Campion 13 More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham

Author:Margery Allingham [Allingham, Margery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

The Two Chairs

A little over an hour later, when it was very nearly dark and the yellow lights of Apron Street were fairylike among the glistening blue curtains of the wet evening, Mr. Campion pocketed the careful letter he had been writing to Superintendent Yeo and let himself quietly out of his bedroom into the chill gloom of Portminster Lodge.

Long experience had taught him the value of the written word when definite information was being requested, and he was now in search of Lugg, who was to be his messenger. As he moved silently down the dark staircase he went over the list once more. Its length was formidable and it began with the modest demand for details of the crime for which Looky Jeffreys was serving a term in Charlsfield Gaol, together with a list of his known or suspected associates, and the name and rank of the officer who had brought him to justice.

Other items included an inquiry as to any recent addition to the interesting record possessed by Bella Musgrave and a simple botanical query concerning the common weed henbane, with especial reference to Hyde Park.

He feared that the final question was destined to irritate.

Lastly, he had written: “What have you been looking for lately which is (a) five to six feet long, (b) distinctive in shape, (c) fragile? Silks or Old Masters, both in rolls, occur to me, but it is quite probable that someone at your end will recognise from this description some delicate and valuable piece of machinery whose manufacture is either strictly controlled or actually illegal. Almost any pertinent suggestion will be gratefully received. We only ask because we want to know.”

He tiptoed across the hall and succeeded in getting out of the house without being waylaid by Renee. The iron gate was wet to his touch and the fine rain was well on its way to soaking him by the time he reached the pavement. He was just approaching the chastely decorated window of Jas. Bowels’s establishment when he happened to glance back across the road to Apron Street’s gayer side.

The china swan in the dairy window shone in the honey-coloured light. The greengrocer’s shop was bright with green and yellow and red. The basement window under the dimmer expanse of Dr. Smith’s curtains was vivid where Frenchie worked on at his last, and the vase of blue water in Pa Wilde’s crowded showcase glinted like a huge amethyst.

The chemist’s doorway was an opal arch in a multi-coloured frame, through which, as he glanced at it, a familiar mountain appeared. Lugg stepped into the road, looked both ways, and hurried back again.

Campion darted across the greasy road after him and stepped out of the street into a small clear space set in the midst of an unbelievable jumble of cartons, bottles, boxes, and jars which reached the discoloured ceiling on all four sides.

There was a counter, but the effect was no more than a hole in the debris, and on the

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