Mystery Mile

by Margery Allingham

  ‘It’s absurd,’ Marlowe said, as if in answer to some unspoken question. ‘We’re getting the wind up about nothing, of course. The whole darned place is as sound as an icebox. There isn’t any way out except the one he went in by. He must be in there. He’s playing the fool with us. I guess he doesn’t realize how jumpy we are.’ The words were belied by his tone.

  Mr Campion seemed stupefied.

  ‘We’ll get round to the others,’ he said. ‘He’ll probably be with them.’

  A light step on the road behind them made them swing round expectantly. It was Biddy. Her face was pale, her brown eyes dark and startled.

  ‘Albert,’ she said breathlessly, ‘he’s gone. We’ve combed the maze, Giles and I, and there’s not a trace of him. It’s as if he’d disappeared into the earth.’

  12 The Dead End

  ‘IT’S NO GOOD hanging about the maze any longer.’ Biddy spoke helplessly. ‘He can’t be here.’

  She and Isopel were standing in the entrance to the yew puzzle. Mr Campion had dashed down to interview the police trap on the far side of the Stroud. Giles was still searching every corner of the maze with dogged obstinacy, and Marlowe was scouring the grounds. Mr Barber, a stolid expression of surprise upon his face, was seated bolt upright in a deck chair upon the lawn, his leather case upon his knee, considerably bewildered by the whole affair. Addlepate, as upon all other occasions when he might conceivably have been useful, had entirely disappeared.

  Isopel had grown very pale. She looked more like her brother than ever. Her features seemed to have become sharper and her eyes larger in the last ten minutes.

  Biddy was frankly flustered.

  ‘But it’s impossible,’ she said, her voice rising a little on the final word. ‘He can’t have gone. It’s like magic.’

  Isopel shook her head and her lips moved silently. She seemed to be struggling for words.

  ‘They’ve followed us – here. I knew we couldn’t get away from them. I knew – I –’

  She put out her hand as if to save herself, and Biddy, catching a glimpse of her face, moved forward just in time to catch her before she collapsed.

  Faced with a problem with which she could deal, Biddy’s practical nature reasserted itself. She let the other girl down gently into a sitting position and thrust her head between her knees. A shout to Giles brought him stumbling out of the maze.

  He let out a short nervous exclamation when he saw the girl on the grass, and came running towards them. He looked at Biddy with eyes full of horror.

  ‘Good heavens, she’s not dead, is she?’ he said.

  ‘Of course not, you fool,’ said Biddy, whose nervousness had turned into irritation. ‘Pick her up and carry her into the house. She’s only fainted. Poor kid, she’s frightened out of her life. And so am I, Giles. Where on earth is he?’

  Giles did not appear to be listening to her. He was looking down at the white-faced girl whose head lolled so heavily against his shoulder, and whatever he was thinking, he did not confide it to Biddy. He carried Isopel into the house and set her down on her bed, where he left her to his sister’s ministrations, then went back stolidly to the maze, which his own faith in cold reason would not allow him to leave.

  He stepped into the dark bushes and found his way along the narrow paths, going over and over ground that he had already searched. At length, pausing in a cul-de-sac on the west side, he remained for some time regarding the hedge before him speculatively. One of the yew trees was dead and there was a decided hole near the ground, leading into the ditch that skirted the hay field which flanked the garden. He scrambled through it himself: it was a comparatively simple matter. The discovery relieved him to a certain extent, it eliminated that element which Biddy had called ‘magic’ and which had been so abhorrent to his prosaic mind

  The ditch in which he found himself was dry and had recently been cleared. He could see up and down it unimpeded, on his left as far as the road and on his right to the end of the field, some two hundred yards distant. The hay was ready for cutting, and as he stood in the ditch it waved above him higher than his head. It would be perfectly possible for a small army to have hidden in the wide dry ditch without being seen from the road, but there was no evidence of a struggle of any sort.

  Unsatisfied, Giles returned to the maze the way he had come. He searched the cul-de-sac carefully.

  While he was standing there undecided he heard Campion’s voice shouting from the roadway, ‘Hullo! Anyone in there?’

  He called back eagerly, ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Not a trace. It’s the durndest mad thing I ever struck.’ It was Marlowe who answered. ‘And you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Giles. ‘Come down the ditch at the side of the hay field and I’ll show you.’ He turned, squatting down in the opening by the dead yew. Presently they came along, stumbling through the ditch, Campion in particular slipping about considerably on the uneven ground.

  ‘See this?’ said Giles. ‘This is the only way anybody could get in or out, bar the entrance, as far as I can see, and I’ve gone through the place with a comb. The question is, how did anyone get him out without his making the least sound or putting up any struggle? There’s no sign of a row here, you see, and we didn’t hear a whisper.’

  ‘And we haven’t told you the most extraordinary thing of all yet,’ said Marlowe. ‘There were two old cops there and they swear that not a vehicle or pedestrian has left Mystery Mile since four o’clock this afternoon. And that’s not all. I’ve been up to George’s brother, ’Anry, who’s been sitting outside the inn at the corner of the road there, and he swears that he hasn’t seen a soul except Mr Barber, who stopped to ask him the way and seems to have impressed him considerably.’

  Giles stared at him. ‘Then he must be on the estate,’ he said, and the thought seemed to relieve him. ‘He couldn’t have lost his memory or something, could he? Has he ever gone off like this before?’

  This attempt to attribute the affair to a natural cause was a new idea. Marlowe seized it hopefully. ‘No,’ he said, ‘he hasn’t. Suppose he had a brainstorm? The things he’s been through lately would be enough to bring it on. He might easily have gone wandering off on his own. Couldn’t we turn out the village and have a hunt for him? I can’t believe that he could stray lost for long in a little place like this.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Giles slowly, ‘there’s the estuary, you know. Could they have got him off in a boat?’

  ‘That won’t be difficult to trace,’ said Campion. ‘Two or three men with a prisoner would be noticed in a place like this. When was high tide, Giles?’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ the boy replied. ‘It was high tide about five. It must have been still well up at the time he disappeared. We’ll get the village out, anyway. They’re certain to know if there have been any strangers around. There are only about six rowboats in the place, now I come to think of it. It’s such a long way to the water across the saltings. I say,’ he went on abruptly, ‘don’t you think we’d better tell all this to Isopel? About the idea of a brainstorm, I mean. She came over faint out here about twenty minutes ago, and I carried her in. She’s with Biddy now, but I feel that if we could reassure her, even a little bit, we ought to.’

  They were filing out of the maze as he spoke, and they turned towards the house.

  ‘Of course,’ said Marlowe, ‘the staff’s hunting round the place now. We may hear something any minute.’

  It was only then that the others realized the strain under which he was labouring. ‘Something’s bound to turn up,’ said Mr Campion reassuringly. But his pale face was expressionless and there was a trace of alarm in his eyes.

  They found the house in considerable commotion. Biddy came running out to meet them. After they had reported their discoveries to her, and she had satisfied herself that no more could be done at the moment, she turned to them.

  ‘I’ve shoved some cold food on the table. You’d better eat it. I’m trying to make Isopel
eat, too. Perhaps if you all sit down you’ll be able to think of something. Nothing’s even logical at present.’

  As they went into the dining-room they were startled to see the smiling Mr Barber rise out of the window-seat.

  ‘Oh!’ said Biddy, surprised into frankness. ‘I’d forgotten all about you. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Mr Barber spoke complacently. ‘I will wait until Mr Lobbett can see me. You see,’ he went on confidentially, ‘I have here something that I think will interest him.’ He tapped the leather case significantly. ‘The works of Cotman are only now beginning to be fully appreciated. But since their worth has become known the samples of this genius have naturally become rare. I think I may say that the discovery of a hitherto unknown painting of his Greta period is an event, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated. Now’ – with a magnificent gesture he proceeded to unlock the silver catches – ‘you shall judge for yourselves.’

  The expressions of bewilderment which had appeared upon the faces of his audience gave place to those of incredulity as they realized that his mind was on some picture or other that he had come down with the intention of selling.

  Marlowe stepped up to him. ‘You’ll forgive us,’ he said. ‘I thought you understood. My father has mysteriously –’ He jibbed at the word ‘disappeared’. ‘I mean we can’t find him.’

  Mr Barber smiled and spread out his hands. ‘It does not matter,’ he said. ‘I will wait.’

  Marlowe lost his patience. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he said. ‘We don’t know where he is.’

  Mr Barber’s reproachful smile did not vanish. ‘I have come down to value the other picture,’ he said. ‘There will be no compulsion to buy my Cotman. I think I will wait, having come so far.’

  His cheerful non-acceptance of the facts was too much for them. Giles repressed a violent desire to shout at him. Marlowe turned away helplessly. ‘Oh, wait then,’ he said, and quite obviously dismissed the man from his mind.

  Mr Barber bowed and sat down again, nursing his precious case.

  Addlepate’s single sharp imperative bark, demanding entrance, startled them all. ‘Curse him!’ said Giles, getting up out of force of habit to open the door. No one looked at the little dog as he came padding in. They were eating mechanically, almost in silence, waiting for the coherent frame of mind which Biddy had foretold.

  ‘Oh, down, darling, down!’ Biddy spoke irritably as the only creature in the room faintly interested in food pawed her arm.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Barber conversationally. ‘The dog. The animal sacred to the English.’

  No one took any notice of the opening, but Giles glanced moodily at the little mongrel, vaguely seeking inspiration there.

  His reward was sudden and startling. Folded through the ring of the dog’s collar, and indubitably placed there by human hand, was a small twist of paper.

  Before he could speak, Campion had seen it also. He called the dog over to him. They watched him fascinated as he unwound the strip of paper and spread it out upon the tablecloth.

  They left their seats and crowded round him, leaning over his shoulder. It was a page torn from a notebook, and the few words were scrawled as if the sender had written under great difficulty. Marlowe read out the message in a shaking voice:

  ‘Am safe if blue suitcase is not lost.’

  ‘I don’t quite get this last bit,’ said Marlowe. ‘The paper’s got crumpled. Oh, wait a bit – yes, I see it now.’

  ‘Keep the police out of this. Safer without.’

  They exchanged frightened glances.

  ‘Is it your father’s writing?’ It was Giles who spoke.

  ‘Yes, that’s his hand all right. The leaf’s torn from his notebook, too, I think.’ Marlowe raised his eyes and looked round at them, bewilderment and incredulity mingling on his face. ‘Not a sign of anyone on the roads, not a trace of a stranger in the place, and then out of the air – this,’ he said huskily. ‘What do you make of it? I feel I’ve gone mad.’

  13 The Blue Suitcase

  IT WAS VERY nearly dawn before the last of the yellowing hurricane lanterns which had been bobbing over the saltings and in every nook and cranny of Mystery Mile took the path across the park and came to a stop outside the big kitchen door at the back of the hall. There were ten of them, carried by the entire male population of the village, with the exception of two old men who were bedridden and a few small boys.

  They were an untidy red-faced crowd, considerably wearied by their night of search, but intensely interested in the proceedings.

  The distinction between the two main families, the Willsmores and the Brooms, was sharply defined: the Willsmores, lank dark people with quick beady eyes and a knowing expression; the Brooms, sturdier, more stolid, with large red bovine faces, and every variety of fair hair from red to yellow.

  Cuddy, who had come over from the Dower House to help Mrs Whybrow, the Manor housekeeper, bustled about preparing tea or mulled beer for each newcomer.

  The outer kitchen where they were assembling was one of those great stone outbuildings without which no East Anglian house is complete. It was tacked on to the rest of the Manor and was stone-floored with a great brick fireplace whose chimney was built out into the room. The trestle tables had been pushed back against the whitewashed walls, and forms and settles dragged round the roaring fire.

  Mrs Whybrow was a housewife of the old school, and black hams of her own curing hung from the centre beam, high above their heads. The beer barrel was in the room, and the great kettles of boiling water steamed on the wide hearthstone.

  The housekeeper and Cuddy were sisters; both old women had entered the service of the Paget family when they were girls, and they considered themselves quite as much a part of it as any of the household. As they hurried round now, doling out the great white mugs of beer and hunks of home-made bread and yellow cheese, they looked marvellously alike with their greying hair and their stiff aprons crackling as they moved.

  George and ’Anry were well to the fore, as became George’s dignity. They sat side by side. ’Anry was the younger by a year or so. He was considerably less proud of himself than his brother, and was afflicted with a certain moroseness which, coupled with his natural inarticulate tongue, made him something of a man of mystery in the village. He was a simple old fellow with a goatee instead of a fringe, which he eschewed out of deference to George, mild brown eyes, and, when he permitted it, a slow and rather foolish smile.

  Mr Kettle, the postmaster, who had come in after the others with a great show of exhaustion, sat some little distance away from the crowd. He drank his beer from a glass, a circumstance which seemed to make the beverage more genteel to his way of thinking. He also wore a bowler hat, and had wrapped himself up in an immense grey-and-white striped scarf.

  ‘’E looks like an owd badger,’ remarked George in an undertone to ’Anry. The observation was quite loud enough to reach Mr Kettle, but he remained magnificently aloof and offered no retaliation.

  One of the Broom boys, a great sandy-haired lout with the beginnings of a beard scattered over his chin like golden dust, repeated the jest, and the party tittered hysterically while George preened himself. Wit, he considered, was one of his strongest points.

  ‘If yow’d a’ found summat o’ the foreigner instead o’ ’tending yow was barmy, yow’d ha’ summat more to tell Mr Giles when he come in,’ said Cuddy sharply, forsaking her company accent for her native sing-song. ‘I heard him and Mr Marlowe comin’ in a minute ago.’

  A gloom fell over the party as they recollected the matter on hand.

  ‘I had I owd dog on ut,’ remarked one of the Brooms, a great hulking cross-eyed fellow with a red moustache. ‘’E didn’t find nobbut. ’E kept leadin’ I back to I own house.’

  ‘Owd dog go by smell,’ said George contemptuously, and once again there was laughter.

  Cuddy banged a china mug down upon the table, her kindly old face paling with anger. ‘I’m ashamed o’ the
whole lot on yow,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘Don’t none of yow realize that the foreign gentleman’s lost? An’ yow set here guzzling and laughing yow’sel’s sillier’n yow was before.’

  ‘’E ain’t a foreigner,’ said George. ‘’E talks same as I do.’

  ‘Anyone as don’t be born ’ere is a foreigner, ain’t they?’ said the man with the red moustache, squinting viciously at Mr Kettle.

  ‘T’other gentleman wot come s’afternoon was a proper foreigner,’ said ’Anry, speaking entirely without the aid of George. ‘’E couldn’t ’ardly understand what I said to un. ’E got riled with I. I couldn’t ’elp laughin’.’

  ‘Yow’ll ’elp ut this minute,’ said Cuddy quickly. ‘Here come the house folk.’ Her sharp ears had caught the sound of Giles’s voice in the passage, and the talk died down immediately, so that there was perfect silence in the kitchen when the wooden latch clicked, and Giles, followed by Marlowe, came into the room.

  They too had been out on the saltings all night. The two young men looked pale and worried as they pushed their way into the group.

  ‘Anything to report?’ Giles’s voice slipped down a tone or two and there was the suspicion of a country accent in some of the words he used. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘anyone who’s seen anything unusual about the place, speak up right away. Let’s hear about it.’

  There was silence in the room. The group shifted uneasily and glanced uneasily at one another.

  ‘Us ain’t seen nothin’,’ said George. ‘It do be a wonder.’ He spoke with a certain amount of satisfaction. Giles was nettled.

  ‘It’s no wonder you couldn’t find him, George,’ he said. ‘He can’t have disappeared into thin air, though. There must be some trace of him about the place.’

  ‘I could find ’im if annybody could,’ said George. ‘I be a wunnerful smart old man. But neither me nor ’Anry, we didn’t see nothin’.’

  ‘I’m afraid the man’s right, sir.’ Mr Kettle’s unpleasant voice was raised from his corner. ‘I myself ’ave been over all the principal means of exit from the estate and there is no trace as far as I can see. As you know, sir, we are practically an island, only more cut off, if I may say so, on account of the mud at low tide. You can depend upon it that we have done our best. Ever since I left my little shop, sir, at eight o’clock, I have walked –’