The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham Page A

the visiting children, nor the angry artist at the cottage, nor yet his busy missis. They’re all getting ready for a party, I understand. The Chief Constable has got an invite.” He broke off to slap his thigh. “Perhaps we shall all get one.” His smile faded and he moved his head sharply. “Who’s this gentleman coming along now, sir?”
    There had been some little activity before the front door for some time. Miss Pinkerton, evidently explaining that she did not want to give any trouble to anybody, had been helped into the back of the car. Now a sturdy, middle-sized man in a dark city suit was hurrying over the stones towards them.
    â€œThe name is Smith,” murmured Mr. Campion. “He is visiting the new estate on the hill, is not well known to the Cassands family, appears to be collecting the secretary who was sickened by the corpse. Yes,” he added aloud cheerfully, “try the kitchen by all means.”
    â€œCampion?” Sidney Simon Smith raised his voice while still some yards distant. He appeared to be in a tremendous hurry and certainly wasted no time whatever in ordinary civilities. They received a fleeting impression of a flattened version of the middle-aged pretty-boy face, complete with protuberant blue eyes and corrugated dark brown hair. His urgent voice was remarkably pleasant and friendly. “Campion, have you a car down here?” He came no nearer but hovered, glancing back at the Snipe as if he feared it might leave without him.
    â€œNot with me.” Mr. Campion, who was old-fashioned and whose only previous meeting with the man had been brief, sounded unusually definite.
    â€œShame. Has he got one?” The S.S.S. man indicated the Superintendent, intimating thereby that he was aware of his existence.
    â€œNo. He came by the fields.”
    â€œWhat about you?” Lugg got a dazzling smile, equalising, kind.
    â€œThat’s my batman.”
    â€œOh I see.” The smile was taken away from Mr. Lugg, who was amused. Smith was signalling to the chauffeur to remain where he was. “I say Campion, is that red-headed girl the Amanda Fitton of Alandel?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œShe says she’s your wife.”
    â€œSo she is.”
    The pretty-boy face crumpled angrily. He had still come no nearer.
    â€œNobody told me that. I didn’t know.”
    â€œDon’t cry about it, mate,” Lugg was beginning, but was silenced in time by a look from his employer.
    â€œThere aren’t any cars then?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI see. And Miranda Straw hasn’t one either? Well, wait a minute while I tell the Genappe chauffeur to come back for me. There was no point in him doing the double journey if someone else had a car.”
    He ran off again and they all looked after him.
    â€œWaste not, want not,” said Superintendent South.
    The three men resumed their conference.
    â€œThis is the only thing I’ve got to show you at the moment, Mr. Campion. Look, a little bronze bead,” South said, opening a matchbox to display it. “It was lying on the body’s shirt, just near the collar, quite loose. My Sergeant happened to see it. I can’t think where it could have come from.”
    Mr. Campion stared at it. It was less than a quarter of an inch across, and flat. It reminded him of a beaded footstool which had stood in the spare bedroom at Uncle William’s mother’s house at Cambridge, when he himself had been a very young man. He handed it back.
    â€œOdd,” he murmured.
    The Superintendent pocketed the box. “It probably means nothing at all,” he remarked, his grin reappearing. “You find the strangest things in fields. I found a fried egg once, an ordinary fresh fried egg, still hot, miles and blessed miles from anywhere. There wasn’t a caravan,there wasn’t a fire, there wasn’t a soul in acres and acres, and yet there it was lying in the grass like a