The Crime at Black Dudley

by Margery Allingham

  ‘A very pretty tale of love and war,’ murmured Mr Campion, some of his old inanity returning. ‘ “Featuring Our Boys. Positively for One Night Only.” I’ve finished with the lads now, Doc – you might have a look at the casualties.’

  Abbershaw lowered his revolver, and approached Prenderby with some trepidation. The boy lay on the stone sink dangerously doubled up, his face hidden. A hasty examination, however, disclosed only a long superficial scalp wound. Abbershaw heaved a sigh of relief.

  ‘He’s stunned,’ he said briefly. ‘The bullet grazed along his temple and put him out. We ought to get him upstairs, though, I think.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see why we shouldn’t,’ said Martin cheerfully. ‘Hang it, our way is fairly clear now. Gideon and a thug are upstairs, you say, safely out of the way; we have four sportsmen here and one outside; that’s seven altogether. Then the doctor lad and his shover are still away presumably, so there’s only old Dawlish himself left. The house is ours.’

  ‘Not so eager, not so eager!’ Albert Campion strolled over to them as he spoke. ‘Old Daddy Dawlish is an energetic bit of work, believe me. Besides, he has only to get going with his Boy Scout’s ever-ready, self-expanding, patent pocket-knife and the fun will begin all over again. No, I think that the doc. had better stay here with his gun, his patient and the prisoners, while you come along with me. I’ll take Prenderby’s gun.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Martin. ‘What’s the idea, a tour of the works?’

  ‘More or less,’ Campion conceded. ‘I want you to do a spot of ambulance work. The White Hope of our side is draped tastefully along the front stairs. While you’re gathering up the wreckage I’ll toddle round to find Poppa von Faber, and on my way back after the argument I’ll call in for the girls, and we’ll all make our final exit en masse. Dignity, Gentlemen, and British Boyhood’s Well-known Bravery, Coolness, and Distinction are the passwords of the hour.’

  Martin looked at him wonderingly. ‘Do you always talk bilge?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Campion lightly, ‘but I learnt the language reading advertisements. Come on.’

  He led the way out of the brewhouse into the kitchen, Martin following. On the threshold he paused suddenly, and an exclamation escaped him.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Abbershaw darted after them, and the next moment he, too, caught his breath.

  Wendon, the man Campion had laid out not ten minutes before, and left lying an inert mass on the fibre matting, had vanished utterly. Campion spoke softly, and his voice was unusually grave.

  ‘He didn’t walk out of here on his own,’ he said. ‘There’s not a skull on earth that would withstand that tap I gave him. No, my sons, he was fetched.’ And while they looked at him he grinned.

  ‘To be continued – evidently,’ he said, and added lightly, ‘Coming, Martin?’

  Abbershaw returned to his post in the brewhouse, and, after doing all he could for the still unconscious Prenderby, settled down to await further developments.

  He had given up reflecting upon the strangeness of the circumstances which had brought him, a sober, respectable London man, into such an extraordinary position, and now sat staring ahead, his eyes fixed on the grey stone wall in front of him.

  Wyatt remained where he had collapsed; the others had not addressed him, realizing in some vague subconscious way that he would rather that they left him alone.

  Abbershaw had forgotten him entirely, so that when he raised himself suddenly and staggered to his feet the little red-haired doctor was considerably startled. Wyatt’s face was unnaturally pale, and his dark eyes had become lacklustre and without expression.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I had a brain storm, I think – I must get old Harcourt Gieves to overhaul me if we ever get back to London again.’

  ‘If we ever get back?’ The words started out of Abbershaw’s mouth. ‘My dear fellow, don’t be absurd! We’re bound to get back some time or other.’ He heard his own voice speaking testily in the silence of the room, and then with a species of forced cheerfulness foreign to him. ‘But now I think we shall be out of the house in an hour or so, and I shall be delighted to inform the county police of this amazing outrage.’

  Even while he spoke he wondered at himself. The words and the voice were those of a small man speaking of a small thing – he was up against something much bigger than that.

  Further conversation was cut short by the arrival of Martin with the now conscious but still dazed Kennedy. The four prisoners remained quiet, and after the first jerky word of greeting and explanation there was no sound in the brewhouse, save the crackling of the fire in the great hearth.

  It was Abbershaw himself who first broke the silence. It seemed that they had waited an age, and there was still no audible movement in the house above them.

  ‘I hope he’s all right,’ he said nervily.

  Martin Watt looked up.

  ‘An extraordinary chap,’ he said slowly. ‘What is he?’

  Abbershaw hesitated. The more he thought about Mr Albert Campion’s profession the more confused in mind he became. It was not easy to reconcile what he knew of the man with his ideas on con-men and that type of shady character in general. There was even a possibility, of course, that Campion was a murderer, but the farther away his interview with Mrs Meade became, the more ridiculous and absurd that supposition seemed. He did not answer Martin’s question, and the boy went on lazily, almost as if he were speaking to himself.

  ‘The fellow strikes one as a congenital idiot,’ he said. ‘Even now I’m not sure that he’s not one; yet if it hadn’t been for him we’d all be in a nasty mess at the present moment. It isn’t that he suddenly stops fooling and becomes serious, though,’ he went on, ‘he’s fooling the whole time all right – he is a fool, in fact.’

  ‘He’s an amazing man.’ said Abbershaw, adding as though in duty bound, ‘and a good fellow.’ But he would not commit himself further, and the silence began again.

  Yet no one heard the kitchen door open, or noticed any approach, until a shadow fell over the bright doorway, and Mr Campion, inoffensive and slightly absurd as ever, appeared on the threshold.

  ‘I’ve scoured the house,’ he murmured, ‘not a soul about. Old Daddy Hun and his pal are not the birds I took them for. They appear to have vamoosed – I fancy I heard a car. Ready?’

  ‘Did you get the women?’ It was Abbershaw who spoke. Campion nodded. ‘They’re here behind me, game as hell. Bring Prenderby over your shoulder, Watt. We’ll all hang together, women in the centre, and the guns on the outside; I don’t think there’s anyone around, but we may as well be careful. Now for the wide open spaces!’

  Martin hoisted the unconscious boy over his shoulder and Abbershaw and Wyatt supported Kennedy, who was now rapidly coming to himself, between them. The girls were waiting for them in the kitchen. Jeanne was crying quietly on Meggie’s shoulder, and there was no trace of colour in Anne Edgeware’s round cheeks, but they showed no signs of panic. Campion marshalled the little force into advancing order, placing himself at the head, Meggie and Jeanne behind him, with Abbershaw on one side and Martin and Anne on the other, while Wyatt and Kennedy were behind.

  ‘The side door,’ said Campion. ‘It takes us nearest the garage – there may be some juice about now. If not, we must toddle of course. The tour will now proceed, visiting the Albert Memorial, Ciro’s, and the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital …’

  As he spoke he led them down the stone passage-way, out of the door under the stairs, and down the corridor to the side door, through which Abbershaw had gone to visit the garage on the fateful night of the Dagger Ritual.

  ‘Now,’ he said, as with extraordinarily silent fingers he manoeuvred the ponderous bars and locks on the great door, ‘this is where the orchestra begins to play soft music and the circle shuffles for its hats as we fall into one another’s arms – that’s done it!’

  On the last word the hinges creaked faintly as the heavy door swung inwards. The night w
as pitch dark but warm and pleasant, and they went out eagerly on the gravel, each conscious of an unspeakable relief as the realization of freedom came to them.

  ‘My God!’ The words were uttered in a sob as Campion started forward.

  At the same moment the others caught a shadowy glimpse of the radiator of a great car not two yards ahead of them. Then they were enveloped in the glare of enormous head-lights, which completely blinded them.

  They stood dazed and helpless for an instant, caught mercilessly and held by the glare.

  A quiet German voice spoke out of the brightness, cold, and inexplicably horrible in its tonelessness.

  ‘I have covered the girl with red hair with my revolver; my assistant has the woman on the left as his aim. If there is any movement from anybody other than those I shall command, we shall both fire. Put your hands over your heads. Everybody! … So.’

  Chapter XXI

  The Point of View of Benjamin Dawlish

  It was all over very quickly.

  There was no way of telling if the cold merciless voice behind the blinding lights was speaking truth or no, but in the circumstances it was impossible not to regard it.

  The little party stood there, hands raised above their heads; then hurrying footsteps echoed down the stone corridor behind them and their erstwhile prisoners surrounded them.

  The German had lied when he spoke of his assistant, then. The man must have slipped into the house by the other door and released the men in the brewhouse.

  ‘You will now go up to a room on the top floor to which my men will lead you. Anyone who makes the least attempt to escape will be shot instantly. By “shot” I mean shot dead.’

  The voice of Benjamin Dawlish came clearly to them from behind the wall of light. The icy tonelessness which had made the voice so terrible on the first hearing was still there and Abbershaw had a vision of the expressionless face behind it, heavy and without life, like a mask.

  The spirit of the little group was momentarily broken. They had made their attempt and failed in the very moment when their success seemed assured.

  Again unarmed, they were forced back into the house and placed in a room on the top floor at the far end of the long gallery where Albert Campion had had his fight with the butler. It was a long narrow room, oak-panelled, but without a fire-place, and lighted only from a single narrow iron-barred window.

  Even as Abbershaw entered it, a feeling of misgiving overcame him. Other rooms had possibilities of escape; this held none.

  It was completely empty, and the door was of treble oak, iron-studded. It had doubtless been used at one time as a private chapel, possibly in those times when it was wisest to hold certain religious ceremonies behind barred doors.

  The only light came from a hurricane lantern which one of the men had brought up with him. He set it on the floor now so that the room was striped with grotesque shadows. The prisoners were herded down to the end of the room, two men keeping them covered the whole time.

  Martin Watt set Prenderby down in a corner, and Jeanne, still crying quietly, squatted down beside him and took his head in her lap.

  Abbershaw darted forward towards their captors.

  ‘This is absurd,’ he said bitterly. ‘Either let us interview Mr Dawlish downstairs or let him come up to us. It’s most important that we should come to a proper understanding at last.’

  One of the men laughed.

  ‘I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said in a curiously cultured voice. ‘As a matter of fact I believe Mr Dawlish is coming up to talk to you in a moment or so. But I’m afraid you’ve got a rather absurd view of the situation altogether. You don’t seem to realize the peculiar powers of our chief.’

  Wyatt leaned against the oak panelling, his arms folded and his chin upon his breast. Ever since the incident in the brewhouse he had been peculiarly morose and silent. Mr Campion also was unusually quiet, and there was an expression on his face that betrayed his anxiety. Meggie and Anne stood together. They were obviously very frightened, but they did not speak or move. Chris Kennedy fumed with impotent rage, and Martin Watt was inclined to be argumentive.

  ‘I don’t know what the damn silly game is,’ he said, ‘but whatever it is it’s time we stopped playing. Your confounded “Chief” may be the great Pooh-Bah himself for all I care, but if he thinks he can imprison nine respectable citizens for an indefinite period on the coast of Suffolk without getting himself into serious trouble he’s barmy, that’s all there is to it. What’s going to happen when inquiries start being made?’

  The man who had spoken before did not answer, but he smiled, and there was something very unpleasant and terrifying about that smile.

  Further remarks from Martin were cut short by steps in the corridor outside and the sudden appearance of Mr Benjamin Dawlish himself, followed by Gideon, pale and stiff from his adventure, but smiling sardonically, his round eyes veiled, and his wicked mouth drawn all over to one side in the ‘O’ which so irritated Abbershaw.

  ‘Now look here, sir.’ It was Martin Watt who spoke. ‘It’s time you had a straight talk with us. You may be a criminal, but you’re behaving like a lunatic, and –’

  ‘Stop that, young man.’

  Dawlish’s deep unemotional voice sounded heavily in the big room, and instantly the boy found that he had the muzzle of a revolver pressed against his ribs.

  ‘Shut up,’ a voice murmured in his ear, ‘or you’ll be plugged as sure as hell.’

  Martin relapsed into helpless silence, and the German continued. He was still unblinking and expressionless, his heavy red face deeply shadowed in the fantastic light. He looked at them steadily from one to the other as if he had been considering them individually, but there was no indication from his face or his manner to betray anything of his conclusions.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘when I look at you I see how young you all are, and it does not surprise me any longer that you should be so foolish. You are ignorant, that is why you are so absurd.’

  ‘If you’ve come here to be funny –’ Martin burst out, but the gun against his ribs silenced him, and the German went on speaking in his inflexible voice as if there had been no interruption.

  ‘Before I explain to you what exactly I have ordained shall happen,’ he said, ‘I have decided to make everything quite clear to you. I do this because it is my fancy that none of you should consider I have behaved in any way unreasonably. I shall begin at the beginning. On Friday night Colonel Coombe was murdered in this house while you were playing in the dark with that ancient dagger which hangs in the hall. It was with that dagger that he was killed.’

  This announcement was news to some of his hearers, and his quick eyes took in the expressions of the little group before him. ‘I concealed that murder,’ he continued deliberately, ‘because at that time there were several very excellent reasons why I should do so. It would have been of very great inconvenience to me if there had been an inquest upon Coombe, as he was in my employ, and I do not tolerate any interference, private or official, in my affairs. Apart from that, however, the affair had very little interest for me, but I should like to make it clear now that although I do not know his identity, the person who killed Gordon Coombe is in this room facing me. I say this advisedly because I know that no one entered the house from outside that night, nor has any stranger left it since, and even had they not perfect alibis there is no reason why I should credit it to one of my own people.’

  His inference was clear, and there was a moment of resentment among the young people, although no one spoke. The German went on with inexorable calm.

  ‘But as I have said,’ he repeated, in his awkward pedantic English, ‘that does not interest me. What is more important to me is this. Either the murderer stole a packet of papers off the body of his victim, or else Colonel Coombe handed them at some time or other in that evening to one of you. Those papers are mine. I think I estimate their value to me at something over half one million pounds. There
is one other man in the world to whom they would be worth something approaching the same value. I assume that one of you here is a servant of that man.’

  Again he paused, and again his small round eyes scrutinized the faces before him. Then, apparently satisfied, he continued. ‘You will admit that I have done everything in my power to obtain possession of these papers without harming anyone. From the first you-have behaved abominably. May I suggest that you have played hide-and-seek about the house like school-children? And at last you have annoyed me. There are also one or two among you’ – he glanced at Abbershaw – ‘with whom I have old scores to settle. You have been searched, and you have been watched, yet no trace of my property has come to light. Therefore I give you one last chance. At eleven o’clock tomorrow morning I leave this house with my staff. We shall take the side roads that will lead us on to the main Yarmouth motor way without passing through any villages. If I have my property in my possession when I go, I will see that you can contrive your release for yourselves. If not –’

  He paused, and they realized the terrible thing that was coming a full second before the quiet words left his lips.

  ‘I shall first set fire to the house. To shoot you direct would be dangerous – even charred skeletons may show traces of bullet fractures. No, I am afraid I must just leave you to the fire.’