The Introductory Allingham Box Set: Look to the Lady, Police at the Funeral, Sweet Danger

by Margery Allingham

‘Will Tiffin told me early this morning, and I made him swear not to breathe it to another soul. When he found her, she was lying here on her back, not twisted or dishevelled as she would have been if she had lain where she had fallen, but stiff and straight, with her hands folded and her eyes closed. Don’t you see—’ her voice quivered and sank to a whisper — ‘Will said it looked as if she had been laid out as a corpse.’

‘Your Mr Campion,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised if ’is real name didn’t begin with a K. And figuring it all out, ’is Christian name ought to be Rudolph.’

But then I noticed a bit of flannel, sewed in by the firm, across the shoulder-blades. Now that’s a silly idea, a woman’s idea. Also, I fancy I could lay me finger on the only woman ’oo could ever make Dodds do it. Then, a thing like that comes from ’abit — lifelong ’abit. It wouldn’t be a wife. It’d ’ave to be a mother to fix it on a chap so’s it ’ud last ’im all ’is life. I started thinkin’ and remembered where I’d seen it before. Then of course I knew. The gilded bit of aristocracy ’oo comes down ’ere sometimes is just the chap to ’ave a little brother like your young bloke.’

He’s a jeweller’s copyist, and one of the best on the shady side of the line.’ He turned to Penny and grinned. ‘When Lady Ermyntrude gives her dancing partner the old Earl’s jewelled toodle-oo clock to keep the wolf from the door, the old Earl is awakened every morning by a careful copy of our Arthur’s making. Likewise, Lady Maud’s ruby dog collar and the necklace Sir George gave little Eva on her twenty-first. They’re all copies of the originals made by our Arthur. Arthur, in fact, is one of the lads who make Society what it is today.’ He took the pile of papers from Lugg. ‘This, I fancy, is some of his handiwork. Now we’ll see.’

In each drawing the Chalice figured. In fact, the Chalice was the only subject which the artist had attempted to treat with any realism, whilst the drawings of the lady were ultra-modern, to say the best of them.

Impelled by the very force of her vigorous personality, the little company followed her. At least three of the party were bristling at her outrageous monologue, but she was superbly oblivious of any effect she might create. It was this quality which had earned her the unique position in the county which she undoubtedly occupied. Everybody knew her, nobody liked her, and most people were a little afraid of her. Her astounding success with any species of horseflesh earned her a grudging admiration. Nobody snubbed her because the tongue capable of it had not yet been born. Her rudeness and studied discourtesy were a byword for some fifty square miles, yet she came and went where she pleased because the only way of stopping her would have been to hurl her bodily from one’s front door, no mean feat in itself, and this method had not yet occurred to the conservative minds of her principal victims.

Presently, as his ears detected the sound for which he was listening, he began to stroll in a leisurely fashion down the drive.

‘Such a nice girl,’ he observed to the world at large. ‘Why in Heaven’s name couldn’t Marlowe Lobbett have waited a bit and picked on her instead of Biddy?’

that very lovely piece which you have in the case there, and which has been in your chapel for the last hundred and fifty odd years, is what might be called a “mock chalice”. You see,’ he continued, warming up to his subject, ‘most ancient ideas were simple, obvious notions; uncomplicated methods of preserving the safety of a treasure. Now in my opinion that “mock chalice”, as we’ll call it, is the last of many such — probably all different in design. The real Chalice has always been kept in the background — hidden out of sight — while the show-piece took its place to appease sightseers and thieves and so forth.’

‘everything that I have told you this morning would be perfectly obvious to an intelligent thief. I imagine the people you have to deal with are men of taste and discrimination. Once they had handled this Chalice themselves they’d be bound to come to the same conclusion as I have. Unfortunately, it has been described by several ancient writers. Modern delinquents have much more opportunity of finding out historical facts than their medieval counterparts.’

By the way,’ he added, ‘hasn’t an order come through to give you unofficially any assistance for which you may ask?’ Campion shot him a warning glance and he turned off the remark hastily. ‘I probably dreamt it,’ he said. He looked at Val curiously, but the boy had not noticed the incident.

‘Judge Lobbett, one of my greatest friends, owes his life to this young man,’ he added, turning to Penny. ‘Now what can I do for you two?’

But on the edge of the circle of light, and largely obscured by the shadows, was something that was obviously a figure turned in flight. It was horned and very tall. That was all that was clear. The rest was mostly hidden by the undergrowth and the exaggerated shadows thrown by the foliage. In the ordinary way the photograph might have been dismissed as a freak plate, an odd arrangement of light and shadow, but in view of the Professor’s story and Lugg’s horrific description it took on a startling significance. Seen in this light, every blur and shadow on the figure that might have passed as accidental took on a horrible suggestion of unnameable detail.

He turned away resolutely, however, and contented himself by hailing them with a long-drawn-out whistle that might easily have come from one of the myriad seabirds on the creek. He paused to listen, the heath whispering and rustling around him. Almost immediately the cry was returned, two melodious whistles that sounded pleasantly reassuring. Mr Campion appeared satisfied and strode on his way almost jauntily.

the rough private track which he had been so careful to avoid in his journey from the main road.

thus, with all ignominy, was Mr Campion escorted to the stables which he had so lately examined; but although he protested the whole way, it should perhaps be recorded that on the whole he felt distinctly satisfied.

The windows were barred to prevent an entry rather than an exit, but they were equally efficient in either case.

Even had he desired to escape, the process would have been difficult.

This was the one factor in his plans that had so far miscarried, and here he was completely in the dark. And he realised clearly that upon Mrs Dick’s character everything depended.

The burning question of the moment, as far as he was concerned, and the sole reason for his present position, was the problem of whether Mrs Dick was alone the employee of the ‘Société Anonyme’, the amateur who, with the professional assistance of Matthew Sanderson and his associates, was directly responsible for the whole adventure of the Gyrth Chalice, the employee whose death, according to the rules of the society, would constitute the only reason for the abandonment of the quest.

The shadow of the secret room would hang over them all relentlessly; the secret room which held the real Gyrth Chalice, and something else, that something which never seemed to leave Sir Percival’s thoughts. He wondered if Val would react in the same way as his father had done, or if the sharing of the secret would lighten the burden on the old man’s mind.

Immediately Mr Campion sensed the extreme force of her personality, for the first time, directed upon him alone. He had met forceful and unpleasant personalities before in the course of a short and somewhat chequered career, but never in a woman, and it was this fact which robbed him for the moment of his usual urbanity.

Even at that moment he could not help marvelling at the simple villainy of Mrs Dick’s arrangements. A stranger found savaged to death and probably unrecognisable in a racehorse box would convey only one thing to a jury’s mind, especially if the lady supplied any necessary details to show that he had entered the stable for some nefarious purpose. Twelve good Suffolk men and true would consider it a case of poetic justice.

his heart failed him as he thought of the Tower completely unprotected save for Val and a handful of servants, all of whom would be taken by surprise. It would not only be robbery with violence, but robbery by a group of picked men, each a master in his own particular line. Such a party could hardly fail, since they had such a very good notion where to look for their spoil. The difficulty of tracing them once the coup was made would be unsurmountable even for Scotland Yard, since the treasure itself could never be traced.

a single slim aristocratic figure, with the unmistakable poker-back of the old regime.

Sir Percival himself was more human than Campion or the Professor had ever seen him before. In sharing the secret of the Room with his son he seemed to have halved a burden that had been a little over-heavy for him alone.

Further, we also command that in times of trouble, or such days as the House of Gyrth may be in danger, that the master allow two witnesses to go with them, strong men and true, sworn to keep faith and all secrecy as to the Treasure and the manner of its keeping.

The visitor turned to Campion and the Professor. ‘Strong men and true’, he said, smiling at them. ‘Of course, I understand, strictly speaking, my dear Albert, that “such days as the House of Gyrth may be in danger” are past. But I certainly agree with the Colonel that in the circumstances we might stretch a point in this — er — archaic formula. It seems the only courtesy, Professor, that we can extend to you for your tremendous assistance in this unfortunate and distressing affair.’

Mr Campion felt himself clambering up a narrow stone spiral staircase, and here the air was scarcer and there was a faint, almost intangible smell of spices. He heard the grating of iron on stone and stepped forward on to a level floor. Val was close behind him, and once again there was the grating of the iron, and then complete silence. He felt his scalp tingling. He sensed that he was in a very small space, and with them he was certain, in the instinctive fashion that one is conscious of such things, there was something else, something incredibly old, something terrible.

Set immediately below the window so that the light fell directly upon it was a little stone altar, and kneeling before it, directly in front of the huddled group, was a figure in full Tourney armour.

It was that of a giant, and at first, he thought it was but an immense suit of black armour only, fashioned for a man of legendary stature, but as his eye travelled slowly down the great gyves to the wrists, he caught sight of the human hands, gnarled, yellow, and shapeless like knotted willow roots. Between them, resting on the slab, was the Gyrth Chalice, whose history was lost behind the veils of legend. It was a little shallow bowl of red gold, washed from the English mountain streams before the Romans came. A little shallow bowl whose beaten sides showed the marks of a long-dead goldsmith’s hammer, and in whose red heart a cluster of uncut rubies lay like blood, still guarded by the first Messire Gyrth who earned for Sanctuary its name. Campion raised his eyes slowly to the head of the figure and was relieved to find that the visor was down. The head was thrown back, the mute iron face raised to the circular window through which Mrs Dick had peered.

As Campion stared at the figure he was obsessed by the uncanny feeling that it might move at any moment, that the mummified hands might snatch the sword from the wall and the great figure tower above the impious strangers who had disturbed his vigil. It was with relief that he heard the Colonel’s quiet voice. ‘If you are ready, gentlemen—’ No other word was spoken. Val retied the handkerchief and once again there was the grating of metal and the procession started on its return journey.

there had been something more than mortal about this ageless giant, something uncanny which filled him with almost superstitious awe, and he was glad that Penny did not know, that she could live and laugh in a house that hid this strange piece of history within its walls, unconscious of its existence.