Mr. Campion: Criminologist

THE CASE OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT The Case of the White Elephant Mr Campion, piloting his companion through the crowded courtyard at Burlington House, became aware of the old lady in the Daimler partly because her chauffeur almost ran over him and partly because she gave him a stare of such vigorous and personal disapproval that he felt she must either know him very well indeed or have mistaken him for someone else entirely. Juliet Fysher-Sprigge, who was leaning on his arm with all the weariness of a two-hour trek round the academy's Summer Exhibition, enlightened him. "We were not amused, were we?" she said. "Old-fashioned people have minds that are just too prurient, my dear. After all, I have known you for years, haven't I, and I'm not even married to Philip. Besides, the academy is so respectable. It isn't as though she'd seen me sneaking out of the National Gallery." Mr Campion handed her into a taxicab. "Who was she?" he enquired, hoisting his lank form in after her. Juliet laughed. Her laughter was one of her most charming attributes, for it wiped the sophistication from her débutante's face and left her the schoolgirl he had known three years before. "My dear, didn't you recognize her? That would have been the last straw for the poor darling! That's Florence, Dowager Countess of Marie. Philip's Auntie Flo." Mr Campion's pale blue eyes grew momentarily more intelligent behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. "Ah, hence the disgust," he said. "You'll have to explain me away. The police are always doing it." Juliet turned to him with the wide-eyed ingenuousness of one who perceives a long-awaited opening. "You still dabble in police and detection and things, then?" she said breathlessly and not very tactfully, since his reputation as a criminologist was considerable. "Do tell me, what is the low-down on these terribly exciting burglaries? Are the police really beaten or are they being bribed? No one talks of anything else these days. I just had to see you and find out." Her companion leant back in the leathery depths of the cab and sighed regretfully. "When you phoned me and demanded to be taken to this execrable exhibition I was vain enough to think it was my companionship you were after," he said. "Now it turns out to be merely a vulgar pursuit of the material for gossip. Well, my girl, you're going to be disappointed. The clever gentleman doesn't know a thing and, what's more, he doesn't care. Have you lost anything yourself?" "Me?" Juliet's gratification at the implied compliment all but outweighed her disappointment. "Of course I haven't. It's only the really worth-while collections that have gone. That's why it's so interesting. The De Breuil diamonds went first. Then the Denver woman lost her emeralds and the glorious Napoleon necklace. Josephine Pharoah had her house burgled and just lost her tiara, which was the one really good thing she had, and now poor old Mrs Dacre has had her diamonds and rubies pinched, including the famous dog collar. Forty-two diamonds, my dear!—each one quite as big as a pea. They say it's a cat burglar and the police know him quite well but they can't find him—at least, that's one story. The other one is that it's all being done for the insurance and the police are in it. What do you think?" Mr Campion glanced at her affectionately and noted that the gold hair under her small black hat curled as naturally as ever. "Both stories are equally good," he announced placidly. "Come and have some tea, or has Philip's Auntie Flo got spies everywhere?" Miss Fysher-Sprigge blushed. "I don't care if she has," she said. "I've quarrelled with Philip, anyway." It took Mr Campion several minutes, until they were seated at a table on the edge of the Hotel Monde's smaller dance floor, in fact, before he fully digested this piece of information. Juliet was leaning back in her chair, her eyes roving over the gathering in a frank search for old acquaintances, when he spoke again. "Seriously?" he enquired. Juliet met his eyes and again he saw her sophistication vanish. "I hope not," she said soberly. "I've been rather an ass. Can I tell you about it?" Mr Campion smiled ruefully. It was a sign of the end of the thirties, he supposed, when one submitted cheerfully to the indignity of taking a young woman out only to hear about her hopes and fears concerning a younger man. Juliet went on blissfully, lowering her voice so that the heart searchings of the balalaika orchestra across the floor concealed it from adjoining tables. "Philip is a dear, but he has to be so filthily careful about the stupidest things," she said, accepting a rhum-baba. "The P.O. casts a sort of white light over people, have you noticed? His relations are like it, too, only worse. You can't talk of anything without getting warned off. The aunt we saw today bit my head off the other evening for merely mentioning these cat burglaries, which, after all, are terribly exciting. 'My child,' she said, 'we can't afford to know about such things,' and went on talking about her old White Elephant until I nearly wept." "White Elephant?" Mr Campion looked blank. "The charity?" Juliet nodded. "'Send your white elephant to Florence Countess of Marie, and she will find it a home where it will be the pet of the family,'" she quoted. "It's quite an important affair, patronised by royalty and blessed by every archbishop in the world. I pointed out it was only a glorified jumble sale and she nearly had a fit. She works herself to death for it. I go and help pack up parcels sometimes—or I did before this row with Philip. I've been rather silly. I've done something infuriating. Philip's livid with me now and I don't know what's going to happen when he finds out everything. I must tell somebody. Can I tell you?" A faint smile passed over Mr Campion's thin face. "You're quite a nice girl," he said, "but you won't stay twenty-one for ever. Stop treating me as though I was a maiden uncle." "You must be thirty-six at least," said Miss Fysher-Sprigge brutally, "and I'm rather glad, because presumably you're sensible. Look here, if a man has a criminal record it doesn't mean he's always going to be stealing things, does it? Not if he promises to go straight?" Her companion frowned. "I don't quite follow," he said. "Age is stopping the brain from functioning. I thought we were talking about Philip Graysby, Auntie Flo's nephew?" "So we are," said Juliet. "He hasn't got the record, of course, but Henry Swan has. Henry Swan is—or, rather, was—Philip's man. He'd been with Philip for eighteen months and been perfectly good, and then this came out about him. Philip said he was awfully sorry but he'd have to go. Philip couldn't help it, I suppose—I do see that now—but at the time I was furious. It seemed so unfair, and we had a quarrel. I said some beastly things and so did he, but he wouldn't give in and Swan went." She paused and eyed her companion dubiously. Mr Campion shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't seem very serious," he said. Juliet accepted the cigarette he offered her and seemed engrossed in the tip of it. "No," she agreed. "That part isn't. But you see, I'm a very impulsive person and I was stupidly cross at the time and so when I had a wonderful idea for getting my own back I acted on it. I got Swan a job with the most respectable person I knew and, in order to do it, I gave him a reference. To make it a good reference I didn't say anything about the record. How's that?" "Not so good," he admitted. "Who's the most respectable person harbouring this human bomb?" Juliet avoided his eyes. "Philip's Auntie Flo," she said. "She's the stiffest, thorniest, most conventional of them all. Philip doesn't go there often so he hasn't seen Swan yet, but when he does and makes enquiries and hears about me—well, it's going to be awkward. D'you think he'll ever forgive me? He stands to get a fortune from Auntie Flo if he doesn't annoy her. It was a silly thing of me to do, wasn't it?" "Not bright," agreed Mr Campion. "Are you in love with Philip?" "Horribly," said Juliet Fysher-Sprigge and looked away across the dance floor. Mr Campion had spent some time expounding a wise course of action, in which a clean breast to all concerned figured largely, when he became aware that he was not being heard. Juliet was still staring across the room, her eyes puzzled. "I say," she said unexpectedly, "this place is wildly expensive, isn't it?" "I hope not," said Mr Campion mildly. Juliet did not smile. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and her eyes questioning. "Don't be a fool. You know what I mean. This is probably the most expensive place in London, isn't it? How queer! It looks as though Auntie Flo really has got her spies everywhere. That's her manicurist over there, having tea alone. He glanced casually across the room. "The woman sitting directly under the orchestra?" he enquired. "The one who looks like a little bull in a navy hat? She's an interesting type, isn't she? Not very nice." Juliet's eyes were still thoughtful. "That's her. Miss Matisse. A visiting manicurist," she said. "She goes to dozens of people I know. I believe she's very good. How funny for her to come to tea alone, here of all places..." Mr Campion's casual interest in the small square figure who managed somehow to look flamboyant in spite of her sober clothes showed signs of waning. "She may be waiting for someone," he suggested. "But she's ordered her tea and started it." "Oh well, perhaps she just felt like eating." "Rubbish!" said Juliet. "You pay ten and sixpence just to sit in this room because you can dance if you want to." Her host laughed. "Auntie Flo has a pretty turn of speed if she tracked us down here and then whipped round and set her manicuring bloodhound on us, all in half an hour," he said. Juliet ignored him. Her attention had wandered once again. "I say," she murmured, "can you see through that mirror over there? See that man eating alone? I thought at first he was watching Miss Matisse, but I believe it's you he's most interested in." Her companion turned his head and his eyes widened. "Apologies," he said. "I underestimated you. That's Detective Sergeant Blower, one of the best men in the public-school and night-club tradition. I wonder who he's tailing. Don't watch him—it's unkind." Juliet laughed. "You're a most exciting person to have tea with," she said. "I do believe..." The remainder of her remark was lost as, in common with all but one visitor in the room, she was silenced by what was, for the Hotel Monde, a rather extraordinary incident. The balalaika orchestra had ceased to play for a moment or so and the dance floor was practically deserted when, as though taking advantage of the lull, the woman in the navy hat rose from her chair and shouted down the whole length of the long room, in an effort, apparently, to attract the attention of a second woman who had just entered. "Mrs Gregory!" Her voice was powerful and well articulated. "Mrs Gregory! Mrs Gregory!" The newcomer halted as all eyes were turned upon her, and her escort expostulated angrily to the excited maître d'hotel who hurried forward. Miss Matisse sat down, and in the silence Mr Campion heard her explaining in a curiously flat voice to the waiter who came up to her. "I am sorry. I thought I recognised a friend. I was mistaken. Bring me my bill, please." Juliet stared across the table, her young face shocked. "What a very extraordinary thing to do," she said. Mr Campion did not reply. From his place of vantage he could see in the mirror that Detective Sergeant Blower had also called for his bill and was preparing to leave. Some little time later, when Mr Campion deposited Juliet on her Mount Street doorstep, she was in a more cheerful mood.