“Yes. She can’t help it. She wanted to marry Herbert immediately and invest her savings in a shop so that she could settle down and make something of him. What are you thinking, Albert?”
“Thank heaven she can sew,” murmured her escort piously. “When did you turn Herbert into a detective?”
“Oh, I didn’t do it. It was entirely his idea. You see, when Gracie first told me about him I begged her to wait. A man must have the kind of work he really loves, mustn’t he? Even I know that. I told her that she simply must make Herbert find out what his vocation was and then I’d see he got into it. Then we could both wait and see how it worked.”
She hesitated and smiled brightly across the table.
“And Herbert thought he felt the call to become a ’tec?” Mr. Campion’s lean face split into a smile of pure amusement. “How charming! What did you do? Bribe a private agency to take him on?”
“No, I didn’t.” Miss Pleyell was wide-eyed. “That would have been an awfully good way of doing it, wouldn’t it? I never thought of that. No, I simply employed him myself at two pounds a week. Gracie usually takes about six weeks to get over a passion, and I thought it would be the most inexpensive way of doing it.”
Her companion looked at her almost affectionately.
“You have a sort of flair, my child, haven’t you?” he said. “He just loafs around until Gracie’s Bulgarian eye lights on another victim, I suppose?”
Chloe hesitated and evidently decided to make a clean breast.
“Well, no,” she said at last. “Unfortunately he doesn’t. In a way it’s rather awkward. Herbert’s devastatingly conscientious. He will work. He just insists on detecting all over the place. I put him onto mother for the first week, but he found out that her cook was taking bribes from the tradesmen and had the idiocy to want the woman dismissed. Mother was furious, of course, as cooks are so scarce. I had a frightful time with the three of them. Now I’ve been rather clever, I think. I’ve told Herbert to keep an eye on Matthew. Matthew is the complete model of rectitude. He never forgets his dignity for an instant. I think Matthew will exhaust Herbert, don’t you?”
Mr. Campion took off his spectacles, a sign with him of deep emotion. In his mind’s eye he saw again the pompous young K.C., so correct and conventional that even his mother did not dare to use any diminutive of his Christian name.
“You astound me,” he said simply. “You have my undying respect. How did you get Sir Matthew to stand for it?”
Chloe was silent for some time, her glance resting thoughtfully on the middle distance.
“I didn’t,” she said at last. “Herbert is very discreet, so I didn’t think it very necessary to mention it to Matthew at all. Do you think that was unwise?”
Mr. Campion’s face grew blank.
“My good girl,” he said flatly. “My good insane girl.”
Miss Pleyell colored and glanced down at her plate.
“It did just occur to me once or twice that it might not be such a good idea as it looked. That’s why I mentioned it to you,” she murmured defensively. “Matthew’s ridiculously stiff in some ways, isn’t he?”
Since he did not trust himself to speak, her host made no comment. She forced a smile.
“Still, he’ll never notice Herbert,” she said. “Herbert’s such an ordinary, nondescript little man. Matthew never notices unimportant people.”
Mr. Campion took himself in hand and when he spoke his voice was almost gentle. For ten minutes Miss Pleyell sat and listened to him, her vivid eyes wide and her cheeks bright.
Campion had a gift for lucidity when he chose to employ it, and his short lecture on the gentle art of blackmail and its perpetrators was clear and to the point. He also touched upon the more ethical side of the arrangement, with a direct reference to the dictates of good taste. His feelings carried him away, and he only came to an abrupt pause when Miss Pleyell’s small face began to pucker dangerously.
“Oh, how awful!” she said, waving away his belated apology. “I never looked at it like that. It never entered my head that Herbert might be dishonest. I do see it’s dangerous and rather beastly, I do now, but before it never occurred to me. I was simply thinking of not losing Gracie. What shall I do? Anything except tell Matthew. I daren’t do that. I just daren’t. He wouldn’t see it in my way at all and I am terribly fond of him. What shall I do?”
She looked so small and pretty and woebegone that Mr. Campion felt a brute.
“Call the watchdog off,” he said cheerfully. “Go round to Paul Fenner of the Efficiency Detective Bureau and tell him from me to give Herbert a temporary job at your expense. Then keep quiet. Don’t tell the story to anybody.”
“No, of course I won’t.” Miss Pleyell’s relief was charming. “You’re a darling,” she said. “A perfect dear. I’m terribly grateful to you, Albert. You’re so frightfully clever. I’ll do exactly what you say and then everything will be all right, won’t it? You don’t think I’m a fool, though, do you? I couldn’t bear that.”
Mr. Campion surveyed her with great tolerance.
“I think you’re fantastic, my child,” he said gravely.
He made a different and more forceful remark about her the following morning when her telephone call coincided with his early tea. She was tearfully incoherent at the other end of the wire.
“It’s happened.” Her whisper reached him, shaken with tragic intensity. “It’s Herbert. What shall I do?”
“Herbert?” Mr. Campion shook the sleep out of his head and strove to collect his thoughts. “Oh yes, Herbert’s the amateur detective. I’ve got you now. What’s he done?”
“Can I tell you on the phone?”
“Well, I hope so.” Mr. Campion raised his eyebrows at the instrument. “What’s he doing? Demanding money?”
“Oh no... no... worse than that. Albert, he’s found out something about Matthew and he wants to go to the police.”
“Something about Matthew? What about Matthew?”
“Herbert says he’s got proof that Matthew’s a crook.”
There was a long silence from Mr. Campion’s end of the wire and his caller repeated the operative word.
“A c-r-double o-k. He wants to go to the police. Can you hear me? What shall I do?”
Campion held the receiver an inch or so from his ear.
“Yes, I can hear,” he said dryly. “My voice had left me, that was all. Well, my dear young friend, your course is clear. Tell Master Herbert to go to the police and make his accusation by all means. When he changes his tone and you get down to the vital question of the fiver he has in mind, threaten to send for the police. In fact, do send for them if he doesn’t go quietly, but I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty.”
“Oh, I see.” Chloe sounded partially convinced. “Then you think Herbert’s simply lying about Matthew being a mysterious thief and all that? He’s very convincing. Are you there, Albert? Listen, you don’t think it’s true? What’s the matter with your voice? Why does it keep going like this?”
“It’s a form of nervous paralysis,” explained Mr. Campion gently and rang off.
While he was dressing he thought of Chloe and shook his head over her. She was beautiful and she was charming and at heart a dear, he reflected, but unfortunately hardly safe out. He hoped most devoutly for her sake that the dignified Sir Matthew would never hear of Grade’s Herbert.
A morning at the Leicester Galleries and a protracted luncheon at the Junior Greys kept him away from the Piccadilly flat until halfway through the afternoon. He let himself in with his key, and was walking down the corridor to his study when an unexpected vision on the floor of his sitting room caught his eye through the half-open doorway. He paused and stared at it.