The Crime at Black Dudley (16 page)

On the face of it, he reflected, as he considered what he knew of the man, both from what he had heard and his own experience, the chances were against Meggie and himself being left to tell their story. The prospects looked very black.

And then, quite suddenly, something happened that set his heart beating wildly with new hope, and made him spring to his feet with Meggie at his side, their eyes fixed upon the door, their ears strained to catch every sound.

From inside the room where Mrs Meade had fortified herself, there came an extraordinary sound.

A gentle scraping followed by a burst of shrill indignation from the old woman herself, and the next moment, clear and distinct, a slightly nervous falsetto voice said briskly, ‘It's all right, my dear madam, I'm not from the assurance company.'

Meggie grasped Abbershaw's arm.

‘Albert Campion!' she said.

Abbershaw nodded: the voice was unmistakable, and he moved over to the inner door and tapped upon it gently.

‘Campion,' he called softly, ‘we're in here.'

‘That's all right, old bird, I'm coming. You couldn't call the old lady off, could you?'

Campion's voice sounded a little strained.

‘She seems to think I'm not the sort of person you ought to know. Can't you tell her that many a true heart beats beneath a ready-made suit?'

‘Mrs Meade.'

Abbershaw raised his voice a little.

‘Mr Campion is a friend of ours. Could you let him in to us?'

‘You keep strange company,' came the woman's strident
voice from the other side of the door. ‘A man that creeps down a chimney upon a body isn't one that I'd put up with.'

Abbershaw and Meggie exchanged glances. Apparently Mr Campion had descended from the skies.

Then the absurd voice came out to them again, raised a little in indignation.

‘But even if your son is coming, my dear old bird,' he was saying, ‘there's really no, reason why my friends and I should not meet before that happy moment. After all, I too have a mother.' The exact significance of his last remark was not apparent, but it seemed to work like a charm upon the old woman, and with a few mumbled words she opened the door, and Albert Campion stood upon the threshold, beaming at them.

‘I don't think I'll come in,' he said cheerfully. ‘This lady seems crazy for me to meet her son and I'm afraid that she may compel me to do so by locking me in with you if I get far enough out of the room for her to shut this door. And as the laddie is not expected to call till Wednesday, I don't want him to get his diploma from me in person. I think if you're both ready, we'll all go back the way I came.'

‘Down the chimney?' said Meggie, in some trepidation.

‘Through the chimney,' corrected Campion, with pride. ‘I've been fooling about all day trying to find the “money-back” handle – and now I've got the two coppers,' he added brightly, grinning at the two red-headed young people before him. ‘You can't possibly dislike puns more than I do,' he went on hastily. ‘Let's get back, shall we? This is an un-healthy spot.'

They followed him into the old woman's room. She stood glaring at them suspiciously with her little bright eyes.

‘Where are you going?' she demanded. ‘I don't know as 'ow I ought to let ye go.'

‘Aren't you coming with us?' said Meggie quickly. ‘Surely you want to get away from those dreadful men at once? You'll be much safer with us.'

‘What? And miss seeing my son beat 'em up?' said Mrs Meade contemptuously. ‘Not me, miss. Besides,' she added
sharply, ‘I don't know as I'm not safer with the German gentleman than I am with a natural.' She pointed to Campion suggestively. ‘Lizzie Tiddy's not the only half-wit in this house. Chimney-climbing – !' Her remark reminded them, as they turned to where an old stone fire-place, wide and primitive, stood on one side of the small room. It seemed at first utterly impracticable as a means of exit, but Campion led them over to it with a certain pride.

‘Look,' he said. ‘It's so simple when you think of it. The same chimney serves for both this room and the room behind it, which is no other, ladies and gentlemen, than the one which Mr Campion performed his now famous disappearing trick in. Admission fourpence. Roll up in your hundreds. In fact,' he went on more seriously, ‘virtually speaking, both rooms have the same fire-place separated only by this little wall arrangement – quite low, you see – to divide the two grates, and topped by a thin sheet of iron to separate the flames.'

He paused, and surveyed them owlishly through his hornrimmed spectacles. ‘I discovered, all by myself and with no grown-up aid, that this natty device was removable. I lifted it out, and stepped deftly into the presence of this lady on my right, whose opening remark rather cooled my ardour.'

‘I said “The wicked shall be cast into hell”,' put in Mrs Meade, ‘and so they shall. Into a burning fiery furnace, same as if that grate there was piled up with logs and you a-top of them.'

This remark was addressed to Abbershaw, but she turned with tremendous agility upon Campion. ‘
And
the fools,' she said, ‘the Lord 'isself couldn't abide fools.'

Campion looked a little hurt.

‘Something tells me,' he said in a slightly aggrieved tone, ‘that I am not, as it were, a popular hero. Perhaps it might be as well if we went. You'll bolt your door again, won't you?' he added, turning to the old woman.

‘You may lay I will,' said she meaningly.

‘Are you sure you won't come with us?'

It was Meggie who spoke, and the old woman eyed her less fiercely than she had done the others.

‘Thank you, I'll bide where I am,' she said. ‘I know what I'm up to, which is more than you do, I reckon, trapezing round with a pair of gorbies.'

Campion touched the girl's arm.

‘Come,' he said softly. ‘I thought I heard someone. I'll go first, then you follow me.'

He stepped up on the stone hob as he spoke, and then swung his leg over the brick back of the grate which they now saw was little over three feet high, and disappeared out of sight. Meggie followed him, and Abbershaw sprang after her. Within three minutes they had emerged into the boxroom and Campion raised the lid of the chest in the far corner.

Meggie suffered herself to be led down the dusty passage, Campion in front of her, and Abbershaw behind.

As they went, they heard the cracked voice of Mrs Meade chanting vigorously to herself:

‘While the wicked are confounded
Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,
Call me with Thy saints surrounded.

Ah-ha-Ha-ha-men.'

When Albert Campion and his two refugees crawled out at the far end of the passage, they found the cupboard door open and the entire crowd assembled in the bedroom without, waiting for them. Anne Edgeware threw herself across the room towards Meggie with a little squeaky cry that was part sympathy, part relief. Prenderby's little Jeanne had not been a reassuring companion.

The strain of the last twenty-four hours had told upon them all. The atmosphere in the wide, old-fashioned room was electric, and Campion's somewhat foolish voice and fatuous expression struck an incongruous note.

‘Goods as per instructions,' he said brightly, as he scrambled out of the cupboard. ‘Sign along the dotted line please.'

As soon as they were all in the room, however, he shut the cupboard door carefully, betraying that he was especially anxious that no sound should percolate through into the little box-room they had just left.

Chris Kennedy was the first to speak. He was a little flushed, and there was an air of suppressed excitement about him that showed that his wounded arm no longer damped his spirits.

‘Now we're all here,' he said, ‘we can get right down to this thing and work out a scheme to get us out of here and those customers what they deserve. I'm for a fight.'

‘Here, I say, hold on a minute, my son,' drawled Martin Watt, ‘let's all start fair. What have you two lost souls been up to, first of all?' he went on, turning to Meggie and Abbershaw. ‘How did our little Albert get hold of you? No bickering, I hope?'

‘No, all done by kindness,' said Mr Campion cheerfully; ‘there was only one dragon in my path, a female of the species, and full of good words. Most of them new to me,' he added thoughtfully. The portion of Abbershaw's story which the little doctor felt inclined to tell did not take very long. The others also had had their adventures; Martin Watt seemed to have instituted himself spokesman, and as soon as the other had finished he began.

‘We've had sport, too, in our own way. Old Dachshund Dawlish has had us up one at a time, you know, heard our catechism and our family history, searched our pockets and let us go again. He has also locked us all up in the central big hall and had another go at our rooms. Old Prenderby tried to square a servant and got the business end of a gun in his tummy by way of retort. The girls have been overhauled by a ghastly old housekeeper woman and a loony maid. And last but not least, we had a confidential lecture from Gideon, who gave us the jolliest little character-sketch of his pal that one can imagine.'

He paused, and a faint smile at the recollection passed over his indolent face.

‘According to him, the old boy is a cross between Mr Hyde, Gilles de Rais, and Napoleon, but without the finesse of any of the three. On the whole I'm inclined to agree with him,' he continued, ‘but a fat lot of good it's doing him or us, for that matter, because he can't find his package and we can't get home to our mommas. I told him that, but he didn't seem to see the argument. I'm afraid he's rather a stupid man.'

Abbershaw nodded.

‘Perhaps he is,' he said, ‘but at the same time he's a very dangerous one. I may as well tell you fellows,' he went on, with sudden determination in his grey eyes, ‘there's something that's on my conscience. I had those papers – they were papers, as a matter of fact – the first morning we were down here, and I burnt them. I told him what I'd done when I went in to see him yesterday, but he wouldn't believe me.'

He paused and looked round him. Campion's pale eyes were goggling behind his enormous spectacles, and Wyatt met Abbershaw's appealing glance sympathetically. The rest were more surprised than anything else, and, on the whole, approving.

Campion voiced the general thought.

‘Do you know what they were – the papers, I mean?' he said, and there was something very like wonderment in his tone. Abbershaw nodded.

‘They were all written in code, but I had a pretty shrewd idea,' he said, and he explained to them the outline of his ideas on the subject.

Campion listened to him in silence, and when he had finished glanced across and spoke softly.

‘You burnt them?' he said dreamily, and then remarked, as if he had switched on to an entirely new subject, ‘I wonder if the smoke from five hundred thousand pounds in notes looks any different from any other sort of firing.'

Abbershaw glanced at him sharply.

‘Five hundred thousand pounds?' he said.

‘Why not?' said Campion lightly. ‘Half a crown here, half a crown there, you know. It soon tells up.'

The others turned to him, attributing the remark to his usual fatuity, but Abbershaw met the pale eyes behind the big spectacles steadily and his apprehension increased. It was not likely that Mr Campion would be far out in his estimation since he knew so much about the affair.

Five hundred thousand pounds. The colossal sum brought home to him the extent of the German's loss, and he understood the crook's grim determination to recover the lost plans. He had not thought that the men were playing for such great stakes. In a flash he saw the situation as it really was, and his next words were sharp and imperative.

‘It's more important than I can say that we should get out of here,' he said. ‘In fact we've
got
to get out of here at once. Of course I know it's been the idea all along, but now it's imperative. At any moment now Whitby may return, and Dawlish will be convinced that I told him the truth yesterday. And then heaven only knows what he will do. Our one hope is to get out before Whitby comes back.'

‘There's only one way, I've been saying it all along.' It was Chris Kennedy who spoke. He was seated on the end of the bed, his knees crossed, and his young face alert and eager. ‘We shall have to make a straight fight for it,' he said. ‘It's our only hope. No one trying to sneak out on his own to inform the local Bobby would have an earthly. I've thought of that. They'd spot us and we know they don't mind shooting.'

‘There's a suit of armour in the hall,' suggested Campion suddenly. ‘I'll put it on and toddle forth into the night, if you like. They could pot at me as much as they pleased. How about that?'

Abbershaw glanced at him sharply, but there was no trace of a sneer on the pleasant vacuous face, and he looked abashed when Kennedy spoke a little brutally.

‘Sorry,' he said, without looking round, ‘we haven't got time for that sort of stuff now. We're in a devilish unpleasant
situation and we've got to get the girls and ourselves out of it. I tell you, a straight fight is the only thing for it. Look here, I've got it all taped. We've got our first chance coming in a moment. We've had dinner every night so far, so I expect we can reasonably suppose that we'll get it again tonight. Two fellows wait on us then. They're both armed, we know, and judging from the way they treated Michael they know how to use their guns all right.'

‘Why, they're not very tricky, are they?' said Mr Campion, a faint expression of surprise appearing in his face. ‘I understood you just pressed the trigger and – pop! – off it went.'

Chris Kennedy granted him one withering look and went on with his scheme.