Mystery Mile

by Margery Allingham

  The room into which he conducted them was about ten feet square, low-ceilinged and as dirty as the approach had suggested. There were two long trestle tables which practically filled it, and upon these were odd pairs of earphones, vast quantities of wire, electric plugs, a home-made switchboard, and any amount of other odds and ends, all more or less in direct connexion with Mr Knapp’s unpleasant hobby.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, throwing out a hand. ‘All give me by the Government in unconscious recognition of my services. There’s one of the old Bell telephones over there – come from Clerkenwell – interestin’ relic.’

  ‘Stop yer reminiscences,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘’Oo do you think you are? A retired admiral? This ’ere’s business. I expect trouble, I don’t mind tellin’ you. I see yer ’ouse is Twelve A. Thirteen that ought to be by rights.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Mr Knapp with unexpected bad temper. ‘There’s a thirteen ’igher up the street. Bloke’s in quod.’

  ‘I hear you’ve got Mr Barber in the next room,’ said Campion. ‘What’s the idea? Have you any objects of virtue up here, Thos?’

  ‘I ’ate jokes about sex,’ said Mr Knapp sententiously. ‘No, I brought ’im up ’ere because I thought ’is car might be ’andy if we ’ad to ’urry off. I couldn’t very well keep it and not ’im. When dealin’ with gents you ’ave to be a gent, so I says, “Come up an’ see mother”. ’E’s not ’appy in there, but mother’ll keep ’im quiet. She’s as good as a bull pup.’

  ‘Cut the guff,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘’Oo the ’ell cares, anyway?’

  Mr Knapp pulled himself together, ‘’Eave yerself over this ’ere bench an’ take a look out o’ the window. D’you see where we are? No? Well, that’s the end ’ouse of Beverley Gardens, that is. Now run yer eye along.’ He was holding Campion firmly by the shoulder as he spoke. ‘Stand well back so as no one don’t see you from the window. Now that ’ouse with the blue curtain to the top window – see it? – that’s the ’ouse we want. It’s not much of a climb,’ he went on. ‘This ’ere ledge outside ’ere goes straight along till we get to the flat roof of the shop. Mother can do it easy, so you ought to.’

  ‘Then there’s a spot of mountaineering,’ said Campion.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Knapp. ‘That’ll be easy enough. I got me ladder ’ere. There’s plenty o’ rubber shoes about, too.’

  ‘I brought mine with me,’ said Mr Lugg, taking a pair of mysteriously constructed rubber clogs from a brown-paper parcel which he carried.

  Mr Knapp looked at him with undisguised amusement. ‘Gawd! You don’t use them old things, do you? I ain’t seen those since I was a nipper. Wotcher, Spring’eel Jack!’

  ‘Think yer clever, don’t you?’ said Mr Lugg. ‘These are an heirloom, that’s wot these are.’

  Campion turned away from the window. ‘When do we start?’ he said. ‘As soon as it gets dark? Round about half-past ten?’

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Mr Knapp. ‘Nearly everyone’s out o’ doors or at any rate downstairs about that time.’

  ‘I think we’d better join the lady,’ said Campion. ‘And I tell you, Knapp, you’d better keep your exuberance down a bit. Those two kids in the next room are both deeply interested in the girl, so don’t let them do anything silly if you can prevent it.’

  ‘Am I likely to?’ said Mr Knapp with contempt. ‘I’m in, too, ain’t I? I’ve showed ’em the plan o’ the works an’ they seemed quite intelligent to me. Oh, well, it won’t be the first time you an’ me’s been in a rough ’ouse, Bertie, will it? Do you remember, Lugg, you an’ me in that ’ouse in Chiswick? Old girl three flights up kept ’anging over the banister screamin’ like a train. “Rapine!” she shouts. A great big cop was sittin’ on my chest, but I couldn’t ’elp laughin’.’

  Mr Lugg snorted contemptuously, and Campion pushed his way into the other room.

  At first sight the happy-go-luckiness to which Mr Lugg had alluded was painfully apparent. This room, only a foot or so larger than the one they had just left, served the Knapp family as a complete domicile. In spite of the heat of the day, the window was tightly closed, and a saucepan boiled upon the gas stove. It was impossible to see clearly across the room for tobacco smoke and certain bedraggled pieces of laundry were suspended from an impromptu clothes-line. A large iron bedstead blocked one corner of the room, a smaller one prevented the door from opening properly on the other side, and the mother’s and son’s complete wardrobes were hung up along the farther wall.

  In the midst of this discomfort Mrs Knapp presided affably over a worn and impatient gathering. She was a vast florid person clad in an assortment of garments, each one of which attempted to do only half the duty for which it had originally been intended. Her face was chiefly remarkable for some three or four attempts at a beard which grew out of large brown moles scattered over her many chins.

  She was seated upon the larger bed, and beside her, dignified but uncomfortable, was the unfortunate Mr Barber.

  Giles and Marlowe greeted Campion with relief.

  ‘Thank heaven you’ve come!’ said the American. ‘Isn’t it time we started?’

  ‘My dear old bird, I’m palpitating for the fray,’ said Campion emphatically. ‘But it’s absolutely no use starting in the daylight because we shouldn’t get there. We shall have to wait for some considerable time longer.’

  ‘This is damnable,’ said Marlowe. ‘Poor kid, you don’t know what they may be doing to her. It makes me mad.’ He ground his heel savagely into the floor.

  ‘You sit down, matey, an ’ave a friendly game o’ cards.’ Mr Knapp was doing his best to be reassuring. ‘I’d go an’ ’ave a mike round for you, but it’s too light as yet. We can’t do anythin’.’

  ‘Suicide to go out now,’ added Mr Lugg sepulchrally. ‘We professionals, we know.’

  Giles was sitting on a piece of newspaper carefully spread over the boards, his knees drawn up to his chin and an utterly dejected expression on his face. ‘Gosh, I shall be glad when we can start,’ he said feelingly.

  ‘You won’t, once the time comes,’ said Mr Lugg with disquieting solemnity. ‘We’re goin’ to be for it tonight. I’ve got that feelin’.’

  Mrs Knapp turned upon him and emitted such a stream of blasphemies that everyone except her son was startled.

  ‘Mother’s superstitious,’ said Knapp. ‘She don’t like premonitions.’

  The lady, having recovered her serenity, smiled at them toothily. It was at this moment that Mr Barber staggered to his feet.

  ‘I do not wish to appear unsporting,’ he said, ‘but really I think I had better go. I feel that I shall not be of any further service to you.’

  The Knapps turned upon him as one person.

  ‘You stay where you are. If you go now you’ll give the ’ole show away,’ said Thos. ‘Mother, pass the gentleman yer bottle.’

  Mr Barber was forced back. He sat looking round in helpless misery. Mrs Knapp took no notice of her son’s last remark, much to the Oriental’s relief, and a sticky pack of cards was produced.

  ‘Nothink like poker,’ said Mr Knapp. ‘An’ remember, gentlemen, this is a friendly game.’

  ‘It seems almost a waste of time,’ said Mr Lugg, drawing up a broken-backed chair.

  Marlowe moved over to Campion. ‘You’re sure this is the best thing?’ he murmured. ‘I feel ready to burst.’

  Campion bent towards him, and for a moment he saw the seriousness in the pale eyes behind the big spectacles. ‘It’s our only chance, old bird,’ he said. ‘We’re going the moment we’ve the least hope.’

  Marlowe glanced at him sharply. ‘You expect serious trouble?’

  ‘I expect a small war,’ said Campion frankly.

  21 Mr Campion’s Nerve

  ‘ARGUE AS MUCH as you like, mother,’ said Mr Knapp. ‘Five queens is five queens. If these gentlemen will accept the fact that some o’ the old pack ’ave got mixed in we’ll say no more about it. Personally, I think the time’s gettin’
on.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘I’ll be gettin’ me boots off.’

  The atmosphere of the small room, which had been steadily thickening for the past two hours, was now positively sulphurous. Mr Barber, after several unsuccessful attempts to make a graceful departure, had resigned himself to his unwholesome fate. Mrs Knapp was keeping her eye on him.

  Marlowe and Giles, who were profoundly relieved at the idea of doing something, at last rose to their feet, whilst the lady of the party gathered up her winnings unashamedly.

  Now that the moment of action was approaching, Messrs Lugg and Knapp took charge of the proceedings with the air of specialists. Knapp produced a couple of life preservers and gave Marlowe and Giles a few well-thought-out words of instruction.

  ‘Just a gentle tap, reelly,’ he said – ‘be’ind the ear – or over it – or above it – administered firmly and with precision.’

  They removed their coats at Mr Knapp’s suggestion. The seriousness of the affair began to assume its proper proportion.

  Campion removed his glasses.

  ‘I see so much better without them,’ he explained, and set about changing his shoes.

  Mother Knapp began to move about with feline quietness, producing rubber-soled shoes and small tots of rum and water.

  ‘Now, look ’ere,’ said her son, when they had all assembled in the back room. ‘We goes carefully an’ quietly, takin’ our time, an’ no mistakes. Keep off the skyline as much as possible, ’eads low, as a rule. Once there, I nips in first, bein’ fairly light an’ ’avin’ a knowledge of the ’ouse. Then I comes out an’ tells you ’ow the land lies, an’ ’an’s over my command to Bertie, as you might say.’

  ‘And I?’ said Mr Barber from the doorway. ‘Really I –’

  Mrs Knapp appeared behind him. ‘You stay with me, dearie,’ she said. ‘Till they come back.’ All five of Mrs Knapp’s teeth appeared in a devastating smile. ‘You’ll stay with me, won’t you, lovey?’ she said, and gently drew the unfortunate Oriental into the other room.

  Mr Knapp continued. ‘Now then, me first, Bertie second. Then you two lads, then Lugg. Don’t forget, soft on the slates an’ quiet on the tiles. If you ’ear me whistle, stop dead, an’ lie as flat as you can. Now, are you ready?’

  ‘Any more for the “Skylark”?’ murmured Mr Campion. ‘Lovely drying day.’

  Mr Knapp raised the window gently and crawled out on to the ledge. After a moment of suspense they heard his whisper: ‘All clear. Come on.’

  ‘Railin’s with spikes on under ’ere, shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Mr Lugg huskily from the backround. ‘Gently does it.’

  The night was clear but moonless. There were people in the farther streets, and a rumble of traffic came to them. Nearly all the windows that lay beneath their path were dark, as Mr Knapp had predicted.

  Ahead of them to the east the lights of London made a glow in the sky. The air was warm, and the scents of the great city – fruit, face powder, petrol fumes, and dust – were not too unpleasantly mixed together.

  The going was not so much perilous as awkward, after the first giddy twenty feet or so of parapet. Mr Knapp unfolded a collapsible ladder which he was apparently used to carrying, since he managed its conveyance with extraordinary skill. On it they climbed up from the lower roofs of the shops to the fiat lead-covered tops of the houses in Beverley Gardens. Mr Lugg, bringing up the rear, left it in position for the return.

  The trip was not without its thrills. As Mr Knapp dropped lightly on to the roof of the second house in the row, a woman’s voice, old and querulous, shouted at him through an open window:

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘London Telephone Service, ma’am. Breakdown gang. Tracing a wire.’ Mr Knapp’s cheerful tone would have satisfied the most timid.

  There was a satisfied grunt from the darkness, and they pushed on again. The sweat was pouring off Giles’s face. Both he and Marlowe were law-abiding souls, and were it not for the all-important motive which now impelled them, neither of them would have dreamed of assisting in such an enterprise.

  ‘It’s the next ’ouse after this,’ murmured Mr Knapp, and paused abruptly, nudging Campion. ‘Absolutely askin’ for it – this lot,’ he said, indicating the skylight of the roof on which they now stood. It was wide open. He bent over it and idly ran his torch round the dark room. It appeared to be a studio. The little circle of light rested upon a side table, where, beside a telephone, stood a decanter and a siphon.

  ‘Wot a spot o’ luck if we wasn’t busy,’ he remarked casually. ‘Afraid we shan’t be so ’appy next door.’

  One by one they clambered over the narrow stone coping which separated the two roofs.

  ‘Gently does it – gently,’ Mr Knapp whispered as the two amateurs climbed somewhat nervily over it. ‘Keep yer ’eads down. ’Ere we are, then,’ he went on to Campion. ‘I ain’t actually been ’ere afore, you understand, but I got a nice pair o’ binoculars at my place – a present from my old colonel. I’ve always felt ’e meant to give ’em to me. Now, a jemmy or a diamond, d’you think?’

  ‘Diamond,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘Less noisy. There’s no one underneath. Sure this is the ’ouse?’

  ‘Shut up, ’Appy,’ said Mr Knapp. Now that the procedure had been decided upon he set to work with a silent and a practised hand.

  The tension among the onlookers became strained, as he drew out a piece of glass on a rubber sucker, slipped in his hand, and raising the catch gently laid the window back upon the leads. All was dark and silent inside the house.

  ‘Not a bit o’ light showin’ anywhere,’ said Mr Lugg, who had investigated both sides of the building from the roof. ‘Now then, Thos, in with you. I’ll see you buried decent.’

  Mr Knapp made a careful survey of the interior of the room below, which appeared empty, and then, gripping the lintel firmly in both hands, swung gently into the air and dropped noiselessly into the room.

  ‘Lie flat,’ commanded Lugg. ‘You don’t know nothing, none of you. Be ready to nip off like ’ell if there’s a row.’

  There was a soft click from the room below them, and the tiny circle of Mr Knapp’s torch was seen no more. They waited listening, every nerve strained, anxious to catch the least sound from the silent house below them. The minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Still Mr Knapp did not return.

  At last even Lugg began to show signs of uneasiness.

  ‘Thos ain’t the chap to stay in a nasty spot fer fun,’ he muttered nervously. Marlowe edged nearer, Giles behind him.

  ‘Can’t we go in?’ he said. ‘After him?’

  ‘You’ll stay where you are,’ growled Mr Lugg.

  Campion, who was bending over the dark square of the open skylight, suddenly dodged back. ‘Cave,’ he whispered.

  An unnatural stillness fell over the whole party. No one breathed. At last a welcome whisper sounded out of the darkness.

  ‘Give us a hand, matey.’

  Lugg and Campion thrust down an arm each, and the next moment Mr Knapp, nimble and monkey-like in the darkness, scrambled softly out on to the leads beside them. His rapid breathing was the first thing they noticed.

  ‘Keep low,’ said Mr Lugg. ‘Keep low.’

  They were lying flat upon the roof, and Giles, whose face came suddenly very close to Knapp’s, saw that he was considerably shaken.

  ‘She’s in there all right.’ His squeaky cockney voice was ominously subdued. It rekindled the apprehension in the minds of all his hearers.

  Marlowe moved forward involuntarily, and Campion himself stiffened where he lay close to the skylight.

  ‘They’ve got ’er on the next floor down,’ said Mr Knapp. ‘I didn’t find ’em at first. The bloke with the red beard is all alone in a sort of drawin’-room they’ve got lower down. I come back, an’ as I reached the second floor I ’eard a sort o’ guggly noise, an’ I found there was a long room that runs the ’ole width o’ the ’ouse, along the front. It ’ad a kind of ’arf
glass over the door, a curtain coverin’ it. That’s ’ow I missed it goin’ down. I nipped up on a chair an’ ’ad a look.’

  He paused, and his voice when he continued was pitched a tone or so lower.

  ‘There was six or seven o’ ’em,’ he said, ‘all nasty-lookin’ coves. Ikey Todd ’isself an’ two or three of ‘is pals. There’s a long table down the middle o’ the room. The girl’s sittin’ at one end of it, tied into a chair. They’re all askin’ ’er questions, one after the other – old-fashioned police methods. An’ sittin’ on the other end o’ the table was that dirty little Ropey. ’E’s got a fishin’ rod in ’is ’and. I couldn’t quite see wot ’e’d got on the end of it – looked like a needle or something. ’E was wavin’ it about in front of ’er eyes, looked ’e’d scratched ’er face with it once or twice already. Made me sick to look at it.’

  After the first chill of horror which his story produced upon his hearers, each reacted to it after his own way. Lugg and Campion knew as well as Mr Knapp the sort of men with which they had to deal.

  Giles and Marlowe, on the other hand, merely realized that the girl who was extraordinarily dear to them both was being subjected to a particularly ghastly torture in a room beneath their feet.

  Before any of the other three had time to prevent them, they hurled themselves one after the other down into the attic and charged into the house like a couple of bulls.

  Lugg and Knapp clutched at each other.

  ‘Shall we nip off?’ said Knapp nervously. ‘They’ve done it now.’

  Even the redoubtable Lugg hesitated. As a man of experience he knew what the mêlée below stairs was likely to resemble.

  ‘Wot’s that?’ Knapp, already nervy, almost screamed. The two men, swinging round, were just in time to see a slight figure drop silently over the coping on to the next roof.

  ‘It’s Bertie,’ said Mr Knapp,’ ‘’ooking it.’

  The faithful Lugg was shaken to the core. Then, as the noise below suddenly broke into an uproar, he caught his friend by the collar and thrust him into the attic.