Mr Campion's Seance, page 26
‘Now, now, Charlie,’ Fred Yeo soothed the big man, ‘you know Albert’s not a time-waster and we wouldn’t have dragged Alex over the Channel in November if there wasn’t something in it.’
Yeo spoke as if anyone following the example of M. Blériot, even fifty years on, was to be admired for their pluck and daring.
‘We need to brief you, Charles,’ said Campion, ‘and if you’ll listen, we’ll do that as quickly and painlessly as possible. We all have a part in the story. Stanislaus started it, Freddie got caught in the middle of it and Alex here is going to help write the last chapters. But before we start, just let me check something. Did you listen to the recording I sent over, Alex?’
Before the man from Interpol could respond with other than a brief nod, Luke intervened. ‘Recording? What recording?’
‘A tape-recording of a séance, Charles. Don’t worry, it would almost certainly not be admissible as evidence in a trial. Not even the dottiest of our High Court judges accept testimony from the spirit world, at least not until after a very good lunch.’
‘There were one or two things I did not understand,’ said Gérardy, ‘but it seems to fit the pattern.’
‘Hold on,’ complained Luke, ‘draw it mild. Recordings? Trials? What is going on?’
‘We are being unfair, Charles. I apologize. Let us start to fill you in. Stanislaus can go first as he made the first connection.’
‘Now don’t go blaming me, Albert, that’s not fair. She’s your relative, after all.’
The former assistant commissioner buried his face in his pint glass.
‘We happen to share a godmother, that’s all,’ said Campion, ‘but let’s start with you back in 1946 and let’s do it before Charles blows a gasket.’
Mr Oates did not relish leading the discussion, but if he had to ‘kick things off’ then he wanted it known that ‘back then’ it had all seemed like just a daft coincidence and the odds were that if he hadn’t known Mr Campion, things might not have gone any further. But it was because he was acquainted with Campion and his penchant for anything served with a sauce of the bizarre or a whiff of the unusual, that he had raised the topic. Had he put in a formal report to the Home Office that there was a definite link between a murder-robbery in a seedy drinking club in the wrong half of Mayfair, and a work of fiction by one of the nation’s favourite female authors – an author known to be read and enjoyed by the current Queen Mother – then he would have found himself back on traffic duty.
Yet there was no denying it was odd that the murder of Tony Valetta, owner of the Grafton Club, seemed to be following a script written by Evadne Childe when she described the murder of a character called Jake Muscat, owner of the Reynard Club in one of her books. That, to Oates, had seemed something likely to be right up Albert’s street, and it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone to find out that he was related to this blasted writer woman.
‘We only share a godmother!’ Mr Campion wailed despairingly.
Anyways, Oates continued, nothing came of that as Albert was called away on official government business to Germany, not that he had ever heard the full story there.
‘Nor will you,’ said Campion firmly.
‘Germany in 1946?’ said Alex Gérardy. ‘I could hazard a guess.’
‘Please don’t,’ said Mr Campion.
The police had no leads in the case or physical evidence, the only person of interest being a cigarette girl called Rags Donovan, who was never a viable suspect. The detective-story lady seemed to be in the clear, and certainly didn’t make a habit of predicting real crimes in her books.
‘Until 1952, that is,’ said Freddie Yeo, ‘when she laid out a blueprint for a mail-van robbery at Euston in another of her damned fairy stories.’
Yeo outlined the daring daylight robbery and was able to report some success in that the police had made several arrests and recovered a large chunk of the stolen loot. They had run into a dead end, however, tracking the mysterious ‘John Lawton’, the gang leader, who had disappeared without trace though not, it was thought, before he had killed Rags Donovan, the one person who could have linked him to the murder of Tony Valetta six years earlier.
Like Stanislaus Oates, Yeo still held a grievance. Neither case could be properly closed if there was still a double murderer out there somewhere. That sort of thing did not lead to a good night’s sleep.
‘I can vouch for that,’ said Campion. ‘My dreams are troubled too.’
‘You did what you could, Albert, nobody’s blaming you,’ said Oates.
‘I am,’ said Mr Campion. ‘You see, it was I who introduced Evadne Childe to a young Belgian officer back in 1940. I thought he had come over here to carry on the fight against the Nazis. His companion, another lad who escaped with him certainly had, and went on to prove himself a useful addition to the war effort. The pair were called Simon and Peter. Peter was the good soldier who ultimately paid the good soldier’s price; Simon Moorgat, however, was anything but the good soldier, and certainly not the good citizen.
‘I have not seen him since 1940, and I believe Evadne Childe when she says she has not seen him since 1945, but I think he spent the war in London as a deserter from the Free Belgian Forces, re-emerging in 1952 under the alias John Lawton to mastermind the Euston mail-van robbery. Unfortunately, the only people able to identify Moorgat, or Moorgat-as-Lawton post-war are both dead: Tony Valetta and Rags Donovan.’
‘Hold on,’ said Luke, ‘let this simple wooden-headed copper get this straight. You, Albert, have somehow arranged this Brains’ Trust to consider two old cases which are linked by an old lady who writes detective stories and a villain who hasn’t been heard from in ten years?’
‘That is where I can help, if I may,’ offered Gérardy.
Mr Campion patted the man from Interpol on the shoulder and raised his glass to him. Somewhat nervously, with the unblinking stares of three senior policemen firmly targeting his face, he began by addressing Campion personally.
‘I once asked you if you knew Brussels. Can you recall how you answered?’
‘I think I said something to the effect that I knew enough not to get myself invited to the Amigo for breakfast,’ said Campion, ‘but that was back when the Amigo was a prison used by the Gestapo. I understand it is a very respectable hotel these days.’
‘I remembered that reply when you asked me to find Simon Moorgat, and it made me think: where was the best place for a man with a criminal past to disappear? Why, a prison of course. I found him serving an eight-year sentence in Saint-Gilles in Brussels.’
‘Eight years? For murder?’ gasped Oates, shaking his head.
‘And robbery,’ said Yeo equally disparagingly.
‘Neither.’ Gérardy seemed almost apologetic. ‘He was not charged with any of your crimes, nor even with being a deserter from the army, but a crime committed in Brussels in connection with his gambling.’
‘So he was a sore loser, as the Yanks would say,’ observed Luke.
‘He was a very angry loser, and had been thrown out of casinos in Brussels, Spa and Antwerp for being violent and abusive whenever he lost – and he did lose. He lost a lot of money.’
‘Where did he get it from?’ asked Oates.
‘I can guess,’ said Oates, before the Belgian could answer, ‘the Grafton Club.’
‘No one knows for sure. Simon Moorgat returned to Belgium in 1946 with enough documentation to suggest he had been working on unspecified duties for the Belgian government in exile in London and considerable funds. The first thing he did was to pay for a memorial to his friend Peter Verloet in his local church.’
‘Good public relations,’ said Mr Campion.
‘Exactly so. No one asked enough questions about how he had earned his wealth and how he managed to live a life of fast cars, women and visits to casinos, but he never committed a crime, at least not in Belgium. And then, it would have been 1951, he disappeared.’
‘To London,’ said Yeo, ‘where he became John Lawton and robbed a mail van.’
Gérardy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Whoever he was and whatever he did, when he returned to Brussels it was as a rich man – at least for a while. Though he soon fell into his old bad habit of visiting the casinos.’
‘It’s only a bad habit if you lose,’ said Campion, who was immediately glared at by the three policemen for his flippancy. ‘Which, of course, one always does,’ he added weakly. ‘Pray continue, Alex.’
‘Moorgat lost a lot of money very quickly, and then, stupidly, opened up a line of credit with some dangerous gangsters – yes, we do have them in quiet little Belgium. When he could not pay back what he owed, he visited one of the gangsters in a nightclub in a bad area around the old Brussels Fish Market. The police thought he may have gone there to liberate some funds to ease his debts.’
‘Nice way of putting it,’ said Oates. ‘Sounds like a repeat of the Grafton Club job.’
‘Except this time he was caught, where he should not be, by the owners of the club. There was gunfire. Moorgat was shot in the arm and was taken to hospital under police guard. When he was fit enough to stand trial, that’s when he was sentenced to eight years.’
‘Go back a bit,’ said Yeo, making a circling motion with a finger. ‘If this Moorgat was the John Lawton behind the Euston robbery, then he got away with a fair chunk of money. We recovered a lot, but not all. He would have had enough to live comfortably.’
‘Moorgat was never accused of the robbery in Belgium, so there was no reason to investigate where his wealth came from, but it was around that time, 1952, that his mother was suddenly able to buy a small farm in her home village and an apartment in Brussels. Moorgat himself enjoyed living in hotels, fast women and even faster cars – the “high life”, I think you call it – and gambling. The money soon ran out and he found himself in debt to some dangerous people.’
‘Well, there’s one thing that story proves,’ said Oates with great deliberation. ‘This Moorgat chappie was no stranger to carrying a gun and using it if he needed to.’
‘I think Alex has more to tell us about Simon Moorgat’s propensity for violence,’ said Mr Campion, sipping his beer.
‘It has to do with the death of the woman Rags Donovan,’ said Gérardy, fixing his eyes on Yeo.
‘Mrs Rachel Daubney,’ said the old policeman with some dignity, ‘was strangled, not shot.’
‘Forgive me, said Gérardy, not terribly sure why he was apologizing. ‘But Albert mentioned that the wom— The lady … had been strangled with a length of rope.’
‘Aye, that’s right enough,’ said Yeo, ‘a length of clothes line, like the commandos used during the war.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But this Simon Moorgat wasn’t a commando.’
‘No, but his close friend Peter Verloet was,’ said the Belgian, ‘who went on to serve in an elite unit called the SAS. He would certainly have been taught that technique, and there is evidence from Peter Verloet’s diaries, which were given to his mother after his death, that he and Simon met several times during the war in London. They could have talked about such things; soldiers do talk about such things.’
‘But this chap Moorgat was a deserter!’ Luke was indignant.
‘Did Peter know that?’ asked Campion. ‘Simon fooled a lot of people during the war, and after. I say, if we all join hands, we could hold a séance and try and contact Peter to ask him direct. Oh sorry, was that in bad taste? I only thought of it because Evadne Childe firmly believes in the power of séances when it comes to asking the dead for advice.’
‘So we’re back to the detective-story writer, are we?’ said Luke. ‘I knew we’d get there in the end. What’s the connection, then, Albert? There is one; there must be, judging by that smug look on your face.’
‘There is indeed, Charlie. You see, the spiritualist medium whom Evadne Childe began to consult as soon as the war was over, and to whom she confided her deepest secrets as well as the plots of her books, was recommended to her by Simon Moorgat.’ Campion showed the table his best non-simpering smile. ‘Which is not surprising really, as Madame Rawnie is Simon Moorgat’s mother.’
‘So your favourite author lady, she believes in all that séance stuff?’ Oates radiated dismissiveness.
‘I’m afraid she does, but I must say that Madame Rawnie is a very convincing gateway to the spirit world. I arranged a séance here in London at which she officiated.’
‘I presume you laid a trap for her?’ said Luke.
‘We did and she did not fall into it; rather, she very cleverly turned the tables on us.’
‘She did?’ said Luke in mock surprise. ‘Why wasn’t I given a ringside seat for that?’
‘You don’t have the patience to sit still that long, Charlie.’
‘Nor the gullibility,’ added Oates, ‘but do tell, Albert. How did this Madame Scrawny best you?’
‘Rawnie,’ Campion corrected.
Oates furrowed his brow. ‘That’s gypsy, a Romany name, innit?’
‘It is indeed, and it means “Lady”, so “Madame Lady” is clearly a disguise, or a stage name. I am not even sure that Evadne Childe, who has consulted her for many years, knew that her real name was Moorgat.’
‘So how did this gypsy fortune teller put the evil eye on you?’ Luke demanded.
‘We created a fiction, and by “we” I mean Amanda, myself and Evadne’s editor, which involved contacting the spirit of someone deceased but who, in fact, did not exist.’
‘So if your medium says “Is anybody there?” and the table rattles and thumps and she says it’s your wandering spirit, you know she’s a fraud.’
‘Exactly, Charlie, except she didn’t fall for it, and instead she plucked at Evadne’s heartstrings by channelling her late husband Edmund.’
Gérardy raised a forearm, almost as if he were back behind a schoolroom desk.
‘There was something I did not understand on the tape-recording, Albert. The words “west” and “riding”.’
‘That was what Evadne called her “oneness”; it’s a sort of password to prove that the spirit is genuine. It is a word or a phrase, or a place or a name, which only the spirit and the person trying to contact them would recognize. For Evadne it was the name of the ship on which Edmund Walker-Pyne died in 1939.’
‘Something which a Belgian clairvoyant could not possibly know?’ asked Luke, the detective without an off switch.
‘Unless she’d been told by somebody who had seen the picture of the ship above Evadne’s mantlepiece in her house in Essex, which Simon Moorgat certainly would have as he was billeted on Evadne shortly after Dunkirk. I know that for a fact as I was there to introduce him, something I regret to this day.’
‘Don’t play the blame game, Albert,’ said Oates, ‘it’s not worth it. I blamed myself for not following up on the Grafton case as well as I should have, and I know Freddie here regrets the same with the murder of the Donovan girl.’
Yeo nodded morosely in agreement. ‘I got too distracted by the Euston robbery,’ he said quietly. ‘Recovering the money seemed more of a priority than the murder of a young woman. That wasn’t right then; it isn’t right now.’
A melancholic air descended on the table; in such circumstances, Mr Campion would usually insert a burst of frippery or flippancy to lighten the mood, but Luke pre-empted him with a blunt, pull-yourself-together injunction.
‘What a bunch of moping Minnies! Albert hasn’t got us here together to cry into our beer, he’s got something in mind, unless I’m very much mistaken. Interpol haven’t sent a man over here to watch two old coppers reminiscing about past oversights, and I don’t think I’m here just to make up the numbers.’
‘You’re quite right on both counts, Charlie,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Alex here brings news hotfoot from Brussels.’
Gérardy finished the last dregs of his barley wine and looked at the glass with appreciation before placing it on the table.
‘Simon Moorgat will be released from prison this week,’ he said, clearly expecting a more dramatic reaction from his audience.
‘Stands to reason,’ said Luke. ‘You said he’d been given eight years. I’m guessing Albert thinks he’s coming back to London – it seems to be a happy hunting ground for him – and I’ll be expected to arrest him.’
‘I knew I could rely on you, Charlie, my most solid policeman.’
‘On what charge, Albert?’ asked Oates. ‘There’s no concrete evidence to connect him to the murder of Tony Valletta.’
‘Or Rags Donovan,’ added Yeo gloomily.
‘So, if he does come to London,’ said Luke, ‘what reasonable grounds for arrest do I have? What crime can we prove he’s committed?’
‘Oh, he hasn’t committed a provable crime – well, not yet.’
Silence descended on the group, and for a moment the only sound was the hiss of beer pumps and clink of glasses from the public bar on the other side of the wooden partition wall.
It was Luke who asked the question.
‘What sort of game are you playing, Albert?’
‘A long one,’ said Mr Campion.
NINETEEN
Pearls Before Swine
‘It’s going absolutely splendidly. I’ve never known Evadne write so quickly. I think she must be making up for lost time as she hasn’t had a book out for two years. It’s jolly exciting too, though of course I can’t tell you anything about it; it’s all top, top secret.’
‘I think you can tell me, Veronica,’ Amanda said down the telephone in her best headmistress voice, ‘after all, it was my idea.’
‘Oh yes, I suppose it was.’
Amanda had the distinct impression that Veronica Hatherall had placed a hand over her telephone and lowered her voice before she was willing to part with a top, top secret.
‘We had four new chapters this morning in the post, and Miss Prim is typing them up as we speak. She’s an insufferable woman but a lightning typist, and she’s got her eye in when it comes to Evadne’s handwriting. I’m expecting her drafts on my desk before the day is out.’
‘So, what’s the story so far?’
