Campion Reviews - More Work for the Undertaker
Conundrum Reads the Entire Campion Series Out of Order, a continuing series:
More Work for the Undertaker (1948)
Mr Campion goes undercover to do his detecting from inside the house in this post-war murder mystery.
Spoilers below the cut:
Following on the adventure in Pearls Before Swine / Coroner’s Pidgin, this is the first properly post-war novel for Campion.
It begins, surprisingly, with the implication that Campion is about to retire from sleuthing and settle down as a proper gentleman by taking on the governorship of some island. Perhaps poor Albert has come into the family title after all. His old friend Oates has become Chief of Scotland Yard, and as the Yard is shorthanded due to a large manhunt at the moment, he and Yeo conspire to convince Campion to assist one of their young inspectors, Charlie Luke, with a murder investigation. Campion resists, insisting that he’s done with that life, but gets drawn in anyway after he discovers Lugg’s undertaker brother-in-law is connected to the case.
Campion goes vaguely undercover as the nephew of an old acquaintance from a previous adventure Renee Roper, who has since taken on the task of owner/manager of a great old mansion in which reside the five three Palinode siblings, whom someone appears to be dispatching one by one. As the family has fallen on hard times and seem largely harmless in their eccentricities, locating a plausible motive for killing them proves a difficult task. The mystery deepens with a missing coffin, suicidal chemists, deathbed prison confessions, a supposedly worthless stock investment, and concludes with a dramatic police chase through the streets of London.
Not surprisingly, Campion doesn’t end up retiring after all.
Snippets of the fun:
“He was a tall man in the forties, over thin, with hair once fair and now bleached almost white. His clothes were good enough to be unnoticable and behind unusually large horn-rimmed spectacles his face, despite its maturity, still possess much of that odd quality of anonymity which had been so remarked upon in his youth. He had the valuable gift of appearing an elegant shadow and was, as a great policeman had once said so enviously, a man of whom at first sight no one could ever be afraid.”
“After nearly eight years he was again his own master and was finding his freedom a thought unnerving, like a man out of prison or a boy out of school. The great carpet of his half-finished private life hung on a shadowy loom before him, the threads tangled and dusty, the pattern but half remembered, and the task just a little, if guiltily, wearisome to contemplate.”
“Campion was the most polite of men.”
“He hurried away. This time the ancient spell must not be permitted to work. It was half-past the eleventh hour, and after five months of uncomfortable hesitation the most important decision of his middle life was practically made. Weariness and good advice had prevailed. The coin was on the table and the wheel about to turn. In an hour he must telephone the Great Man and accept with gratitude and modesty the great good fortune his friends and relations had engineered for him.”
“‘All your life you’ve squandered your ability helping undeserving people who have got themselves into trouble with the police. That was all very well when you were a younger son, but now you have the opportunity to take a place which even your grandfather would have considered suitable.”
“He walked on slowly, feeling as if he were dragging a ceremonial sword, and was still in the same state of depression when he climbed out of a taxi at the entrance to his flat in Bottle Street”
“'It’s not fate - I don’t believe in fortune tellers - but it’s something in a man’s character which draws him to a certain type of happening. I’ve seen it scores of times.’
'It is not in our stars but in ourselves, dear Brutus.’
'Dear who? Oh, you’re quoting. Who said that?’
'Julius Caesar, on one authority.’”
“She lied like the staunch old trouper she was and her laugh was pretty. It welled up fresh and young from a heart nothing had aged.
Mr. Campion kissed her. 'Glad to get here, Auntie,’ he said, and she blushed like a girl.”
“'Excuse me for being so personal, but nothing professional I hope, sir?’
Mr. Campion was affable. 'That depends on which of us you have in mind.’” [Note Campion is speaking with an undertaker here.]
“After a string of unprintable words, somewhat carelessly arranged but chosen with a certain unpleasant relish, the writer became more explicit.”
“Campion was still in bed but not asleep. He had been awake for some time and was lying with his hands behind his head allowing his thoughts to boil gently. They eddied and streamed, turned over and spread out, whilst he looked down on them from some aloof and godlike vantage point.”
“Someone was trying to sing, not with entire success, a simple escapist ditty concerning his determination not to leave the Congo. He listened in some trepidation. It sounded ominously like Lugg.”
More Work for the Undertaker (1948)
Mr Campion goes undercover to do his detecting from inside the house in this post-war murder mystery.
Spoilers below the cut:
Following on the adventure in Pearls Before Swine / Coroner’s Pidgin, this is the first properly post-war novel for Campion.
It begins, surprisingly, with the implication that Campion is about to retire from sleuthing and settle down as a proper gentleman by taking on the governorship of some island. Perhaps poor Albert has come into the family title after all. His old friend Oates has become Chief of Scotland Yard, and as the Yard is shorthanded due to a large manhunt at the moment, he and Yeo conspire to convince Campion to assist one of their young inspectors, Charlie Luke, with a murder investigation. Campion resists, insisting that he’s done with that life, but gets drawn in anyway after he discovers Lugg’s undertaker brother-in-law is connected to the case.
Campion goes vaguely undercover as the nephew of an old acquaintance from a previous adventure Renee Roper, who has since taken on the task of owner/manager of a great old mansion in which reside the five three Palinode siblings, whom someone appears to be dispatching one by one. As the family has fallen on hard times and seem largely harmless in their eccentricities, locating a plausible motive for killing them proves a difficult task. The mystery deepens with a missing coffin, suicidal chemists, deathbed prison confessions, a supposedly worthless stock investment, and concludes with a dramatic police chase through the streets of London.
Not surprisingly, Campion doesn’t end up retiring after all.
Snippets of the fun:
“He was a tall man in the forties, over thin, with hair once fair and now bleached almost white. His clothes were good enough to be unnoticable and behind unusually large horn-rimmed spectacles his face, despite its maturity, still possess much of that odd quality of anonymity which had been so remarked upon in his youth. He had the valuable gift of appearing an elegant shadow and was, as a great policeman had once said so enviously, a man of whom at first sight no one could ever be afraid.”
“After nearly eight years he was again his own master and was finding his freedom a thought unnerving, like a man out of prison or a boy out of school. The great carpet of his half-finished private life hung on a shadowy loom before him, the threads tangled and dusty, the pattern but half remembered, and the task just a little, if guiltily, wearisome to contemplate.”
“Campion was the most polite of men.”
“He hurried away. This time the ancient spell must not be permitted to work. It was half-past the eleventh hour, and after five months of uncomfortable hesitation the most important decision of his middle life was practically made. Weariness and good advice had prevailed. The coin was on the table and the wheel about to turn. In an hour he must telephone the Great Man and accept with gratitude and modesty the great good fortune his friends and relations had engineered for him.”
“‘All your life you’ve squandered your ability helping undeserving people who have got themselves into trouble with the police. That was all very well when you were a younger son, but now you have the opportunity to take a place which even your grandfather would have considered suitable.”
“He walked on slowly, feeling as if he were dragging a ceremonial sword, and was still in the same state of depression when he climbed out of a taxi at the entrance to his flat in Bottle Street”
“'It’s not fate - I don’t believe in fortune tellers - but it’s something in a man’s character which draws him to a certain type of happening. I’ve seen it scores of times.’
'It is not in our stars but in ourselves, dear Brutus.’
'Dear who? Oh, you’re quoting. Who said that?’
'Julius Caesar, on one authority.’”
“She lied like the staunch old trouper she was and her laugh was pretty. It welled up fresh and young from a heart nothing had aged.
Mr. Campion kissed her. 'Glad to get here, Auntie,’ he said, and she blushed like a girl.”
“'Excuse me for being so personal, but nothing professional I hope, sir?’
Mr. Campion was affable. 'That depends on which of us you have in mind.’” [Note Campion is speaking with an undertaker here.]
“After a string of unprintable words, somewhat carelessly arranged but chosen with a certain unpleasant relish, the writer became more explicit.”
“Campion was still in bed but not asleep. He had been awake for some time and was lying with his hands behind his head allowing his thoughts to boil gently. They eddied and streamed, turned over and spread out, whilst he looked down on them from some aloof and godlike vantage point.”
“Someone was trying to sing, not with entire success, a simple escapist ditty concerning his determination not to leave the Congo. He listened in some trepidation. It sounded ominously like Lugg.”