The Beckoning Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “Aunt Hatt is amazing. Everything is just where it always was. Look it up, Albert.”
    Mr. Campion took the volume obediently and pushed up his spectacles.
    â€œ
The Language and Sentiment of Flowers
,” he read. “Published by Messrs. Ballantyne and Hanson, London and Edinburgh 1863, price sixpence. Rhododendron: danger, beware.” He looked up. “Eh? Where’s the other one?” He took the final wilted stalk on which a few purple buds were just observable. “That’s Monk’s-hood, is it, Charles?”
    â€œWas when I went to school. What does it say? ‘The bums are in?’”
    Mr. Campion turned the pages among which the pressed flowers of earlier heart-throbs lay brown and sad.
    â€œMonk’s-hood,” he said at last. “Well well. ‘A deadly foe is here’.”
    Behind him Amanda laughed. “Again?” she said.
    Charlie Luke was frowning. He seemed mildly affronted.
    â€œMourning—danger—do not refuse me,” he repeated. “That’s a smashing welcome home. Who gave it to you, son?”
    Rupert, who had been standing before them throughout the incident, had lost interest in the proceedings. He was making a line on the stones with the rubber heel of his sandal. He liked the Chief Inspector, but the particular way his brows went up to points in the middle reminded him of one certain clown in the circus at Christmas who had seemed to him to have a face so exquisitely humorous that he could not think of it without laughing until his midriff hurt. As he had put the question Luke’s brows had shot up, and the mischief was done. Rupert could think of nothing else. He laughed and laughed until he slid under the chair on which Luke sat and was extricated and shaken and sat up still laughing, crimson in the face and hysterical.
    â€œA man,” was all he could gasp, “just an ordinary man.”
    Meanwhile Luke’s face had grown dark and he became very quiet. So far he had diagnosed a family joke but was not at all sure at whose expense it had been made. Mr. Campion remained thoughtful. Presently he took out a pencil and made a note of the flowers and their meaning on the back of an envelope. As he glanced up he caught sight of the D.D.C.I.’s expression and became instantly apologetic.
    â€œMy dear chap,” he said, “you must think we’re round the bend.”
    Luke turned his head. Amanda had withdrawn andPrune, exhibiting unexpected resource in the matter, had dealt firmly with young Rupert, swinging him up under her arm and carrying him into the house. The two men were alone in the garden.
    â€œYou and who else?” Luke enquired suspiciously.
    â€œMe and my chum.” Mr. Campion appeared embarrassed. “My correspondent. The lad with the affected handwriting.”
    Luke thrust his hands in his pockets, jangling the coins there. He was standing with his feet wide apart, rising slightly on his toes; the great weight of his shoulders was apparent and his chin was thrust forward aggressively.
    â€œThere’s something terrifying about this place,” he said abruptly. “It’s so beautiful that you don’t notice for a bit that it’s sent you barmy. I feel drunk. All that greengrocery’s quite clear to you, is it? It’s just laid on with the sunshine and the nice voices and the barrel in the cellar, I suppose? Just one of the things you happen to have.”
    Mr. Campion looked more and more unhappy. He was looking at the stones at his feet and retracing with his own toe the line that Rupert had drawn. After a while he looked up.
    â€œHave you ever thought I was a bit redundant?” he enquired unexpectedly. “My job, I mean. Don’t get this wrong. I don’t mean anything sociological. I’m merely talking of work. Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t do anything that the police couldn’t handle rather better?”
    Luke