The Crime at Black Dudley (5 page)

‘The deceased was a most eccentric man,' he murmured confidentially. ‘His last words were a most urgently expressed desire for the party to continue.'

‘A little trying for all concerned,' Abbershaw commented stiffly.

‘Just so,' said his visitor. ‘That is really why I came to you. It has always been the Colonel's wish that he should be cremated immediately after his decease, and, as a matter of fact, all preparations have been made for some time. There is just the formality of the certificate, and I wonder if I might bother you for the necessary signature.'

He hesitated doubtfully, and shot a glance at the little red-haired man in the dressing-gown. But Abbershaw was ready for him.

‘My dear sir, anything I can do, of course. Let's go up there now, shall we?'

All traces of nervousness had vanished from Whitby's face, and a sigh of relief escaped his lips as he escorted the obliging Dr Abbershaw down the long, creaking corridor to the Colonel's room.

It was a vast old-fashioned apartment, high-ceilinged, and not too well lit. Panelled on one side, it was hung on the other with heavy curtains, ancient and dusty. Not at all the sort of room that appealed to Abbershaw as a bedchamber for an invalid.

A huge four-poster bed took up all the farther end of the place, and upon it lay something very still and stiff, covered by a sheet. On a small table near the wide fire-place were pen and ink and a cremation certificate form; standing near it was Jesse Gideon, one beautiful hand shining like ivory upon the polished wood.

Abbershaw had made, up his mind that the only way to establish or confute his suspicions was to act quickly, and assuming a brisk and officious manner he strode across the room rubbing his hands.

‘Heart failure?' he said, in a tone that was on the verge of being cheerful. ‘A little unwonted excitement, perhaps – a slightly heavier meal – anything might do it. Most distressing – most distressing. Visitors in the house too.'

He was striding up and down as he spoke, at every turn edging a little nearer the bed.

‘Now let me see,' he said suddenly. ‘Just as a matter of form, of course …' On the last word, moving with incredible swiftness, he reached the bedside and flicked the sheet from the dead man's face.

The effect was instantaneous. Whitby caught his arm and dragged him back from the bed, and from the shadows a figure that Abbershaw had not noticed before came out silently. The next moment he recognized Dawlish, the man who looked like Beethoven. His face was still expressionless, but there was no mistaking the menace in his attitude as he came forward, and the young scientist realized with a little thrill of excitement that the veneer was off and that he was up against an antagonistic force.

The moment passed, however, and in the next instant he had the situation in hand again, with added advantage of knowing exactly where he stood. He turned a mildly apologetic face to Whitby.

‘Just as a matter of form,' he repeated. ‘I like to make a point of seeing the body. Some of us are a little too lax, I feel, in a matter like this. After all, cremation is cremation. I'm not one of those men who insist on a thorough examination, but I just like to make sure that a corpse is a corpse, don't you know.'

He laughed as he spoke, and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the face of the man on the bed. The momentary tension in the room died down. The heavy-faced Dawlish returned to his corner, Gideon became suave
again, and the doctor stood by Abbershaw a little less apprehensively.

‘Death actually took place up here, I suppose?' Abbershaw remarked conversationally, and shot a quick sidelong glance at Whitby. The man was ready for it, however.

‘Yes, just after we carried him in.'

‘I see.' Abbershaw glanced round the room. ‘You brought him up in his chair, I suppose? How wonderfully convenient those things are.' He paused as if lost in thought, and Dawlish muttered impatiently.

Gideon interposed hastily.

‘It is getting late,' he said in his unnaturally gentle voice. ‘We must not keep Dr Abbershaw –'

‘Er – no, of course not,' said Whitby, starting nervously. Abbershaw took the hint.

‘It is late. I bid you good night, gentlemen,' he murmured, and moved towards the door.

Gideon slipped in front of it, pen in hand. He was suave as ever, and smiling, but the little round eyes beneath the enormous shaggy brows were bright and dangerous.

Abbershaw realized then that he was not going to be allowed to refuse to sign the certificate. The three men in the room were determined. Any objections he might raise would be confuted by force if need be. It was virtually a signature under compulsion.

He took the pen with a little impatient click of the tongue.

‘How absurd of me, I had forgotten,' he said, laughing as though to cover his oversight. ‘Now, let me look, where is it? Oh, I see – just here – you have attended to all these particulars, of course, Dr Whitby.'

‘Yes, yes. They're all in order.'

No one but the self-occupied type of fool that Abbershaw was pretending to be could possibly have failed to notice the man's wretched state of nervous tension. He was quivering and his voice was entirely out of control. Abbershaw wrote his signature with a flourish, and returned the pen. There was a distinct sigh of relief in the room as he moved towards the door.

On the threshold he turned and looked back.

‘Poor young Petrie knows all about this, I suppose?' he inquired. ‘I trust he's not very cut up? Poor lad.'

‘Mr Petrie has been informed, of course,' Dr Whitby said stiffly. ‘He felt the shock – naturally – but like the rest of us I fancy he must have expected it for some time. He was only a relative by his aunt's marriage, you know, and that took place after the war, I believe.'

‘Still,' said Abbershaw, with a return of his old fussiness of manner, ‘very shocking and very distressing – very distressing. Good night, gentlemen.'

On the last words he went out and closed the door of the great sombre room behind him. Once in the corridor, his expression changed. The fussy, pompous personality that he had assumed dropped from him like a cloak, and he became at once alert and purposeful. There were many things that puzzled him, but of one thing he was perfectly certain. Colonel Gordon Coombe had not died of heart disease.

Abbershaw made his way quietly down the corridor to Wyatt's room. The young man had taken him into it himself earlier in the day, and he found it without difficulty.

There was no light in the crack of the door, and he hesitated for a moment before he knocked, as if undecided whether he would disturb its occupant or not, but at length he raised his hand and tapped on the door.

There was no reply, and after waiting a few minutes he knocked again. Still no one answered him, and obeying a sudden impulse, he lifted the latch and went in.

He was in a long, narrow room with a tall window in the wall immediately facing him, giving out on to a balcony. The place was in darkness save for the faint light of a newly risen moon, which streamed in through the window.

He saw Wyatt at once. He was in his dressing-gown, standing in the window, his arms outstretched, his hands resting on either side of the frame.

Abbershaw spoke to him, and for a moment he did not move. Then he turned sharply, and for an instant the moonlight fell upon his face and the long slender lines of his sensitive hands. Then he turned round completely and came towards his friend.

But Abbershaw's mood had changed: he was no longer so determined. He seemed to have changed his mind.

‘I've just heard,' he said, with real sympathy in his tone. ‘I'm awfully sorry. It was a bit of a shock, coming now, I suppose? Anything I can do, of course …'

Wyatt shook his head.

‘Thanks,' he said, ‘but the old boy's doctor had been expecting it for years. I believe all the necessary arrangements have been made for some time. It may knock the life out of the party pretty thoroughly, though, I'm afraid.'

‘My dear man.' Abbershaw spoke hastily. ‘We'll all sheer off first thing tomorrow morning, of course. Most people have got cars.'

‘Oh, don't do that.' Wyatt spoke with sudden insistence. ‘I understand my uncle was very anxious that the party should go on,' he said. ‘Really, you'd be doing me a great service if you'd stay on till Monday and persuade the others to do the same. After all, it isn't even as if it was his house. It's mine, you know. It passed to me on Aunt's death, but my uncle, her husband, was anxious to go on living here, so I rented it to him. I wish you'd stay. He would have liked it, and there's no point in my staying down here alone. He was no blood relative of mine, and he had no kin as far as I know.' He paused, and added, as Abbershaw still looked dubious, ‘The funeral and cremation will take place in London. Gideon has arranged about that; he was his lawyer, you know, and a very close friend. Stay if you can, won't you? Good night. Thanks for coming down.'

Abbershaw went slowly back to his room, a slightly puzzled expression in his eyes. He had meant to tell Wyatt
his discoveries, and even now he did not know quite why he had not done so. Instinct told him to be cautious. He felt convinced that there were more secrets in Black Dudley that night than the old house had ever known. Secrets that would be dangerous if they were too suddenly brought to light.

He found Prenderby sitting up for him, the ash-tray at his side filled with cigarette-stubs.

‘So you've turned up at last,' he said peevishly. ‘I wondered if they'd done a sensational disappearing act with you. This house is such a ghostly old show I've been positively sweltering with terror up here. Anything transpired?'

Abbershaw sat down by the fire before he spoke.

‘I signed the certificate,' he said at last. ‘I was practically forced into it. They had the whole troupe there, old Uncle Tom Beethoven and all.'

Prenderby leant forward, his pale face becoming suddenly keen again.

‘They are up to something, aren't they?' he said.

‘Oh, undoubtedly.' Abbershaw spoke with authority. ‘I saw the corpse's face. There was no heart trouble there. He was murdered – stuck in the back, I should say.' He paused, and hesitated as if debating something in his mind.

Prenderby looked at him curiously. ‘Of course, I guessed as much,' he said, ‘but what's the other discovery? What's on your mind?'

Abbershaw looked up at him, and his round grey-blue eyes met the boy's for an instant.

‘A darned queer thing, Prenderby,' he said. ‘I don't understand it at all. There's more mystery here than you'd think. When I twitched back the sheet and looked at the dead man's face it was darkish in that four-poster, but there was light enough for me to see one thing. Extreme loss of blood had flattened the flesh down over his bones till he looked dead – very dead – and that plate he wore over the top of his face had slipped out of place and I saw something most extraordinary.'

Prenderby raised his eyes inquiringly. ‘Very foul?' he said.

‘Not at all. That was the amazing part of it.'

Abbershaw leaned forward in his chair and his eyes were very grave and hard. ‘Prenderby, that man had no need to wear that plate. His face was as whole as yours or mine!'

‘Good God!' The boy sat up, the truth slowly dawning on him. ‘Then it was simply –'

Abbershaw nodded.

‘A mask,' he said.

Abbershaw sat up for some time, smoking, after Prenderby left him, and when at last he got into bed he did not sleep at once, but lay staring up into the darkness of the beamed ceiling – thinking.

He had just fallen into a doze in which the events of the evening formed themselves into a fantastic nightmare, when a terrific thud above his head and a shower of plaster upon his face brought him hurriedly to his senses.

He sat up in bed, every nerve alert and tingling, waiting for the next development.

It came almost immediately.

From the floor directly above his head came a series of extraordinary sounds. It seemed as if heavy pieces of furniture were being hurled about by some infuriated giant, and between the crashes Abbershaw fancied he could discern the steady murmur of someone cursing in a deep, unending stream.

After a second or so of this he decided that it was time to get up and investigate, and slipping on his dressing-gown he dashed out into the corridor, where the grey light of morning was just beginning to pierce the gloom.

Here the noise above was even more distinct. A tremendous upheaval seemed to be in progress.

Not only Abbershaw had been awakened by it; the whole house appeared to be stirring. He ran up the staircase in the direction from which the noise was coming to discover that an old-time architect had not built another room above the one in which he slept but a wide gallery from which a second staircase descended. Here he was confronted by an extraordinary scene.

The man-servant he had noticed so particularly on the evening before was grappling with someone who was putting up a very stout resistance. The man was attacking his opponent with an amazing ferocity. Furniture was hurled in all directions, and as Abbershaw came up he caught a stream of oaths from the infuriated footman.

His first thought was that a burglar had been surprised red-handed, but as the two passed under a window in their violent passage round the place, the straggling light fell upon the face of the second combatant and Abbershaw started with surprise, for in that moment he had caught a glimpse of the vacant and peculiarly inoffensive features of Mr Albert Campion.

By this time there were many steps on the stairs, and the next moment half the house-party came crowding round behind Abberhaw; Chris Kennedy in a resplendent dressing-gown was well to the fore.