The Crime at Black Dudley

by Margery Allingham

  Never, in all his life before, had he experienced anything that could compare with it, and even as Prenderby watched him he saw the last traces of the cautious methodical expert vanish and the new, impulsive, pugnacious fighter come into being.

  ‘Michael,’ he said suddenly, ‘keep an eye on Campion. His story may be absolutely true – it sounds like it – but we can’t afford to risk anything. Keep him up in my room so that he can hide in the passage if need be. You’ll have to smuggle food up to him somehow. Cheer the others up if you can.’ Prenderby looked at him anxiously.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he said.

  Abbershaw set his teeth.

  ‘I’m going to see them,’ he said. ‘There’s been enough of this mucking about. There is going to be some sort of understanding, anyway. Damn it all! They’ve got my girl!’ Turning on his heel he strode off down the passage.

  A green-baize door cut off that portion of the house where Dawlish had established his headquarters. He passed through it without any interruption, and reached the door of the room that had once been Colonel Coombe’s bedchamber.

  He tapped on it loudly, and it was opened immediately by a man he had never seen before, a heavy bull of a fellow whom he guessed to be one of the servants.

  ‘What do you want?’ he demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Mr Dawlish,’ said Abbershaw, and attempted to push past him.

  A single blow, violent as a mule kick, sent him flying back against the opposite wall of the corridor, and the giant glowered at him.

  ‘Nobody comes in ’ere,’ he said. ‘Mr Dawlish isn’t seeing anybody for another hour at least,’ he added with a laugh that sent Abbershaw cold as he grasped its inference.

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘this is very important. I must get in to Mr Dawlish. Does this interest you?’

  He drew a notecase from his pocket as he spoke. The man advanced towards him and stood glaring down at him, his heavy red face darker than ever with anger.

  Suddenly his hand shot out and Abbershaw’s throat was encased in a band of steel.

  ‘You just ’aven’t realized, you and your lot downstairs, what you’re playing about wiv,’ he said. ‘This ’ere isn’t no Sunday School hunt-the-thimble-set-out. There’s nine of us, we’re armed, and he isn’t jokin’.’ The hand round Abbershaw’s throat tightened as the thug thrust his face close against his victim’s.

  ‘’E ain’t ordered about by nobody. Makes ’is own laws, ’e does. As you’ll soon find out. At the moment ’e’s busy – talking to a lady. And when ’e’s done wiv ’er I’ll take your message in to ’im and not before. Now get out – if I ’aven’t killed yer.’

  On the last words he flung the half-strangled Abbershaw away from him as if he had been a terrier, and, re-entering the room, slammed the door behind him, shooting home the bolts.

  Abbershaw scrambled to his feet, flung himself against the door, beating it with his hands, in a paroxysm of fury.

  At last he paused in despair: the heavy oak would have withstood a battering ram. He stood back, helpless and half-maddened with apprehension for Meggie’s safety.

  Then from somewhere far away he fancied he heard a muffled cry.

  The effect upon him was instantaneous. His impotent fury vanished and he became once more cold and reasoning. His one chance of saving her was to get round the other way: to break in upon Dawlish’s inquisition from an unguarded point, and, once there, declare all he knew about the red wallet and the fate of its contents, regardless of the revenge the German would inevitably take.

  Campion had been imprisoned conceivably somewhere near the room where Dawlish had dealt with him. It was just possible, therefore, that the passage through the cupboard would lead him to Meggie.

  He turned quickly: there was no time to be lost; even now Dawlish might be trying some of the same methods of urging a confession as he had employed upon Campion earlier in the day. The thought sickened him and he dashed down the passage into his own room.

  Brushing the as finished Campion aside, he threw open the cupboard door and pressed against the back of the shelf steadily.

  It gave before his weight and swung open, revealing a dark cavity behind.

  He took out his pocket torch and flashed it in front of him. The passage was wood-lined and very dusty. Doubtless it had not been used for years before Campion stumbled upon it by chance that afternoon.

  It was narrow also, admitting only just enough space for a man to pass along it, crawling on his hands and knees. But Abbershaw set off down it eagerly.

  The air was almost unbearably musty, and there was a scuttling of rats in front of him as he crawled on, shining the torch ahead of him as he went. At length he reached the steps of which Campion had spoken. They were steep and solid, leading straight up into the darkness which had opened above his head.

  He mounted them cautiously, and a moment later found himself cut off by an apparently solid floor over him.

  A closer examination, however, showed a catch, which, upon being released, allowed the trap to drop slowly open, so that he had to retreat some steps in order to avoid its catching him.

  The machinery which Campion had referred to as a ‘piece of old bicycle’ was in fact an ancient iron device, worked with a pedal, for opening the trap. As soon as he had lifted this hatch, Abbershaw hauled himself into the open space above it which he knew must be the chest itself. The lid was down, and he waited for some moments, breathless, listening. He could hear nothing, however, save the scuffling of the rats behind him, and at length, very cautiously, he put his hands above his head, pressed the lid up an inch or two, and peered out.

  No one appeared to be about, and he climbed silently out of the box. He was in a longish vaulted room, one of the relics of the days when Black Dudley had been a monastery. Its stone walls were unpanelled, and a small window high up was closely barred. It was, as Campion had said, used as a box-room, and filled with lumber of every description.

  Abbershaw looked round eagerly for a door, and saw it built almost next door to the fire-place in the wall opposite him.

  It was small, iron, hinged, and very heavy.

  He tried it cautiously, and found to his relief that it was unlocked. So Campion’s escape had been discovered, he reflected, and went warily. He let himself out cautiously; he had no desire to be apprehended before he reached Dawlish himself.

  The door opened out on to a small stone landing in which were two similar doors. A steep spiral staircase descended almost at his feet.

  He listened attentively, but there was no sound, and he decided that Dawlish’s inquisition could not be taking place on that floor. He turned down the steps, therefore, treading softly and hugging the wall. Once round the first bend, he heard a sound which made him stiffen and catch his breath – the muffled murmur of voices somewhere quite close. He went on eagerly, his ears strained to catch the first recognizable word.

  The stairs ended abruptly in a small oak door to the right of which a narrow passage led off into the darkness.

  Through the door he could hear clearly Dawlish’s deep German voice raised menacingly.

  Abbershaw took a deep breath, and pressing up the latch, carefully pushed the door open. It swung silently on well-greased hinges, and he passed through it expecting to find himself in the Colonel’s bedroom.

  To his surprise he came out into what appeared to be a large cupboard. The air in it was insufferably hot, and it dawned upon him that he was in one of those hiding-places that are so often to be found in the sides of ancient fireplaces. Doubtless it was just such another cache that had swallowed up Campion when he disappeared off the hearthrug in the hall. Perhaps the mysterious passage behind him led directly down to that great sombre room.

  From where he stood, every sound in the room without was distinctly audible.

  Dawlish’s voice, bellowing with anger, sounded suddenly quite near to where he stood.

  ‘Speak!’ it said. ‘What do you know? All of it – all
of it. Keep nothing back.’ And then, explosively, as if he had turned back to someone else in the room – ‘Stop her crying – make her speak.’

  There was a soft, short, unmistakable sound, and Meggie screamed. A blinding flash of red passed before Abbershaw’s eyes, and he hurled himself against the wooden panel nearest him. It gave way before him, and he shot out into the midst of Dawlish’s inquiry like a hand grenade.

  Chapter XIV

  Abbershaw Gets His Interview

  When Abbershaw picked himself up he discovered that he was not in Colonel Coombe’s bedroom as he had supposed, but in a smaller and more luxurious apartment presumably leading off it.

  It was lined with books, and had been used apparently as a study or library.

  At a heavy oak table-desk set across one end sat Dawlish, his face mask-like as ever, and his ponderous hands resting among the papers in front of him.

  Before him stood Jesse Gideon, looking down at Meggie, who sat on a chair; a man Abbershaw had never seen before leaning over her.

  She had been crying, but in spite of her evident terror there was a vestige of spirit in her narrow brown eyes, and she held herself superbly.

  Abbershaw’s somewhat precipitate entrance startled everybody, and he was on his feet again before Dawlish spoke.

  The German’s dull, expressionless eyes rested on his face.

  ‘You,’ he said, in his peculiarly stilted English. ‘How foolish you are. Since you have come out of your turn you may stay. Sit down.’

  As the young man stared at him he repeated the last words violently, but without any movement or gesture.

  The man was almost unbelievably immobile.

  Abbershaw remained where he was.

  His anger was slowly getting the better of him, and he stood there stiffly, his flaming red hair on end and his round face white and set.

  ‘I insist that you listen to me,’ he said. ‘This terrorizing of women has got to stop. What are you gaining by it, anyway? Have you learnt anything of value to you from this girl?’ His voice rose contemptuously. ‘Of course you haven’t. You’re making fools of yourselves.’

  The German looked at him steadily, unblinkingly, not a muscle of his face moved.

  ‘Gideon,’ he said, ‘tell me, who is this foolish red-headed young man who so loves to hear his own voice?’

  Gideon glided forward obsequiously and stood beside the desk, his grey face and glittering eyes hideous beneath his white hair. He used his hands as he talked, emphasizing his words with graceful fluttering gestures.

  ‘His name is George Abbershaw,’ he said. ‘He is a doctor of medicine, a pathologist, an expert upon external wounds and abrasions with especial regard to their causes. In this capacity he has been often consulted by Scotland Yard. As a university friend of Wyatt Petrie’s, there is no reason to suppose that he came here with any ulterior motive.’

  The German continued to regard Abbershaw steadily.

  ‘He is not a detective, ja?’

  ‘No.’ Gideon spoke emphatically. ‘That is obvious. English detectives are a race apart. They are evident at the first glance. No one who knew anything about the English Police Force could possibly suspect Dr Abbershaw of holding any rank in it.’

  The German grunted.

  ‘So,’ he said, and returned to Abbershaw, ‘you are just an ordinary headstrong young man who, like the others downstairs, is under the impression that this affair is a melodrama which has been especially devised in order that they may have the opportunity of posing heroically before the young ladies of your party. This is an old house, suitable for such gaming, but I, one of the chief actors in your theatre, I am not playing.’

  He paused, and Abbershaw was conscious of a faint change in his face, although he did not appear to have moved a muscle.

  ‘What does it matter to me,’ he continued, ‘if you hide yourselves in priestholes or spring upon me out of cupboards? Climb from one room to another, my friend, make yourself dusty in disused passages, attempt to run your motor-cars upon alcohol: it does me no harm. My only interest is in a package I have lost – a thing that can be of no use to anyone but myself and possibly one other man in the world. It is because I believe that there is in this house someone who is in the employ of that other man that I am keeping you all here until I recover my property.’

  The dull, rasping voice stopped for a moment, and Abbershaw was about to speak when Dawlish again silenced him.

  ‘To recover that property,’ he repeated, ‘at whatever cost. I am not playing a game. I am not jumping out of cupboards in an attempt to be heroic. I am not pretending. I think the boy who attempted to drive off in his motor-car and the madman who escaped from the room upstairs where. I had locked him understood me. The girl here, too, should begin to understand by now. And the rest of you shall be convinced even as they have been.’

  Abbershaw’s anger had by no means died down under this harangue, and when he spoke his voice was frigid and very formal.

  ‘If you carry out those threats, Herr Eberhard von Faber,’ he said, ‘you will be wasting your time.’

  Gideon started violently at the name, but the German did not appear even to have heard.

  ‘I had your packet,’ Abbershaw continued bitingly.

  They were listening intently, and he fancied he discerned a change in Dawlish’s dull eyes.

  ‘And in the morning before you had the audacity to place us under this restraint I destroyed it in the grate in my bedroom.’ He paused, breathless; the truth was out now, they could do what they liked with him.

  The German’s reply came, very cold and as contemptuous as his own.

  ‘In the present situation you cannot expect to be believed,’ he said. ‘Do not they tell me after every crime in which great public interest is taken at least four or five imbeciles approach the police, confessing to it? Forgive me if I say that you remind me of one of those imbeciles, Dr Abbershaw.’

  He laughed on the last word, and the effect of the deep-throated chuckle emerging from that still expressionless face was curiously inhuman.

  Abbershaw thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out the red wallet. To his astonishment neither Dawlish nor his two subordinates betrayed any sign of recognition, and with a feeling approaching dismay he realized that this was not what they had visualized as the container of the thing they sought. He opened it, drew out his own papers, and laid the case upon the desk in front of the German.

  ‘The papers you were looking for were sewn inside the lining of this wallet,’ he said. ‘I ripped them out and destroyed them.’

  There was silence for a moment after he had spoken, and Gideon leant forward and picked up the case in his pale, exquisitely tapering fingers.

  ‘It is too small,’ he pronounced at last, turning to the German.

  Dawlish spoke without taking his eyes off Abbershaw. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  ‘If you are not lying, young man with red hair,’ he said, ‘will you explain to me why you saw fit to destroy the papers that were concealed in that pocket-case? Did you read them?’

  ‘They were in code,’ said Abbershaw sullenly.

  Gideon shot a swift glance at him under his bushy eyebrows, and then turned to Dawlish.

  ‘Code?’ he said. Still the German did not look at him, but remained staring at Abbershaw unblinkingly.

  ‘There may have been a code message in the wallet,’ he said, ‘and you may have destroyed it. But I do not think it is likely that it had anything to do with my business down here; unless … ’

  For the first time during that conversation he turned to Gideon. ‘Coombe,’ he said, and there was sullen ferocity in his tone, ‘he may have succeeded at last.’

  Gideon started.

  ‘Double-crossed?’ he said, and his voice died away in a question.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  The German spoke fiercely. ‘I have no faith in this young fool’s story – he’s only concerned with the girl. Is Whit
by back yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Gideon. ‘We can’t expect him yet.’

  ‘So.’ Dawlish nodded. ‘We must keep them till he comes. He may be able to recognize this case. Whose initials are these?’

  ‘Mine,’ said Abbershaw. ‘You’ll find that they are clipped on at the back. I put them on myself.’

  Gideon smiled.

  ‘A very singular thing to do, Dr Abbershaw,’ he said. ‘And may I ask where you got this wallet?’

  Abbershaw hesitated. For the moment he was in a quandary. If he told the truth he could hardly help incriminating Campion, and in view of that young man’s present condition it was inhuman to betray him.

  ‘I found it,’ he said at last, realizing at once how lame the explanation must sound. Gideon shrugged his shoulders. ‘This man is wasting our time,’ he said. ‘No, it is Petrie you should examine, as I have told you all along. He’s just the type they would choose. What shall we do with these two?’

  ‘Put them in the other room – not the one the young lunatic got out of,’ said Dawlish. ‘You came through the passage from the fire-place in the hall, I suppose,’ he added, turning heavily to Abbershaw, who nodded. ‘We must wait for Whitby to see this case,’ he continued, ‘then we will consider what is to be done.’

  The stranger who had been standing at Meggie’s side laid a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Come,’ he said, jerking her to her feet.

  Abbershaw turned on him furiously, only to find a revolver pressed against his ribs. They were heading towards the staircase behind the fire-place by which he had come, but when they reached the threshold Dawlish spoke again.

  ‘Dr Abbershaw,’ he said, ‘come here.’

  Unwillingly, the young man turned and stood before the desk, looking down at the florid Teutonic face with the dull corpse-like eyes.

  ‘So you are an expert often referred to by Scotland Yard.’

  The German spoke with curious deliberation.

  ‘I have heard of you. Your name has been mentioned in several cases which have interested me deeply. You gave evidence in the Waterside-Birbeck murder, didn’t you?’