Police at the Funeral

Chapter 7 The Conjuror

Mr Featherstone, senior, allowed a decent pause to elapse after his son's narrative came to an end and then, arising from his chair, walked slowly across his big private office. When he turned, his extraordinarily handsome face wore an expression of deepest regret. Both Campion and Marcus, the only other occupants of the room, were startled by his quiet observation.

'So it's come,' he said. 'I wondered when the bad blood in that family was going to show. Forty-seven years have I been in practice and it had to happen at the end of the time. Well, I'll go down and see Mrs Faraday this afternoon. You say she is taking complete control? An amazing woman--always has been. She is as shrewd and quick as ever she was, but I don't think there's a spark of feeling in her body, unless it's for that little girl of yours, Marcus. It's a disgraceful business--disgraceful.'

He paused before one of the long windows and looked down upon Regent Street below. The light falling upon his face revealed still more clearly his peculiar nobility of countenance. Mr Featherstone senior's good looks, a secret vanity of his, were largely responsible for his many years of successful practice, and now, at the age of seventy, he loomed a tall and prophetic-looking personage. His white hair and beard were true silver. His eyes were grey like his son's, inclined to coldness, and he missed a good deal of what passed before him by refusing steadfastly to wear spectacles. He turned suddenly upon the two young men.

'You don't remember old Faraday, of course,' he said. 'He would be--let me see now--a hundred odd if he were still alive. He was the eldest of a large family and the only one of them who was any good at all. The others ran right off the rails. John was a learned man. All the goodness in him seemed to run to that. Quite the opposite of his wife. She has intelligence, a different matter--never confuse the two.' He paused and went on slowly: 'I don't think she actually disliked him. She had a very great respect for him and made a fetish of his importance in a way. Even nowadays when I go there I'm always afraid I shall sit down by mistake in that yellow chair in the library.'

Campion looked up inquiringly and Marcus explained.

'I ought to have warned you,' he said. 'In the library at Socrates Close there's a big yellow brocade-covered chair. Avoid it like the plague. It was old Faraday's own chair, you see, and as far as I know no one has ever sat in it since he died, certainly not in Mrs Faraday's presence. Of course it's a pitfall for the unwary. It ought to be labelled. But, fortunately, they don't use that room except on state occasions.'

'I will make a note of the yellow peril,' said Mr Campion.

Old Mr Featherstone turned to look dubiously at the young man who had just spoken.

'You, Campion,' he said. 'I don't know what good Mrs Faraday thinks you are going to be to her. I don't know what you think you're going to do. In my experience, and in everyone else's for that matter, the only way of making an appalling affair like this even bearable is to deal with it in a routine manner. No amateur jiggery-pokery ever has done anybody any good.'

Mr Campion accepted this gratuitous insult as if it had been a compliment of the highest order. He smiled affably.

'I'm to be a buffer. Not an old buffer, you know, but a kind of pad--a mechanical apparatus for deadening the forces of a concussion, as in railway carriages. In other words, a sort of private secretary, I suppose.'

Old Featherstone turned a cold and near-sighted eye in his direction.

'Don't behave as though you came from Oxford, my boy,' he said. 'Both the 'Varsities engender fools, but thank heaven we endeavour to breed our own special type.'

Marcus glanced apprehensively at Campion. 'I'm afraid my father is forgetting your reputation,' he murmured apologetically.

But Featherstone, senior, had no use for any reputation that was under fifty years old.

'I warn everybody,' he said testily, 'this affair is pitch. And in my experience, if you touch pitch you get your hands dirty. I am only concerned in this affair at Socrates Close in an official capacity. There are times when the best of us must be selfish. Marcus, you're in it even more deeply. I suppose you can't get Joyce away? She's not exactly a relative, you know.'

For the first time since Campion had known him a gleam of genuine anger came into Marcus's eyes.

'Joyce will do what she thinks and I shall abide by her decision,' he said uncompromisingly.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. 'There's no fool like a young one,' he observed, 'whatever they say.'

Mr Campion, who was becoming used to family friction by this time, was prepared for further skirmishes, but the proceedings were cut short by the entrance of an elderly clerk with the announcement that the car was waiting. A short period of bustle followed, while the old man was safely arrayed in his coat and hat and a largish woollen muffler and escorted safely downstairs into his chariot. Marcus came up the stairs looking relieved.

'Look here, Campion,' he said, 'd'you mind coming into my room? It's more comfortable than this one. Father will be gone for hours. By the way, when do you think this policeman is liable to turn up?'

'Quite soon now,' said Mr Campion, getting up and walking across the passage with his friend. 'He should have got the note I left almost immediately, and when he's finished his preliminary investigations he'll come toddling over here, if I know him. You'll like him. He's one of the best. I've known him for years. By the way, do you put all those famous names on the boxes in there to impress the unwary visitor?'

Marcus did not smile. 'That's the only advertising they let us do,' he said. 'Here we are.'

The room they entered was the smallest of the three which composed the offices of Featherstone and Featherstone. The house, a converted Georgian residence, was owned by the firm, and the other businesses in the building were of an order and propriety to make them suitable neighbours to such an eminently reputable concern.

It was a square comfortable room, light and airy, lined with panelled bookcases of polished mahogany and furnished with the same appropriate wood. Marcus sat down at his desk and Campion took up a position in the leather arm-chair before the fire.

'We shan't be disturbed in here,' Marcus promised. 'Important visitors are taken into the old boy's office. It's more impressive. Joyce and Ann are meeting here at about half-past four. I said I'd give them a cup of tea.' He passed his hand nervously over his hair. 'This business has upset everything,' he said. 'It makes you see life from an entirely different angle somehow, doesn't it?'

'Life in the newspaper sense,' observed Mr Campion, 'is always seen from this point of view. Uncle William must be regarding himself as "today's human story" by this time.'

'Muckrakers!' said Marcus savagely. 'I always read the murder cases myself, but when it comes to seeing people you know in print it's rather different.'

Campion nodded absently. 'I'd like to know just how that woman came to poison herself,' he said slowly.

The other man stared at him. 'You think it was suicide?' he said. 'I thought--?'

Campion shook his head. 'Oh no,' he said. 'That's the last thing I should say, on the face of it. But it's evident that Miss Faraday took quite passively a large dose of poison, and this could hardly have been done by mistake in the ordinary sense of the word. The sort of poisons that are kept in large quantities in a household are always of the corrosive kind, spirits of salt, ammonia, carbolic, things quite definitely "not to be taken". Besides, I've never heard of a suicide in which the door of the room was not locked. People like to be alone when they kill themselves. It's a purely personal affair, anyway.'

'Quite,' said Marcus, and was silent.

It was during this pause in the proceedings that the elderly clerk appeared, to announce that a Mr Oates was inquiring for a Mr Campion.

The two young men sprang to their feet as the Inspector came in. That lank, slightly melancholy figure looked even more dejected than usual as he hesitated just inside the door. Campion grinned at him.

'Come for the body?'

The Inspector's slow childlike smile, which altered his entire personality, dispelled the discomfort of what might otherwise have been a solemn introduction.

'I got your note, Campion,' he said. 'I'm glad to see you, Mr Featherstone.' He took off his raincoat and sat down in the chair Marcus indicated, leaning back gratefully. As he looked at Campion his smile broadened. 'And I'm glad to see you, too, all things considered,' he said affably. 'I suppose you're on the right side of the law?'

'I'm not murdering this week, if that's what you suggest,' said Mr Campion with dignity.

Marcus looked a little shocked by this conversation, and the Inspector made haste to explain. 'I'm always running into this man in business,' he said, 'and his position is generally so delicate that I never know whether I dare admit to his acquaintance or not.' He turned to Campion. 'I hear from Mrs Faraday,' he said, 'that you are her personal representative, whatever that may mean. Is this true?'

Campion nodded. The Inspector paused, and Marcus, realizing that whatever the Inspector had to say he had no intention of saying it before him, tactfully withdrew to his father's office. As the door closed behind him Stanislaus Oates heaved a sigh of relief and took out his pipe.

'This being the old lady's representative,' he began cautiously, 'does that mean you have some secrets to keep?'

'No,' said Mr Campion. 'Apparently I am all out to "apprehend the perpetrator of this dastardly outrage and bring him to the punishment he so justly deserves".'

The Inspector grunted. 'On the level?' he demanded.

'Sure. You're O.K. by me, as we say in the Senate,' said Mr Campion idiotically. 'What do you make of it? Dogged anything up yet?'

The Inspector rubbed his chin unhappily. 'Damn all,' he said. 'I knew my luck was going to be out. I've been expecting trouble for days. Then there's that coincidence, me knocking into you with this girl Joyce Blount yesterday. A genuine coincidence always means bad luck for me; it's my only superstition.'

Campion sat back in his chair, eyeing his friend owlishly. Now, he felt, was hardly the time to acquaint the Inspector with the even more important side of the coincidence in question. Stanislaus Oates went on grumbling.

'Just because I speak twelve different varieties of Yiddish and can carry on a conversation with a tight Swede sailor, all of which are invaluable in the East End, I get promoted and promptly sent down on a case like this,' he began. 'I tell you, Campion, I can handle an East Lane harridan with Czech and Chinese blood in her veins, but that Mrs Faraday is beyond me, you know. She speaks another new language I've got to learn. I didn't do so badly at first. In fact, when she came into that great library I thought I was going to like her. But as soon as we sat down and got started she froze solid--'

'And you sat there in a yellow brocade chair, looking uncomfortable, no doubt,' said Mr Campion.

'Yes,' admitted the Inspector absently, and sat up a moment later, his eyes narrowing. 'Here! No monkey tricks, Campion,' he said. 'How d'you know it was a yellow brocade chair? It looked imposing. That's why I chose it.'

'Big policeman makes fatal error,' said Mr Campion laughing, and went on to explain.

'Well I'm hanged,' said the Inspector ruefully. 'But who's to know a thing like that? It's as bad as a caste system. Oh well, that accounts for that. How about you? Have you got any line on this yet? This death this morning, you know, that's murder whatever this doctor fellow says. Natural inference points to the other sister, the little snivelling one, Catherine Berry. That doesn't look as though it's going to lead us anywhere.' He paused and shook his head like a puzzled dog. 'As for the other case,' he continued, 'it's only reasonable to look toward the household for a motive. There's William, the pompous pink-faced party, there's the old lady herself, there's Joyce Blount. Does any of these look to you like a murderer? Or any of the servants, for that matter? The whole thing doesn't make sense. I ask you, who's going to tie a man up and then shoot him, or shoot a man and then tie him up? It's ridiculous. I had a look round this morning and took the ordinary depositions. There are one or two interesting things in the house, but not much in the people.' He frowned, and as Campion did not speak went on. 'I think I see how that thing this morning was done, but I won't commit myself until I have proof. Well, this is the first time you and I have been on a case together, Campion, since nineteen twenty-six. I don't mind telling you I'm glad to see you.'

'Nicely said,' said Mr Campion. 'What is at the back of your mind? What are you hoping I'll say?'

The Inspector took out a notebook. 'My shorthand man took down the verbatim statement,' he said, 'but this is just my own personal stuff.'

'Filled with comic faces, mostly, I see,' said Mr Campion, glancing over his shoulder.

Stanislaus grunted. 'About this cousin,' he said. 'Cousin George Makepeace Faraday. I heard about him from William. He was in the vicinity when the first chap died.'

Mr Campion resumed his chair and leant back. He knew from experience that it was no use trying to suppress anything of which Stanislaus had got wind.

'I say,' he said, 'I have no actual proof of this, so I suppose it isn't much good to the trained mind, but do you remember that fellow who tackled you yesterday, the fellow who bunked when he saw Miss Blount? I think that was Cousin George. Didn't you notice how extraordinarily like William he was?'

The policeman looked at him incredulously. 'That would just make it impossible,' he said. 'It'd strengthen that coincidence, too, and that always means trouble. We can verify it, though. There's always the girl. What's she hiding, anyway? I say, you don't think that she...?'

'My dear man, why should she? She stands to get most of the money in any case,' said Mr Campion hastily. 'No, there's nothing in that. We're getting on too fast. There's the scandal connected with this Cousin George, remember, and a scandal in this crowd is very important, let me tell you. It may be something that would strike the ordinary man as comparatively slight. Cousin George may have had rickets as a child, or T.B., or been divorced. You're looking him up, I suppose?'

'Bowditch is on the job now. He's the bright specimen they've given me to keep me company.' The Inspector stirred restlessly in his chair. 'Oh, I know this is going to be a stalemate of a case and these are just the sort of people who have influence.'

'And that means the workhouse,' said Mr Campion. 'The girl-wife in the gutter and my godson having to forgo his university career. Sounds like a film.'

At the mention of his son the Inspector's good temper miraculously returned.

'Four years old,' he said proudly. 'Sings like anything.' His smile faded and he returned gloomily to the matter in hand. 'They're a rum lot up there, Campion,' he said. 'Something very queer in that house. We're up against a lunatic, of course, one of those "sane" lunatics you can't spot. I had one down in Stepney last year. Philanthropic doctor chap. It took me six weeks to spot him, and we should never have fixed it on him if he hadn't gone right off his head and come across with the whole story under a little pressure. But the thing I don't like about this case down here is what I call the conjuring trick element.' He was leaning forward in his chair, his heavy lids drawn down over his grey eyes, and Mr Campion, who knew him and liked him, listened attentively. 'When you see a conjuring trick performed,' the Inspector continued, 'a genuine conjuring trick--you know the sort of thing I mean, a fellow cutting a woman in two upon the stage or fastening a nigger in a basket and driving swords through the wickerwork--you are being offered circumstantial evidence of murder of the most damning kind, and yet no one is surprised when the lady walks on to the stage or the nigger climbs out of the basket. Now,' he went on triumphantly, 'the circumstantial evidence in this case is rather like that, only we know that the unfortunate man Seeley won't come trotting home from the river, nor will Miss Julia Faraday drive up to this office this afternoon. Mrs Catherine Berry carried a cup of tea to her sister this morning. That sister promptly died from the homely conium poison, traces of which I have no doubt will be found in the cup. William Faraday went for a walk with his cousin Andrew Seeley; Andrew Seeley never came back. That's quite strong circumstantial evidence; not conclusive, but definitely strong. They quarrelled, too, of course. Now, neither Mrs Berry nor the man William appeals to me as a probable murderer, but then only about four per cent of murderers hanged are of the killer type. Cousin George looked more probable, although I don't see how he could have done it.'

He sighed and regarded Campion thoughtfully.

'You know,' he said, 'where I'm out of my depth again is that I don't see how these people's minds work. Frankly, we're not used to this sort of witness in a case. How many murders do we get in this class in England in a year? It's navvies, whizz-boys, car thieves, small tradespeople who run off the rails and commit murder, and I can talk to them. These people are more difficult. I don't see how their minds work. Even the words they use don't mean the same. For instance, half that old lady said today when I was sitting in her yellow chair didn't convey anything to me, yet she's no fool, I can tell that. D'you know who she reminds me of, Campion? Ever seen Justice Adams on the bench? Why, she might be him, especially with that lace thing over her head.'

Campion grinned, and the Inspector took a carefully folded piece of paper out of his wallet and handed it to Campion.

'Here is something you can give me a line on, perhaps,' he said. 'What does this mean to you? I found it in Andrew Seeley's room, folded in the blotter in the top drawer of the writing-desk. Miss Blount told me she put it there when Seeley failed to return home on the Sunday night. Is there anything in it that I may have missed, or does it mean exactly what it says it means?'

Campion unfolded the paper. It was a half-finished letter written in a small tight hand that yet had in it a great many unnecessary flourishes. The address, 'Socrates Close', was emblazoned at the top of the sheet in old English print. It was dated Sunday 30 March, and ran:

Campion refolded the letter and handed it back to the Inspector, who did not replace it in his wallet, but sat looking at it, his forehead puckered.

'Well, it isn't the letter of a suicide,' he said, 'is it? And it isn't the letter of a man who thought he might be murdered. Do you see anything else in it?'

'In what way?' inquired Mr Campion cautiously. 'You are not referring to "your character from your handwriting", by any chance? As far as the actual matter contained is concerned, it looks as though he was trying to cadge a free week-end. From the handwriting I should say that he was in a hurry, had an excitable nature, was conceited, secretive, energetic and probably a drinker. For further information, read my little pink book entitled "Character from Characters, or How to tell your Lover by his Note". But I don't suppose that really helps you?'

The Inspector answered absently. He was still staring at the half-finished letter in his hand.

'It's not evidence,' he said, 'if that's what you mean. That chap Seeley must have been a funny bloke. No one seems to have been able to stand the sight of him. You have a look at his room, too, if you get the chance. I don't mind you going in. I'm not an imaginative man, but I didn't cotton to the personality of that room. I wasn't attracted to Miss Julia's either. But his was more extraordinary. There's a rum taste about that house altogether. Oh, by the way, there's one other funny thing about this letter. No one seems to know who it was written to.' He shook his head. 'Extraordinary family. They don't seem to know anything about each other.'

'Did you ask Mrs Faraday?' Campion inquired.

Stanislaus Oates nodded. 'I asked her first, because she's mentioned in the letter, but she couldn't or wouldn't help me. As a matter of fact, she said she had lived for eighty-four years and had met a great many ladies in her time and could hardly be expected to remember all their Christian names. A remark like that shuts you up, you know. Still,' he added, slipping the letter back into his wallet, 'we've only just begun. The inquest on Seeley is fixed for tomorrow. That only means formal evidence of identification. We shall ask for an adjournment. That'll give us a day or two anyway. I understand the authorities want to get the whole business over quickly, because the 'Varsity is coming up the week after next. Funny people they are here! Deputy Coroner in charge and the coroner's court being distempered, so we've got to hold the inquest in an assembly room. I don't see why they can't have their schools or colleges or whatever they are somewhere out in the country.'

Campion began to laugh, and Stanislaus joined him. 'We all get fed up now and again,' he said. 'I wish I could find out how that conium got into the teacup this morning. I've gone over the room as well as I could, but they were taking the body away for the P.M. and that doctor and the sorrowing relations had tramped all over the room, anyhow. They didn't like me, but I'm never a popular figure in the picture. However, as I say, I did my best and I couldn't find anything. There wasn't even a scrap of paper lying around. Of course, I may find something yet,' he went on hopefully. 'It's one of those cluttered-up rooms--even the bed wears petticoats. Still, at the moment it certainly looks as though the poison was brought into the room in the teacup, in which case it passes my understanding.' He rose to his feet. 'I'll have to go. Oh, by the way, that Cousin George. I asked for a photograph of him up at the house, but they hadn't got one. I must see that girl.'

'She's probably here now,' Campion remarked. 'We're expecting her, and I think I heard the sound of feminine chattage outside some minutes ago. Wait a moment.' He rose from his chair and disappeared through the doorway, to return some little time later with Joyce. She was still pale, but more self-possessed than she had been in the morning. She greeted the Inspector with a frigid nod, an expression of candid dislike in her quiet eyes. The Inspector plunged in manfully.

'Miss Blount,' he said, 'I first had the pleasure of meeting you yesterday in Tomb Yard, E.C. While we were there a man entered, caught sight of you, and left hastily. You were a little taken aback by the sight of him. Do you recall the incident?'

Joyce glanced at Campion, but that young man's expression was blank and unhelpful. The Inspector was still waiting, and she nodded.

'Yes, I do,' she said.

Stanislaus Oates cleared his throat. 'Now, Miss Blount,' he said, 'think carefully, was or was not that man George Makepeace Faraday, referred to at Socrates Close as Cousin George?'

Joyce bit off the little exclamation which had risen to her lips. She turned appealingly to Campion.

'Must I answer him?' she said.

He smiled at her affably. 'I'm afraid you must,' he said, and added as the quick colour came into her face, 'Mrs Faraday is convinced that the police must know all they want to know. Was it Cousin George in the City yesterday? I'm afraid I'm to blame for the idea. He was so extraordinarily like William that I couldn't help pretending to be a real detective last night when I was showing off before Marcus. I described him and Uncle William recognized him. We want you to give us proof.'

The girl turned to the Inspector. 'Yes,' she said breathlessly. 'It was Cousin George. But you mustn't look for him, you mustn't find him. It would kill Aunt Caroline. Besides, I'm sure he's got nothing to do with it. Work it out for yourselves, how can he?'