The Crime at Black Dudley (10 page)

Mr Campion stirred painfully.

‘As far as I can remember,' he said weakly, ‘about four hundred years ago I was standing by the fire-place talking to Anne What's-her-name, when suddenly the panel I was leaning against gave way, and the next moment I was in the dark with a lump of sacking in my mouth.' He paused. ‘That was the beginning,' he said. ‘Then I was hauled up before old Boanerges and he put me through it pretty thoroughly; I couldn't convince him that I hadn't got his packet of love-letters or whatever it is that he's making such a stink about. A more thorough old bird in the questioning line I never met.'

‘So I should think,' murmured Prenderby, who had now got Campion's shirt off and was examining his back.

‘When they convinced themselves that I was as innocent as a new-born babe,' continued the casualty, some of his old cheerfulness returning, ‘they gave up jumping on me and put me into a box-room and locked the door.' He sighed. ‘I sleuthed round for a bit,' he went on, while they listened to him eagerly. ‘The window was about two thousand feet from the ground with a lot of natty ironwork on it – and finally, looking round for a spot soft enough for me to lie down without yowling, I perceived an ancient chest, under the other cardboard whatnots and fancy basketwork about the place, and I opened it.' He paused, and drank the tooth-glass of water which Prenderby handed to him.

‘I thought some grandmotherly garment might be there,' he continued. ‘Something I could make a bed of. All I found, however, was something that I took to be a portion of an ancient bicycle – most unsuitable for my purpose. I was so peeved that I jumped on it with malicious intent, and immediately the whole show gave way and I made a neat but effective exit through the floor. When I got the old brain working again, I discovered that I was standing on the top of a flight of steps, my head still half out of the chest. The machinery was the ancients' idea of a blind, I suppose. So I shut the lid of the trunk behind me, and lighting a match toddled down the steps.'

He stopped again. The two men were listening to him intently.

‘I don't see how you got into the cupboard, all the same,' said Prenderby.

‘Nor do I, frankly,' said Mr Campion. ‘The steps stopped after a bit and I was in a sort of tunnel – a ratty kind of place; the little animals put the wind up me a bit – but eventually I crawled along and came up against a door which opened inwards, got it open, and sneaked out into your cupboard. That didn't help me much,' he added dryly. ‘I didn't know where I was, so I just sat there reciting “The Mistletoe Bough” to myself, and confessing my past life – such sport!' He grinned at them and stopped. ‘That's all,' he said.

Abbershaw, who had been watching him steadily as he talked, came slowly down the room and stood before him.

‘I'm sorry you had such a bad time,' he said, and added very clearly and distinctly, ‘but there's really no need to keep up this bright conversation,
Mr Mornington Dodd
.'

For some seconds Mr Campion's pale eyes regarded Abbershaw blankly. Then he started almost imperceptibly, and a slow smile spread over his face.

‘So you've spotted me,' he said, and, to Abbershaw's utter amazement, chuckled inanely. ‘But,' went on Mr Campion cheerfully, ‘I assure you you're wrong about my magnetic personality being a disguise. There is
absolutely no fraud
. I'm
like this – always like this – my best friends could tell me.'

This announcement took the wind out of Abbershaw's sails; he had certainly not expected it.

Mr Campion's personality was a difficult one to take seriously; it was not easy, for instance, to decide when he was lying and when he was not. Abbershaw had reckoned upon his thrust going home, and although it had obviously done so he did not seem to have gained any advantage by it.

Prenderby, however, was entirely in the dark, and now he broke in upon the conversation with curiosity.

‘Here, I say, I don't get this,' he said. ‘Who and what is Mr Mornington Dodd?'

Abbershaw threw out his hand, indicating Mr Albert Campion.

‘That gentleman,' he said, ‘is Mornington Dodd.'

Albert Campion smiled modestly. In spite of his obvious pain he was still lively.

‘In a way yes, and in a way no,' he said, fixing his eyes on Abbershaw. ‘Mornington Dodd is one of my names. I have also been called the “Honourable Tootles Ash”, which I thought was rather neat when it occurred to me. Then there was a girl who used to call me “Cuddles” and a man at the Guards Club called me something quite different – '

‘Campion, this is not a joke.' Abbershaw spoke sternly. ‘However many and varied your aliases have been, now isn't the time to boast of them. We are up against something pretty serious now.'

‘My dear man, don't I know it?' said Mr Campion peevishly, indicating the state of his shoulders. ‘Even better than you do, I should think,' he said dryly.

‘Now look here,' said Abbershaw, whose animosity could not but be mollified by this extraordinary naïveté, ‘you know something about this business, Campion – that is your name, I suppose?'

‘Well – er – no,' said the irrepressible young man. ‘But,' he added, dropping his voice a tone, ‘my own is rather aristocratic, and I never use it in business. Campion will do quite well.'

Abbershaw smiled in spite of himself.

‘Very well, then, Mr Campion,' he said, ‘as I remarked before, you know something about this business, and you're going to tell us here and now. But my dear lad, consider,' he went on as the other hesitated, ‘we're all in the same boat. You, I presume, are as anxious to get away as anyone. And whereas I am intensely interested in bringing Dawlish and his confederates to justice, there is no other delinquency that I am concerned with. I am not a policeman.'

Mr Campion beamed. ‘Is that so?' he inquired.

‘Certainly it is,' said Abbershaw. ‘I am a consultant only as far as the Yard is concerned.'

Mr Campion looked vastly relieved.

‘That's rather cheered me up,' he said. ‘I liked you. When I saw you pottering with your car I thought, “There's a little joss who might be quite good fun if he once got off the lead”, and when you mentioned Scotland Yard just now all that good impression just faded away.'

He paused, and Abbershaw cut in quickly.

‘This doesn't get us very far,' he said quietly, ‘does it? You know the explanation of this extraordinary outrage. Let's have it.'

Mr Campion regarded him frankly.

‘You may not believe me,' he said, ‘but I don't know quite what they're driving at even now. But there's something pretty serious afoot, I can tell you that.'

It was obvious that he was telling the truth, but Abbershaw was not satisfied.

‘Well, anyway, you know one thing,' he said. ‘Why are you here? You just admitted yourself it was on business.'

‘Oh, it was,' agreed Campion, ‘most decidedly. But not my business. Let me explain.'

‘I wish to God you would,' said Prenderby, who was utterly out of his depth.

‘Well then, chicks, Uncle Albert speaking.' Campion leant forward, his expression more serious than his words. ‘Perhaps I ought to give you some little idea of my profession. I live, like all intelligent people, by my wits, and
although I have often done things that mother wouldn't like, I have remembered her parting words and have never been vulgar. To cut it short, in fact, I do almost anything within reason – for a reasonable sum, but nothing sordid or vulgar – quite definitely nothing vulgar.'

He glanced at Abbershaw, who nodded, and then went on.

‘In this particular case,' he said, ‘I was approached in. London last week by a man who offered me a very decent sum to get myself included as unobtrusively as possible into the house-party this week-end and then to seize the first opportunity I could get to speaking to my host, the Colonel, alone. I was to make sure that we were alone. Then I was to go up to him, murmur a password in his ear, and receive from him a package which I was to bring to London immediately – unopened. I was warned, of course,' he continued, looking up at Abbershaw. ‘They told me I was up against men who would have no compunction in killing me to prevent me getting away with the package, but I had no idea who the birds were going to be or I shouldn't have come for any money. In fact when I saw them at dinner on the first night I nearly cut the whole job right out and bunked back to town.'

‘Why? Who are they?' said Abbershaw.

Mr Campion looked surprised.

‘Good Lord, don't you know?' he demanded. ‘And little George a Scotland Yard expert, too. Jesse Gideon calls himself a solicitor. As a matter of fact he's rather a clever fence. And the Hun is no one else but Eberhard von Faber himself.'

Prenderby still looked blank, but Abbershaw started.

‘The “
Trois Pays
” man?' he said quickly.

‘And “
Der Schwarzbund
”. And “The Chicago Junker”, and now our own little “0072” at the Yard,' said Mr Campion, and there was no facetiousness in his tone.

‘This means nothing to me,' said Prenderby.

Mr Campion opened his mouth to speak, but Abbershaw was before him.

‘It means, Michael,' he said, with an inflection in his
voice which betrayed the gravity in which he viewed the situation, ‘that this man controls organized gangs of crooks all over Europe and America, and he has the reputation of being utterly ruthless and diabolically clever. It means we are up against the most dangerous and notorious criminal of modern times.'

After the little silence that followed Abbershaw's announcement, Prenderby spoke.

‘What's in this mysterious package they've lost?' he said.

Abbershaw looked at Mr Campion inquiringly.

‘Perhaps you could tell us that,' he said pointedly.

Albert Campion's vacuous face became even more blank than usual.

‘I don't know much about it,' he said. ‘My client didn't go into all that, naturally. But I can tell you this much, it's something sewn in the lining of a red leather wallet. It felt to me like paper – might have been a couple of fivers, of course – but I shouldn't think so.'

‘How do you know?' said Prenderby quietly.

Mr Campion turned to him cheerfully.

‘Oh, I collected the doings all right,' he said, ‘and I should have got away with them if little George here hadn't been a car fiend.'

Abbershaw frowned.

‘I think you'd better explain,' he said.

‘Explain?' said Mr Campion. ‘My dear chicks, there was nothing in it. As soon as I saw old Uncle Ben and his friends at the table my idea was to get the package and then beat it, manners or no manners, so when the story of the Ritual came up I thought “and very nice too” and suggested the game. Then while all you people were playing “Bats in the Belfry” with the ancestral skewer, I toddled over to the old
boy, whispered “Inky-Pinky” in his ear, got the wallet, and made a beeline for the garage.'

He paused and sighed.

‘It was all very exhilarating,' he went on easily. ‘My only trouble was that I was afraid that the wretched game would come to an end before I got away. With great presence of mind, therefore, I locked the door leading to the servants' quarters so that any serenade on the dinner gong would not bring out the torchlight procession immediately. Then I toddled off down the passage, out of the side door, across the garden, and arrived all girlish with triumph at the garage and walked slap-bang into our Georgie looking like an illustration out of
How to Drive in Three Parts, Send No Money.'

He stopped and eyed Abbershaw thoughtfully.

‘I got the mental machinery to function with a great effort,' he continued, ‘and when I had it ticking over nicely I said to myself, “Shall I tonk this little cove on the cranium, and stuff him under the seat? Or shall I leap past him, seize the car, and go home on it?” And neither stunt seemed really promising. If I bunked, I reasoned, George would rouse the house or chase me in one of the other cars. I couldn't afford to risk either just then. The only other expedient therefore was to tonk him, and the more I looked at him the less I liked the notion. Georgie is a sturdy little fellow, a pugnacious little cove, who might quite easily turn out to be a fly-weight champ, somewhere or other. If I was licked I was absolutely sunk, and even if I won we were bound to make a hell of a noise and I was most anxious not to have any attention focused on me while I had that pocket-book.'

‘So you came back to the house with me meaning to slip out later?' said Abbershaw.

‘George has made the bell ring – three more shots or a packet of Gold Flake,' said Mr Campion facetiously. ‘Of course I did; and I should have got away. All would have been as merry as a wedding bell, in fact,' he went on more sadly, ‘if that Anne woman had not decided that I was just the sort of harmless mutt to arouse jealousy safely with Mr
Kennedy without giving trouble myself. I couldn't escape her – she clung. So I had to wait until I thought everyone would be asleep, and then, just as I was sneaking out of my room, that precious mock butler of theirs came for me with a gun. I knocked it out of his hand, and then he started to jump on me. They must have rumbled by that time that the old boy had got rid of the packet, and were on the look-out for anyone trying a moonlight flit.'

He paused, a faintly puzzled expression passed over his face. ‘I could have sworn he got the packet,' he said; ‘anyway, in the fight I lost it. And that's the one thing that's really worrying me at the moment – what has happened to that wallet? For if the man who calls himself Dawlish doesn't get what he wants, I think we are all of us for a pretty parroty time.'