Coroner's Pidgin by Margery Allingham

night to report the discovery of the body, yet you did telephone them, didn’t you?”
    Mr. Campion was unprepared for this inquisitorial approach and he looked at his friend in amazement. Once again it occurred to him that something very much more than an enquiry into an ordinary murder was afoot. Clearly Oates and Yeo had some secret which they were not prepared to share at the moment.
    â€œI did not ’phone at all, I went to catch my train,” he said.
    â€œNow, think, Campion.” Oates was persuasive. “It was a thing you ought to have done, a thing you’d do almost instinctively. Someone ’phoned a local police station lastnight and he gave your name. That was what put us on to the whole thing. Are you sure it was not you?”
    Mr. Campion became slightly amused. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought you could do your own dirty work; I had a train to catch.”
    â€œThere you are, you see.” Oates persisted in his new, slightly unconvincing manner. “You’re obsessed by that train. Tell me, how do you think we knew you were ever at your flat yesterday?”
    â€œYou saw it in the old police crystal,” said Campion, whose sense of humour was failing him. “I don’t know. Spies everywhere, I suppose.”
    â€œNo. This is very important. How do you think we knew?”
    â€œHave you forgotten little Acres, Mr. Campion?” murmured Yeo, sounding as though he thought he was cheating.
    â€œLittle Acres?” Campion was becoming annoyed and his eyes narrowed. Oates was looking at him with incomprehensible coldness.
    â€œYou’ve forgotten,” he said. “You’ve forgotten you spoke to a plain-clothes man on Victoria Station yesterday. You told him where you were going. Can you remember anything about it?”
    Mr. Campion began to understand, and for a moment he was very angry indeed. It was a rare emotion with him, and he kept silent. Oates went on.
    â€œProbably you can’t. It makes all the difference, Campion. I’ve never believed you’ve ever quite recovered from that business at the beginning of the war. You were working for a week in a state of amnesia. Oh, I know the Foreign Office is very pleased with your work abroad, but to my mind that other case did you a permanent injury. You do see what I’m driving at?”
    The suggestion was so completely unfounded and absurd that Mr. Campion was temporarily silenced. It was true that on the last occasion on which he and Oates had worked together he had, for a short period, lost his memory, but over four years gruelling work had not provoked a return of the trouble. It occurred to him very forcibly thatsomething very odd indeed must be up to make Oates take this line. He smiled.
    â€œVictoria was like a cup final,” he said. “As I fought my way out I did see a little prehensile snout with a gingery quiff above it. A piping voice hailed me and asked me where I was going, and I told him home to wash. Then the waves of blue and khaki carried him away. I do admit I forgot the incident. The snouty redhead is a plain-clothes man called Acres, I take it.”
    Oates remained suspiciously obstinate. “All the same . . .” he began.
    â€œAll the same,” agreed Mr. Campion firmly, “if you are hoping to infer that I can’t tell the difference between Johnny, Marquess of Carados, and Peter Onyer, and might even when drunk, drowned, or in a coma confuse Eve Snow with Gwenda Onyer, you’re just unlucky. Don’t be silly, old boy. You can’t muck about with the facts, I saw them.”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Oates desperately. “I don’t know. The mind plays tricks. I’ve never felt the same myself since that business four years ago. I was unconscious for a week and you were out on your feet for three or more. It’s no good, Campion, we can’t afford to take your unsupported word