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    Sweet Danger
    Sweet Danger
    Sweet Danger
    Ebook320 pages5 hours

    Sweet Danger

    By Margery Allingham

    4/5

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    • Mystery

    • Adventure

    • Deception

    • Friendship

    • Suspense

    • Amateur Detective

    • Amateur Sleuth

    • Fish Out of Water

    • Damsel in Distress

    • Mysterious Past

    • Whodunit

    • Unlikely Hero

    • Unlikely Heroes

    • Loyal Sidekick

    • Secret Society

    • Treasure Hunt

    • Crime

    • Escape

    • Investigation

    • Loyalty

    About this ebook

    With gentleman sleuth Albert Campion on the case and plenty of European intrigue, “Sweet Danger is for the connoisseur of detective fiction” (Sunday Times).

    Nestled along the Adriatic coastline, the kingdom of Averna has suddenly—and suspiciously—become the hottest property in Europe, and Albert Campion is given the task of recovering the long-missing proofs of ownership.

    His mission takes him from the French Riviera to the sleepy village of Pontisbright, where he meets the flame-haired Amanda Fitton. Her family claim to be the rightful heirs to the principality, and insist on joining Campion's quest. Unfortunately for them, a criminal financier and his heavies are also on the trail. The clock is ticking for Campion and his cohorts to outwit the thugs and solve the mystery of Averna.

    “Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light. And she has another quality, not usually associated with crime stories, elegance.” —Agatha Christie

    “The best of mystery writers.” —The New Yorker
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 28, 2023
    ISBN9781504087469
    Sweet Danger
    Author

    Margery Allingham

    Margery Allingham, born in 1904 to Emily and Herbert Allingham, was an esteemed English novelist, author, and editor of Christian Globe and the New London Journal. Considered one of the four “Queens of Crime” from the golden age of detective fiction, Allingham began writing stories and plays at a young age and published her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, at 19. She later studied drama and speech training at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Allingham is best known for her character Albert Campion, a sleuth first introduced in The Crime of Black Dudley. Campion was featured in seventeen subsequent novels, and even more short stories. Allingham continued to write until her death on June 30, 1966.

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    Reviews for Sweet Danger

    4/5

    181 ratings7 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Boring, twee. Couldn’t finish it.
    • 3/5
      What was Albert Campion up to in the Hotel Beauregard, Mentone? Posing as the king of a tinpot Balkan state looking for his lost crown. It was all too intriguing for Guffy Randall, so he joined in the treasure hunt ... to the bitter end. Even when it got very nasty indeed.

      First (actually it turns out to be the second) of the Campion books I've read, and whilst good, this wont necessarily put him up there with Alleyn and Rhoddenbarr.

      A small portion of land has suddenly become very attractive and important to a number of parties, including the British Government, who charge Campion with sorting it out in their favour.

      Throw in Campion's friends, pretty young girls, rich businessmen and their cronies, rural English Villages, psycho doctors and a quest, and that pretty much covers it in a really short book. Some twists are heavily signpointed, but little to dent the story.
    • 3/5
       I like the way that, so far, these have all been very different books. They're not all murders, this one is a bit of a treasure hunt under increasingly dangerous circumstances. The list of characters in the front of the book gives away who the major villain of the piece is, but that doesn't detract from the increasingly unlikely events. Campion's identify remains a mystery, who or what is e under the cover of this assumed persona?
    • 4/5
      This is an earlier Albert Campion and more like The Gyrth Chalice, which is to say a thriller or caper novel rather than a straightforward murder mystery.I read it years ago, but the only part I could clearly remember was Amanda (Campion's future wife) asking him to wait for her till she grew up - she's only 17 in this book. Like The Gyrth Chalice, I had a memory of superstitious legends and general creepiness which I think accurately describes The Fear Sign.I enjoyed the book after reading it again recently, but my all-time favourite Allingham is still More Work For the Undertaker.
    • 4/5
      This was one of the more bizarre Campion mysteries, and also one of the more entertaining ones. Campion and his associates are trying to find the deeds of ownership to a rural estate that was once an independent European kingdom. It has degenerated into a rarely-used mill, home to a salt-of-the-earth group of siblings. Together they try to follow an old riddle describing the location of the crown and the founding documents. A London business mogul is also interested, which leads to danger for everyone at the mill. As bizarre as all of this sounds, it works. The Campion mysteries have more to do with espionage than others in this genre, and that is true in this volume. The build-up at the beginning, getting everyone to Pontisbright and involved in the mystery, is longer and more detailed than it really needs to be. Once everyone gets to Pontisbright things start moving quickly. In this volume we get to learn a bit more about the enigma that is Lugg, and Lugg is given the opportunity to engage in some hooligan tendencies.
    • 5/5
      Brief review, no spoilers So far, this may be my favorite Campion in the series. I haven't read them all yet, but up to this point, definitely my favorite. I'm amazed that so many people here gave it such low ratings, but to each his own, I suppose. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a good adventure story, because it's not so much a mystery, but rather more of a suspense/adventure type thing. I would also say that if you've been following Campion up to this point, you're going to really enjoy this one.In a nutshell, the story goes something like this:Guffy Randall has just dropped his mother off at an Italian spa, and is on his way home when he calls in at a hotel he knows quite well. It seems the manager is quite upset because of three rather odd people staying there, the main one being the Hereditary Paladin of Averna, or in short, Albert Campion. The two men accompanying him are his good friends, who are in disguise as well. Campion must take Randall into his confidence and explains that a very important piece of property must be claimed by the British Government, and he is trying to get a lead on some rather important articles that will lead to that objective. His search leads him to a very tiny village in Suffolk, where a rival gang is also trying to find these articles. It is there that he meets the Fittons, a delightfully eccentric family who may or may not be the heirs to a fortune. Albert and friends get caught up in some very dangerous business along with the family and a rather batty doctor.I loved this book, and I've been sitting on the DVD produced by the BBC so now I'll have the great fortune to be able to watch the book come to life. If you haven't seen these DVDs, do so now!Highly recommended; not a cozy, not a police procedural, but mystery readers will enjoy it.
    • 5/5
      I find it strange that I'm having trouble trying to decide what to say about this book. It is my favourite Campion novel, but I'm not sure if I can say why. It just is. The action begins on the Riviera, when August Randall (known to his intimates as Guffy) witness two unexpected events. The first is a strange man absconding from a high class hotel out a window; the second is Albert Campion, installed in the same hotel as the Hereditary Paladin of Averna. Averna is a very small and previously unimportant piece of Europe that has suddenly become potentially strategic. The British government needs three important items to prove ownership - crown, deed and bill of sale - and they have set Campion on the case to find them. Guffy willingly throws in with the Paladin and his "court", little knowing what an adventure lies ahead. From the Riviera, the group moves on to the small English village of Pontisbright. This is the former site of the set of the Earls of Pontisbright, last heirs to the crown of Averna, as well as the home of the three young Fittons, Mary, Amanda and Hal. Their father attempted to claim the earldom and failed, due to the lack of proof of marriage for the last earl and his lady. Now they live in the mill with their American Aunt Hatt and do their best to make ends meet. Mary is quiet and gentle, while Hal is a fairly typical 16-year old English schoolboy of the day. It is Amanda who bursts off the page with fire and charm. Seventeen and practical, she's the one who really runs the family. When Campion and his companions take lodgings at the mill, she quickly appoints herself his second. She is the one who shows him the section of oak trunk from the old Pontisbright estate with a riddle carved into it that, when solved, will give the location of the three treasures. A clever, complicated treasure hunt follows, filled with such characters as a very odd doctor, a suitably dastardly villain, honest young Englishmen and the familiar figures of Campion and, of course, Lugg. After describing Police at the Funeral as Allingham's "step up" to more serious stories after the Boy's Own tales of the early Campion novels, at first this one seems like a step back. Instead, this is a successful mixture - wild adventure, but treated in a grown up fashion. The book did lose a point for the whole Dr ?? sub-plot, which I felt was totally unnecessary and really did nothing to advance the story at all. All the same, Sweet Danger is simply a delightful read, that I recommend to all. Campion shines here, as does Amanda from her first moment on page. If you want to try out Campion and like a wild adventure, this is the book to read.

    Book preview

    Sweet Danger - Margery Allingham

    Sweet Danger

    Also By Margery Allingham

    Blackkerchief Dick

    The White Cottage Mystery

    The Crime at Black Dudley

    Mystery Mile

    Look to the Lady

    Police at the Funeral

    Sweet Danger

    Death of a Ghost

    Flowers for the Judge

    The Case of the Late Pig

    Dancers in Mourning

    The Fashion in Shrouds

    Black Plumes

    Traitor’s Purse

    Dance of the Years

    Coroner’s Pidgin

    More Work for the Undertaker

    The Tiger in the Smoke

    The Beckoning Lady

    Hide My Eyes

    The China Governess

    The Mind Readers

    Cargo of Eagles

    The Darings of the Red Rose

    Novellas & Short Stories

    Mr. Campion: Criminologist

    Mr. Campion and Others

    Wanted: Someone Innocent

    The Casebook of Mr Campion

    Deadly Duo

    No Love Lost

    The Allingham Casebook

    The Allingham Minibus

    The Return of Mr. Campion

    Room to Let: A Radio-Play

    Campion at Christmas

    Non-Fiction

    The Oaken Heart: The Story of an English Village at War

    As Maxwell March

    Rogue’s Holiday

    The Man of Dangerous Secrets

    The Devil and Her Son

    Sweet Danger

    An Albert Campion Mystery

    Margery Allingham

    1

    In Confidence

    Asmall window in the sunlit, yellow side of the Hôtel Beauregard, Mentone, opened slowly, and through it a hand appeared, which, after depositing a compact brown suitcase upon the sill, speedily vanished.

    Guffy Randall, who was allowing his car to roll in a leisurely fashion down the gentle slope to the sharp right-angle turn which would bring him to the front of the hotel, and lunch, pulled up and observed the now closed window and the bag with that air of polite yet careless interest, which was his chief characteristic.

    It seemed such a foolish thing to do, this leaving of a small brown portmanteau upon the sill of a shut, first-floor window. Mr Randall was stolid, Nordic, and logical. He also had the heaven-sent gift of curiosity, and thus it was that he was still gazing idly at the hotel wall when the sequel of the first incident occurred.

    A glazed ground-floor window was opened cautiously, and a small man in a brown suit began to climb out. It was a very small window, and the unconventional departer seemed more anxious to watch what he was leaving than to see where he was going, so that he came out feet first, his knees resting upon the sill. He moved with remarkable agility, and as Mr Randall watched he saw to his astonishment a hand replace an unmistakable revolver in a strained hip pocket.

    The next moment the newcomer had closed the window, hoisted himself carefully to his feet, and, stepping on a pipe-bracket, pulled himself far enough up to retrieve the bag. Then he dropped silently on to the dusty path and set off down the road at a sprint.

    The young man caught a glimpse of a small, pink, rat-like face and scared red-rimmed eyes.

    Naturally the obvious explanation occurred to him, but he felt all the mistrust which the Englishman abroad feels towards any judicial system he does not understand, coupled with a vigorous horror of becoming involved in it in any way. Moreover, he was hungry. The day was as hot and as lazy as only a day on the French Riviera out of season can be, and he felt no personal animosity towards any impecunious hotel guest who must resort to undignified methods of departure, so long as he himself were not inconvenienced.

    He turned the Lagonda gently into the palm-lined street which ran round the bay and drove slowly through the ornate iron gates to the hotel entrance.

    As he pulled up in the wide gravel parking place, he noted with relief that the hotel was by no means crowded. Rugby, Oxford, and the shires had produced in Guffy Randall, at the age of twenty-eight, an almost perfect specimen of the younger diehard. He was amiable, well-mannered, snobbish to the point of comedy and, in spite of his faults, a rather delightful person. His cheerful round face was hardly distinguished, but his very blue eyes were frank and kindly, and his smile was disarming.

    At the moment he was returning from the somewhat trying experience of conducting an aged and valetudinarian dowager aunt to an Italian spa and having now deposited her safely at her villa was proceeding quietly homeward along the coast.

    As he set foot in the cool ornate vestibule of the Beauregard, conscience smote him. He remembered the place well, and the benign face of little Monsieur Étienne Fleurey, the manager, returned to him.

    It was one of Guffy’s most charming peculiarities that he made friends wherever he went and with all sorts of people. M Fleurey, he remembered now, had been the most estimable and obliging of hosts, whose small stock of Napoleon brandy had been nobly produced at a farewell gathering at the end of a hectic season some few years before. In the circumstances, he reflected, the least thing he could have done was to have given the alarm after the mysteriously departing stranger, or, better still, to have chased and apprehended him.

    Regretful, and annoyed with himself, the young man decided to do what he could to remedy his omission, and, giving his card to the reception clerk, desired that it might be taken immediately to the manager.

    M Fleurey was a person of great importance in the little world encompassed by the walls of the Beauregard. Minor strangers spent whole fortnights in the hotel without so much as setting eyes upon the august cherub, who preferred to direct his minions from behind the scenes.

    Nevertheless, within a few minutes young Mr Randall found himself in the little mahogany-lined sanctum on the sunny side of the forecourt, with M Fleurey himself pumping his hand and emitting birdlike chirrups of welcome and regard.

    M Fleurey was definitely ovoid in figure. From the top of his shining head he sloped gently outwards to a diameter on the level of his coat-pockets, whence he receded gracefully to the heels of his immaculate shoes.

    Guffy was reminded of a witticism of the earlier season which had related how M Fleury had been tapped on the soles of his feet so that, like Columbus’s egg, he should be able to stand.

    For the rest, he was a discreet, affable soul, a connoisseur of wine and a devout believer in the sanctity of the noblesse.

    It began to dawn on Guffy that M Fleurey was more than ordinarily delighted to see him. There was an element of relief in his welcome, as though the young man had been a deliverer rather than a prospective guest, and his first words put all recollection of the unconventional departure he had just witnessed out of his mind.

    ‘Name of a name of a little good man,’ said the manager in his own language, ‘it is of an astonishing clarity to me that you, my dear Monsieur Randall, have arrived by the express intervention of Providence itself.’

    ‘Really?’ said Guffy, whose French was by no means perfect and who had only caught the sense of the latter part of the sentence. ‘Anything up?’

    M Fleurey spread out his hands deprecatingly and a frown ruffled for an instant the tranquillity of his forehead.

    ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘When you came in I was in a quandary—as you would say, in a flummox. And then, when your name appeared, I said to myself, Here is my deliverer; here is the man of all others who will most help me. The noblesse are as an open book to you, M Randall. There is no one with any pretension to title whom you have not met.’

    ‘Here, I say, don’t pin your faith to that,’ said Guffy hastily.

    ‘Well, shall we say no one of any importance?’

    M Fleurey turned to his desk and his visitor saw that this glistening pantechnicon, usually so immaculate, was now littered with reference books, most of them ancient volumes, greasy with much thumbing. Burke and Dod were well to the fore, and a large crested pocket handkerchief lay upon a square of tissue paper on top of a London telephone directory.

    ‘Imagine my perplexity!’ said M Fleurey. ‘But I will explain.’

    With the air of a man who is anxious to relate his troubles, but not without paying due compensation to the feelings of his listener, he produced two glasses and a decanter from a small cupboard in the panelling, and a few seconds later Guffy found himself sipping rare Amontillado while his host talked.

    M Fleurey had a flair for the dramatic. Opening an enormous register, he pointed to three names half-way down the last page.

    ‘Mr Jones, Mr Robinson, and Mr Brown of London,’ he read. ‘Is not that sinister? I am no cabbage. I was not born yesterday. As soon as Léon pointed out these entries to me I said, Ah, there is mystery here.’

    Guffy, while wishing to congratulate M Fleurey on his powers of detection, if only in gratitude for the sherry, was not very impressed.

    ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ he said.

    ‘Wait … ’ M Fleurey lifted one finger to heaven. ‘I have observed these visitors. They are all three young; unmistakably of the noblesse. One of them has—how shall I say it?—the manner. The others wait upon him with the care and the deference of courtiers. The manservant is mysterious.’

    The Frenchman paused.

    ‘Even this,’ he continued, raising his voice and adopting the throaty murmur of the fashionable diseur, ‘even this would not be in itself of interest. But this morning Léon, my maître d’hôtel, received a complaint from a fourth visitor whose room backs the suite occupied by Mr Brown of London. This visitor—a negligible person—ninety francs a day and vin du pays—declared that his room had been ransacked—how do you say?—rendered to bubble and squeak. Nothing had been stolen, you understand.’

    M Fleurey lowered his voice on the past participle as though apologising for using it in the presence of his guest.

    Guffy nodded, indicating that, as between one man of the world and another, he was aware that such things did happen.

    ‘I went up to the room myself,’ confessed the manager, like one admitting to a servile act. ‘It was indeed upsy-daisy. The miserable owner, while he did not actually accuse anyone, indicated that he suspected the manservant, W Smith, of the affair. Now, my friend’— the manager set down his glass—‘you perceive my situation. There is nothing I desire more in my hotel than the presence of royalty incognito, and nothing I desire less than confidence tricksters, clever thieves, or the hoi polloi making game. Now this last is impossible; these people are the noblesse. I am experienced. I served my apprenticeship. I know. But which of the other alternatives is correct? I have here the handkerchief of Mr Brown. You see the crest. There is only one like it in all these books of information.’

    He picked up a little battered leather-bound volume and, turning over the yellow pages, pointed to a rudely drawn design with the single word underneath it: ‘Averna.’

    ‘There is no account in this book of the owners of that crest, and the book is lent to me by the Municipal Librarian. But you see, there it is. The crest, usurped or not, is a genuine crest. What shall I do? If I am unduly inquisitive my visitors will go. If they are confidence tricksters I shall have been fortunate, but if they are not, then my reputation, the reputation of my so beautiful hotel for courtesy, intelligence, and, as you would say, wise guy-ishness, will be done, gone, exploded—pouf!—like a carnival balloon.’

    ‘I’d like to see these people,’ said Guffy. ‘Any chance of my getting a squint at them without them seeing me?’

    ‘My enchanting friend, the thing is no sooner said than done. Come here.’

    The little plump man tiptoed across the thickly carpeted room as though he feared the floor were unsafe.

    Guffy swallowed the last drop of his sherry and followed.

    M Fleurey slid back a little hatch in the panelling, and, to his complete astonishment, Guffy found himself looking through a small round window high up in the north wall of the lounge. The ornate moulding on the other side successfully hid the peephole, and the whole of the lounge lay spread out beneath like a new-angle photograph.

    ‘This,’ said M Fleurey with pride, ‘is my quarter-deck. From here I can see my passengers, my crew, the life of my whole establishment. Keep back as much as possible—forgive me, but these subterfuges are necessary.’

    Guffy moved obligingly and regarded the scene below with interest, now that his first amazement had subsided. The huge cream-and-amber room below was sparsely dotted with people, but there were enough to make his task difficult had it not been for the excited little manager at his side.

    ‘Look, my friend,’ he said. ‘In the corner by the window. Ah, the palm obliterates the head of Mr Brown. Nevertheless, wait for a moment. We can already see the others.’

    The young man peered down at the elegant little group round the corner table. He saw one sleek brown head, one black one, and the third man was, as M Fleurey had said, hidden behind the palms.

    As Guffy stared, one of the men turned and he caught sight of his face. An exclamation escaped him.

    M Fleurey tugged his sleeve impatiently.

    ‘You recognise them?’ he demanded. ‘Are my fears at rest? I implore you, my friend, to tell me!’

    ‘Half a minute … ’ Guffy pressed his face against the glass of the peephole in an effort to catch a glimpse of the man in the shadow.

    The brown-headed ‘equerry’ he had recognised immediately as Jonathan Eager-Wright, probably the most daring amateur mountaineer in Europe and a member of one of England’s oldest families. He was a shy, retiring person who was seldom in England, and who treated his place in society with a wholly unwarrantable contempt.

    Guffy grew more and more curious. He had no doubt that he would recognise the second man the moment he turned his head. Surely those tremendously square shoulders and those tight brown-black curls, making his head look like the back of a shorn lamb, could belong to only one person in the world: Dicky Farquharson, the brilliant young son of old Sir Joshua Farquharson, chairman of Farquharson & Co, the Anglo-American mining engineers?

    Having recognised two old friends, Guffy’s first impulse was to reassure M Fleurey and hurry down to the lounge, but something odd in the behaviour of the pair held his attention and his curiosity. It seemed to him, watching from his place of vantage above them, that Messrs Farquharson and Eager-Wright were much more subdued than usual. There was a strange formality about their dress and their manner.

    The man in the corner appeared to be absorbing, not to say dominating, them.

    Although, of course, he could not hear what was being said, Randall received the impression that they were listening deferentially to the other’s harangue; that their laughter was polite to the point of affectation; and that, in fact, they were behaving like men in the presence of royalty.

    How two such unlikely persons could possibly have come together in such a situation was beyond Guffy’s powers of conjecture. As he watched, both young men suddenly drew out pocket lighters and simultaneously offered the third of the trio the flame.

    Eager-Wright, it seemed, was the favoured one, and the third man bent forward to light his cigarette.

    As Guffy stared, a pale, somewhat vacant face came into view. Sleek yellow hair was brushed back from a high forehead and pale blue eyes were hidden behind enormous horn-rimmed spectacles. The expression upon the face was languid and a little bored. The next instant he had leant back again.

    ‘By George!’ said Mr Randall. ‘Albert Campion!’

    The next moment his shoulders began to heave, and he turned a crimson, distorted face to the startled manager.

    ‘You weep!’ the little man ejaculated. ‘You are alarmed—you are amused—yes, no?’

    Guffy clutched at the desk for support, while the little manager danced round him like an excited Pekingese.

    ‘My friend,’ he expostulated, ‘you keep me in suspense. You bewilder me. Do I laugh or am I abased? Is my hotel honoured or is it degraded? Is it the noblesse or is it some racket of malefaction?’

    Guffy controlled himself with an effort. ‘God only knows,’ he said. And then, as the little man’s face fell, he clapped him vigorously on the shoulder. ‘But it’s all right, Fleurey, it’s all right. You know—au fait—quite the thing. Nothing to get distrait about.’

    And then, before the manager could press for further information, the young man had flung himself out of the door and raced down the stairs, still laughing, to the lounge.

    As he went, Guffy reflected upon the beauties of the situation. Albert Campion, of all people, being seriously mistaken by the good Fleurey for minor royalty was a story too magnificent to be lightly dismissed. After all, it might almost be true; that was the beauty of Campion; one never knew where he was going to turn up next—at the Third Levee or swinging from a chandelier, as someone once said.

    As Guffy crossed the vestibule he had time to consider Campion. After all, even he, probably one of that young man’s oldest friends, knew really very little about him. Campion was not his name; but then it is not considered decent for the younger son of such a family to pursue such a peculiar calling under his own title.

    As to the precise nature of the calling Guffy was a little fogged. Campion himself had once described it as ‘Universal Uncle and Deputy Adventurer’. All things considered, that probably summed him up.

    Although what he could possibly be doing at the Beauregard playing prince with two men like Farquharson and Eager-Wright to help him was beyond the scope of Guffy’s somewhat inelastic imagination.

    He hurried across the lounge, his round face beaming, the pricelessness of the joke still uppermost in his mind. He laid a hand on Farquharson’s shoulder and grinned at Campion.

    ‘What ho, your Highness!’ he said, and chuckled.

    His laughter died suddenly, however. The pale vacuous face into which he stared did not alter for an instant, and Eager-Wright’s iron hand closed over his wrist like a vice.

    Farquharson rose hastily to his feet. His face betrayed nothing but consternation. Eager-Wright had risen also, but his warning grip did not slacken.

    Farquharson bowed slightly to Campion. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘may I present the Honourable Augustus Randall, of Monewdon in Suffolk, England?’

    Mr Campion, not a muscle of his face betraying a trace of any emotion save polite indifference, nodded.

    ‘Mr Randall and I have met before, I think,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you will sit here, next to Mr Robinson? Mr Jones should have introduced you.’ He smiled deprecatingly. ‘I am, at the moment, Mr Brown of London.’

    Guffy looked round him in bewilderment, waiting for the explosion of laughter which he felt must be coming at any moment. But on each of the three faces he saw nothing but extreme gravity, and Mr Campion’s pale eyes behind his spectacles were warning and severe.

    2

    HRH Campion

    ‘N ow that the doors of my palatial suite are safely locked,’ said Mr Campion some sixty minutes later, ‘let us adjourn with all due pomp to the state bedroom, and I will tell you in kingly confidence that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’

    He linked his arm through Guffy’s and they walked across the sitting room into the adjoining bedchamber, whither Eager-Wright and Farquharson had preceded them.

    ‘We’re coming in here because the walls are practically soundproof,’ Campion explained airily as he swept aside the mosquito net and seated himself upon the great gilt rococo bed.

    Guffy Randall, mystified and truculent, stood before him, Dicky Farquharson lounged upon the dressing table stool, a glass of beer in his hand, the bottle on the floor at his feet, while Eager-Wright stood by the window grinning broadly.

    Guffy was frankly unamused. He felt he had been made to look an ill-mannered ass and was prepared to accept only the most abject of apologies.

    Farquharson leant forward, his smile wrinkling his forehead until his short, close-cropped curls almost met his eyebrows.

    ‘It’s rather a blessing Guffy has turned up at this particular juncture,’ he said. ‘He’d never have stood the strain of playing the courtier for long. It’s damned hard work, old man,’ he added, grinning at his friend, ‘His Majesty being rather a stickler for etiquette. You haven’t got the bearing at all, if I may say so. Bring the heels together smartly and from the waist—bow!’

    Guffy passed his hand over his forehead. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’m completely in the dark. I take it you have some purpose in careering about the place behaving in this extraordinary fashion. I don’t want to intrude, of course, but if you could give me a clue it’d help considerably.’

    Mr Campion, sitting cross-legged on the bed, his pale eyes amused behind his enormous spectacles, nodded affably.

    ‘As a matter of fact, you ought to have been in it from the start,’ he said. ‘The army of spies which reports to me daily scoured London for you about three weeks ago.’

    ‘Really?’ Guffy looked up with interest. ‘I was in Oslo with the Guv’nor judging some new sort of dog they’re breeding. I’m sorry about that. Frankly, Campion, I feel this is going to take a bit of explaining. When I dropped in here this morning I found old Fleurey black in the face because he thinks he’s got a pack of confidence tricksters in the place. I took a squint at the suspects for him and I found it was you.’

    ‘Confidence tricksters!’ said Eager-Wright, aghast. ‘I say, that reflects on us rather badly, Farquharson.’

    ‘Oh, he thought also that you might be minor royalty,’ said Guffy with due fairness. ‘He suspects you, Campion, of being the potentate of some little tinpot Balkan state.’

    Farquharson and Eager-Wright exchanged glances, and a faint smile passed over Mr Campion’s pale, foolish, face.

    ‘The good Fleurey is a man of perception,’ he said. ‘You can’t fool a hotel proprietor, Guffy. The man’s absolutely right. You are now in the presence of the Hereditary Paladin of Averna and his entire Court. Not perhaps very impressive, but genuine. That’s the chief charm about us in this business: we’re absolutely bona fide.’

    Guffy’s blue eyes became dark and incredulous. Mr Campion met them gravely. Then he held out his hand.

    ‘Meet Albert, Hereditary Paladin of Averna.’

    ‘Never heard of it,’ said Guffy stolidly.

    ‘You will,’ said Mr Campion. ‘It’s a hell of a place: I’m the king. Farquharson represents the Government of the country. Eager-Wright is the Opposition. I suppose you wouldn’t care for an order or two? The Triple Star is natty without being bourgeois.’

    ‘It sounds mad,’ said Guffy. ‘But I’m with you, of course, if there’s anything I can do. I don’t want to be offensive, but it sounds as though you’re collecting for a hospital.’

    Mr Campion’s pale eyes became momentarily grave. ‘Yes, well, there’s always that,’ he said. ‘And before you decide to join us I feel I ought to point out that there’s a distinct possibility that I and all my immediate friends may have to die fighting for my country. I say, Farquharson, have you got the coat?’

    Dicky leant over the back of the stool and pulled a suitcase from under the dressing table. From its depths he drew out a light travelling ulster and displayed a six-inch tear just under the shoulder.

    ‘A bullet?’ enquired Guffy with interest.

    ‘As we got on the train at Brindisi,’ agreed Mr Campion. ‘We Avernians live dangerously.’

    ‘I’m in it,’ said Guffy stoutly. ‘I say, though, where is this place Averna? Ought I to have heard of it?’

    ‘Well, no. Its greatest asset is that very few people ever have heard of it.’ Mr Campion’s precise tone was still light, but Guffy, who knew him well, realised that he was now approaching the serious. ‘To be quite honest,’ he went

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