Valetta incident. Well, Thad wasn’t sure he could; in fact, he was pretty sure he couldn’t, but he played along with his sister-in-law, knowing that he’d get grief at home if he didn’t. Rags was in a bit of a state because she was sure she’d seen the guy that very morning in Wardour Street.’
‘That would make sense,’ said Yeo, and when confronted by three inquisitive stares, he added: ‘Mrs Daubney worked there, for a company that hires out film equipment.’
Lugg waited politely for any further contribution, as he was always polite to policemen over the rank of chief inspector, but when Yeo offered nothing more, he continued, ‘Rags was shaken up because even though they didn’t speak, she was pretty sure that the bloke she recognized as Pierre Le Frog had recognized her and was convinced he was following her. Thaddeus poured a couple of gins down her throat and walked her to Goodge Street to put her on the tube. It was ’im who suggested she get in touch with ’is nibs here, as we’d been to the Grafton sniffing around the very same frog six years ago. As it’s a well-known fact that women only clear out their handbags once every ten years, Rags still had the card you gave her back in 1946, so she dropped you a line and suggested the Fitzroy because she felt safe there.’
‘Sadly, she was mistaken,’ Campion began quietly, and Lugg could only purse his thick lips and nod agreement. ‘Did Thaddeus actually see this Peter or Pierre for himself? Could he identify him?’
‘No, and I did ask, and he was still in the army when Le Frog brought the writer woman to the Grafton in ’45. Said he remembered me though, when we met Rags that time.’
‘You’re difficult to miss, and once glimpsed, ne’er forgotten.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ said Lugg, dabbing his lips delicately with his napkin.
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Amanda. ‘Now can we get on, please?’
She jerked her head towards Rupert, who was yawning quite spectacularly, and tapped her wristwatch with a fingernail.
‘My turn then,’ said Campion. ‘I had a very interesting trip out to Colchester in our new motor which, though you haven’t asked, goes like a dream.’ He caught the flash in Amanda’s eyes. ‘But that’s not important. At Colchester garrison I saw a very helpful captain who had exactly what I’d asked for; it was like having one’s own personal remembrancer.’
‘What’s one of them when they’re at home?’ snapped Lugg.
‘Search me,’ added Yeo.
‘It’s an ancient office from the good old feudal days. The remembrancer worked for the King’s Exchequer, kept records and reminded forgetful barons of pending business. Captain Johnson had found just the file to remind me of the business I had out near Colchester back in 1940 when, I am possibly afraid to admit, it was little old me who introduced Evadne Childe to Pierre Le Frog.’
Mr Campion peered warily over the tops of his large round tortoiseshell glasses to check the mood of his audience.
‘For reasons I won’t bore you with, I was sent to Wivenhoe House, which was a sort of staging post for the lost and found after Dunkirk, to interview a couple of Belgian officers; lads really, hardly out of their teens. By pure coincidence, they were going to be billeted locally until the Belgian powers-that-be-in-exile could find them useful employment.’
‘Once you’d decided they weren’t spies, I suppose?’ said Amanda.
Lugg’s face twisted into a devilish grin. ‘Give them the third degree, did yer? Chinese burns all round?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Campion. ‘Anyone could see they weren’t spies; they were lost boys far from home, a home that didn’t exist any more. When I learned the pair of them were going to be housed with Evadne Walker-Pyne, better known as Evadne Childe and a godsibling of mine …’
Both Amanda and Lugg groaned at Campion’s use of the spurious relationship he claimed with the writer, but it failed to deter him.
‘… I just had to be on hand to do the formal introductions, and I left the two of them in the very capable hands of the nation’s favourite writer of detective stories. Their names, thanks to my remembrancer Captain Johnson, were Simon Moorgat and’ – he paused dramatically – ‘Peter Verloet. So now, I thought, we had a name for Pierre Le Frog, and I telephoned it through to Freddie here this morning.’
‘But this Peter, or Pierre, can’t still be living with Evadne Childe, can he?’ asked Amanda.
‘Of course not. According to the army’s records, the two Belgians stayed with Evadne until January 1941, when they were posted to the Free Belgian Forces camp at Tenby in Wales. There my Colchester remembrancer loses track of them, and so I thought I would tootle out to Evadne’s house to see if I could pick up their trail there.
‘With immaculate timing, I arrived a day too late, having just missed Evadne who had nipped over to the Continent for a short holiday, something she does quite regularly I believe, and of course by Continent, I mean Belgium.’
Lugg expelled a snort of displeasure.
‘You don’t approve of Belgium as a holiday destination?’ Campion asked him.
‘Went once and they started shooting at me. No inclination to go back there.’
‘Don’t take it too personally, everybody was shooting at everybody back then, but I doubt Evadne’s visits were anything to do with that particular conflict. Still, we’ll have to wait a few days to ask her on her return. What I did discover, however, was that she had been a regular visitor to a local spiritualist – hence my earlier question, my dear, about your interview with her editor.’
Amanda acknowledged her husband with a curt nod and a thin smile. ‘She lost her husband very early in the war and even highly educated people turned to mediums to try and contact lost loved ones,’ she said.
‘Quite right, darling, it was a boom industry during the war, with séances and Ouija boards replacing dinner parties and bridge nights. Indeed, I remember the case of a senior naval officer involved in quite advanced scientific research, who had to be warned off holding séances at his house down in Hampshire in case one of the spirits from beyond was a curious German spy.
‘Not that I’m suggesting Evadne Childe was up to anything like that. As Amanda says, she was trying to contact her late husband, and perhaps she did, or thought she did, and it probably brought her some comfort. But then, in early 1945 she switched tack and asked her medium, a formidable local lady called Miss Kitto, to try and contact someone called Peter.’
‘That would make sense too,’ said Yeo, who suddenly found himself the centre of attention.
‘How’s that then?’ Lugg shot at him.
‘When Albert rang me with the name Peter Verloet this morning, I got straight on to the liaison officer at the Belgian Embassy, who got on to their military records people. They came back quick as a flash, no slouches those Belgians, because the name was familiar to them. It turns out Peter Verloet was a bit of a hero among the Free Belgians. Went for commando training and did special courses in sabotage, then got his wings as a paratrooper. Ended up as an acting major in the Belgian squadron of the SAS. Bit of a hero, Peter Verloet was.’
‘Was?’ asked Campion.
‘Yes, past tense. That’s why contacting him through a medium would have been the only way. He was killed on patrol in the Ardennes on Christmas Day 1944.’
It was Amanda who broke the silence. ‘So this Rags Donovan couldn’t have seen him on Wardour Street last week, could she?’
‘Nor could he have been involved in the …’ Campion checked to see if Rupert was listening, ‘… the … incident with Tony Valetta at the Grafton, or at least it seems unlikely.’
‘Highly unlikely,’ said Yeo, in the droning voice he usually reserved for reading from notes in court. ‘I would call it very unlikely that Verloet was anywhere near London in 1944. His unit landed in Normandy on D-Day plus two and fought across France and Belgium. Before D-Day he would have been on lockdown for several months for security reasons.’
‘So Rags,’ said Amanda slowly, ‘and presumably Veronica Hatherall, couldn’t have seen him when he was taking Evadne round the clubs of Soho back then?’
‘As Freddie says, that’s unlikely, but they both saw someone they thought was Peter or Pierre,’ said Campion. ‘The only person who knows for sure is Evadne Childe, so you should have a man waiting for her at Harwich and as soon as she steps off the boat, whip her in for questioning.’
Not even Yeo’s most vicious critics would accuse him of being excitable or emotional, but at that moment his patience was wearing transparently thin.
‘On what grounds? That she might have been seen in the Grafton Club back in 1945 with somebody who might have been seen in Wardour Street last week, but who is actually …’ a glance towards Rupert again, ‘… no longer with us? What crime has she committed?’
‘Herself? None that I’m aware of,’ said Campion, ‘but she is involved, if only on the periphery, with two crimes. Two capital crimes, involving Tony Valetta and Rags Donovan.’
‘That’s mighty thin, Albert. Stanislaus Oates and you got it into your heads that the mur … that the Valetta case was down to this Pierre Le Frog due to his connection with Evadne Childe, but we didn’t even have a proper name back then and now we have no witnesses who could identify him.’
‘We have one, but she’s currently in Belgium,’ Campion observed, ‘and only one. So might it not be worth keeping an eye on her?’
Yeo wrinkled his snub nose. ‘If she returns via Harwich, I can pull a few strings and get advance warning of which ferry she’ll be on, but I can’t put any men on it. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is and we’ll find who … who helped Mrs Daubney shuffle off this mortal coil without recourse to mediums and spiritualists, or detective story writers!’
‘But you have no objection if I continue to poke around?’
Yeo shook his head wearily. ‘Even if I wanted to, could I stop you?
‘He’s got your measure, no mistake,’ said Lugg with a gigantic belly-laugh which he stopped abruptly. ‘As long as I don’t have to go to ’arwich.’
‘Then I think we are concluded,’ said Campion, ‘apart from coffee and a brandy.’
‘No, we’re not,’ said Rupert loudly, drawing all eyes to him. ‘I have a question.’
‘Yes, darling?’ prompted his mother.
‘It’s about the re-mem-ber-encer. Was it his job to remember the ice cream I was promised ages ago?’
‘You are determined to get involved in this business, aren’t you?’ declared Amanda, as she began to remove her make-up in front of the dressing-table mirror with the concentration of a Renaissance painter.
Albert, buttoning his pyjama jacket, watched the process, as he always did, with a mixture of adoration and fascination.
‘I would feel a lot happier if I knew what this business actually was,’ he said to the nape of his wife’s neck.
‘You can’t seriously think that Evadne Childe is involved in two murders six years apart, can you?’
Amanda watched for her husband’s reaction in the mirror.
‘Not in the dirty deed themselves, no, but there is a link.’
‘The link is the Grafton Club, surely?’
‘Well, yes, but Evadne uncannily prophesied the murder of Tony Valetta in her novel after visiting the place in the company of the mysterious Peter Verloet, who was spotted in London by the late Rags Donovan.’
‘The mysterious and also himself late Peter Verloet.’
‘Quite.’
‘So Rags Donovan was murdered by a ghost?’
‘Perhaps we should hold a séance and ask him directly.’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’
‘Evadne Childe appears to have thought that possible and I don’t think you would call her an idiot.’
Amanda picked up her hairbrush and began to slowly brush her hair, something usually guaranteed to distract her husband. In the mirror, however, she saw Albert’s face struggling with confusion and indecision.
‘I am sure Evadne is not an idiot and I know you are not, but you can be idiotic at times and perhaps this is one of them. Just what is it you feel you can do that the police cannot?’
‘I have been asked that on many occasions,’ said Campion, ‘and my answer is always the same: very little. Yet I feel I must do something.’
‘Why? You didn’t lure Rags Donovan to her death.’
‘No, I did not, but it was I who planted the seed of doubt about Pierre Le Frog in her mind six years ago. If I hadn’t suggested that he was a person of interest, she might have thought no more about him and perhaps not recognized him last week in Wardour Street, or remembered who he was.’
‘But Albert, she couldn’t have recognized your Peter Verloet if he died in 1944!’
‘He’s not my Peter Verloet, he’s Evadne’s, and Rags recognized somebody. Somebody who didn’t want to be recognized. The only connection we have is Evadne, and I have a responsibility to find out what she knows – if anything.’
‘Why is it your responsibility, darling? This isn’t some fanciful loyalty to a woman you hardly know but feel obliged to because you share the same godmother? Why can’t you leave it to the police?’
‘It’s not a police matter, as Evadne is not suspected of anything other than writing a novel with a plot which mirrored a real crime, and I promised Stanislaus Oates I would look into that back in 1946 but I was distracted.’
Amanda smacked down her hairbrush on the dressing table.
‘With good reason!’ she said angrily. ‘It wasn’t your idea to go to those horrible trials in Nuremberg.’
‘I was only on the periphery, merely an observer …’
‘You still saw and heard things no normal person should have to. You were in a terrible state when you got home. I’m sure Stanis understood perfectly well why you never followed up on the Grafton case.’
‘Nonetheless, I feel guilty about it,’ said Campion, ‘and now it’s come back to haunt me. Oh dear, I could have chosen my words better, couldn’t I?’
Amanda had completely forgotten that she had told Veronica Hatherall she was staying at the York, and when the hotel exchange put through her telephone call just after 7 a.m., she sounded dazed and confused, even though she had actually been awake and supervising Rupert’s ablutions for a good twenty minutes.
‘Lady Amanda?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Veronica, from Gilpin’s, the publisher – Evadne Childe’s publisher.’
‘Of course, what is it, Veronica?’
‘Have you seen a newspaper this morning?’
‘No, not yet. Why?’
‘It’s Evadne. She’s done it again!’
ELEVEN
The Honest Job
The press had, in the idiom of Fleet Street, had a field day. Even the usually sedate newspapers had been tempted to employ the largest possible typeface, use grainy images which would not normally have passed the picture editor’s scrutiny, and had resisted, but only just, the urge to sprinkle their breathless prose with exclamation marks.
‘Audacious Robbery’, ‘Daylight Robbery’, ‘Film Drama Was Real’, ‘Lights, Action, Robbery’, ‘No Ealing Comedy’ and, more parochially, ‘Highway Robbery in Somers Town’ were just some of the headlines. For their three halfpennies, readers of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror received the additional scandalous information that the heinous event had been witnessed by at least thirty members of the public who had each been paid ten shillings to act as ‘extras’ in what they thought was a film, only to discover they were aiding and abetting a crime. Readers of the News Chronicle and the Daily Sketch were reassured that the prime minister, Mr Churchill, was already taking a personal interest in the case. Those fortunate enough to have the 4 a.m. edition of the Daily Telegraph at their breakfast table were no doubt encouraged to learn that the police had already reported ‘an early lead’ in the case.
What the combined forces of the Fourth Estate were trying to tell their audience, often with poorly concealed glee, was the story of what became known as the Great Somers Town Hold-Up.
