The intriguing new Albert Campion mystery. “Pop has never talked about what he did in the war… Whatever he did, it was pretty secret stuff” Campions young and old, extended family members and loyal friends are gathered at the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate Albert Campion’s seventieth birthday – along with some intriguing, unrecognizable guests. Who exactly are the mysterious, aristocratic, scar-faced German, Freiherr Robert von Ringer, and the elegantly chic Madame Thibus – and what is their connection to Mr Campion? Campion has decided the time has come to enthral his guests with his account of his wartime experiences in Vichy France more than twenty-five years before, but in doing so he unveils a series of extraordinary events. Why here, and why now? Not least as Campion’s shocking revelations have repercussions which reverberate to the present day, putting one of his guests in deadly danger . . . "Ripley has... continued to publish the same kind of wonderfully genteel, appealingly old-fashioned, gently humorous, always entertaining, and eminently readable stories that became Allingham's signature" ― Booklist Starred Review "Good Allingham, good war-spy thriller" ― The Times, Books of the Year 2018 "Ripley has never been better at demonstrating his ability to plausibly extrapolate from Margery Allingham's Campion novels than in his fourth outing for her gentleman sleuth... Allingham aficionados will be enthralled." ― Publishers Weekly Starred Review Mike Ripley is the two-time winner of the Crime Writers’ Last Laugh award, and the author of several thrillers and historical novels. He writes a hugely respected monthly review column for Shots Magazine entitled Getting Away with Murder. Mr Campion's War By Mike Ripley Severn House Publishers Limited Copyright © 2018 Mike Ripley All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-84751-950-4 Contents Cover, A Selection of Previous Titles by Mike Ripley, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Epigraph, Author's Note, Prologue, Chapter 1: Birthday Boy, Chapter 2: Many Happy Reorientations, Chapter 3: The Unsurprising Surprise Party, Chapter 4: The Man from the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company, Chapter 5: Second Bureau, Chapter 6: Table Talk, Chapter 7: Hush-Hush, Chapter 8: Unsafe Houses, Chapter 9: Entremets, Chapter 10: Bouillabaisse, Chapter 11: Flotsam, Possibly Jetsam, Chapter 12: For Want of a Sharp Knife, Chapter 13: The Devil's Banker, Chapter 14: Free French Connections, Chapter 15: After Eight, Chapter 16: Commando Raid, Chapter 17: Saying Cheese, Chapter 18: A Place You Do Not Want to Go, Chapter 19: The Scar Outlives the Wound, Chapter 20: Menu Pèlerin, Chapter 21: Message for Emil, Chapter 22: The Way of St James, Chapter 23: A Perfect Hatred, Chapter 24: Peccavi, About the Book, Sources, CHAPTER 1 Birthday Boy The Dorchester Hotel, London. 20 May 1970 It was said by almost all who knew him that the war had changed Mr Albert Campion. It was as if the air of exuberant gayness he had worn in the 1930s, rather like a loud and vulgar waistcoat, had been exchanged, after 1945, for a more sober, sombre frame of mind, grey and austere enough to fit perfectly with the changing times. Mr Campion's supporters always maintained that this was the necessary psychological camouflage for a man who had made a career of not being noticed emerging into a new world. Of the guests, mostly distinguished, who gathered at the Dorchester Hotel to celebrate his seventieth birthday, there were some who had seen the transformation at first hand, some who had suspected that a change in his character had taken place due to his embarking on both marriage and fatherhood in wartime, and there were those blissfully too young to have known Mr Campion before the war, or indeed the war itself. Knowing that on such an august occasion his guests would demand a speech from him (much as an angry village mob made demands, though without the pitchforks and torches), Mr Campion had taken the precaution of making a few notes. Confident that at least some of his audience would appreciate his nod towards Horace's famous Ab ovo usque ad mala dictum, he intended that his personal life-menu from egg to apple would sweep gloriously from being a child of the Victorian era to a New Elizabethan pensioner. Along the way he would note numerous cultural and social milestones. The Wright brothers for one, or rather two, must certainly be mentioned, having started the craze of men flying which had culminated, last year, with man making a firm boot-print on the moon. The BBC, Campion was sure, was bound to be accepted sooner or later as a cultural institution, despite its diversification into television, a popular drug which really ought to be available only on prescription, and he really must make a point of thanking Al Jolson for inventing talking pictures, Mr Disney for the gift of Technicolor and the Duke of Ellington for providing the