The Crime at Black Dudley (3 page)

‘Go on,' he said briefly.

Wyatt returned to the dagger in his hand.

‘Quentin Petrie believed in this superstition, it appears,' he said, ‘for anyway it is recorded that on this occasion he closed the gates and summoned the entire household, the family, servants, labourers, herdsmen, and hangers-on, and the dagger was solemnly passed around. That was the beginning of it all. The ritual sprang up later – in the next generation, I think.'

‘But did it happen? Did the dagger spout blood and all that?' Anne Edgeware spoke eagerly, her round face alive with interest.

Wyatt smiled. ‘I'm afraid one of the family was beheaded for the murder,' he said; ‘and the chronicles have it that the dagger betrayed him, but I fancy that there was a good deal of juggling in affairs of justice in those days.'

‘Yes, but where does the ritual come in?' said Albert Campion, in his absurd falsetto drawl. ‘It sounds most intriguing. I knew a fellow once who, when he went to bed, made a point of taking off everything else first before he removed his topper. He called that a ritual.'

‘It sounds more like a conjuring trick,' said Abbershaw.

‘It does, doesn't it?' agreed the irrepressible Albert. ‘But I don't suppose your family ritual was anything like that, was it, Petrie? Something more lurid, I expect.'

‘It was, a little, but nearly as absurd,' said Wyatt, laughing. ‘Apparently it became a custom after that for the whole ceremony of the dagger to be repeated once a year – a sort of family rite as far as I can ascertain. That was only in the beginning, of course. In later years it degenerated into a sort of mixed hide-and-seek and relay race, played all over the house. I believe it was done at Christmas as late as my grandfather's time. The procedure was very simple. All the lights in the house were put out, and the head of the family, a Petrie by name and blood, handed the dagger to the first person he met in the darkness. Acceptance was of course compulsory, and that person had to hunt out someone else to pass the dagger on to, and the game continued in that fashion – each person striving to get rid of the dagger as soon as it was handed to him – for twenty minutes. Then the head of the house rang the dinner gong in the hall, the servants relit the lights, and the person discovered with the dagger lost the game and paid a forfeit which varied, I believe, from kisses to silver coins all round.'

He stopped abruptly.

‘That's all there is,' he said, swinging the dagger in his fingers.

‘What a perfectly wonderful story!'

Anne Edgeware turned to the others as she spoke. ‘Isn't it?' she continued. ‘It just sort of fits in with this house!'

‘Let's play it.' It was the bright young man with the teeth again, and he beamed round fatuously at the company as he spoke. ‘For sixpences if you like,' he ventured as an added inducement, as no one enthused immediately.

Anne looked at Wyatt. ‘Could we?' she said.

‘It wouldn't be a bad idea,' remarked Chris Kennedy, who was willing to back up Anne in anything she chose to suggest. The rest of the party had also taken kindly to the idea, and Wyatt hesitated.

‘There's no reason why we shouldn't,' he said, and paused. Abbershaw was suddenly seized with a violent objection to the whole scheme. The story of the dagger ritual had impressed him strangely. He had seen the eyes of Gideon fixed upon the speaker with curious intensity, and had noticed the little huddled old man with the plate over his face harking to the barbarous story with avid enjoyment. Whether it was the great dank gloomy house or the disturbing effects of love upon his nervous system he did not know, but the idea of groping round in the dark with the malignant-looking dagger filled him with a distaste more vigorous than anything he had ever felt before. He had an impression, also, that Wyatt was not too attracted by the idea, but in the face of the unanimous enthusiasm of the rest of the party he could do nothing but fall in with the scheme.

Wyatt looked at his uncle.

‘But certainly, my dear boy, why should I?' The old man seemed to be replying to an unspoken question. ‘Let us consider it a blessing that so innocent and pleasing an entertainment can arise from something that must at one time have been very terrible.'

Abbershaw glanced at him sharply. There had been a touch of something in the voice that did not ring quite true, something hypocritical – insincere. Colonel Coombe glanced at the men on either side of him.

‘I don't know …' he began dubiously.

Gideon spoke at once: it was the first time Abbershaw had heard his voice, and it struck him unpleasantly. It was deep, liquid, and curiously caressing, like the purring of a cat.

‘To take part in such an ancient ceremony would be a privilege,' he said.

The man who had no expression bowed his head.

‘I too,' he said, a trace of foreign accent in his voice, ‘would be delighted.'

Once the ritual had been decided upon, preparations went forward with all ceremony and youthful enthusiasm. The man-servant was called in, and his part in the proceedings explained carefully. He was to let down the great iron candle-ring, extinguish the lights, and haul it up to the ceiling again. The lights in the hall were to be put out also, and he was then to retire to the servants' quarters and wait there until the dinner-gong sounded, at which time he was to return with some of the other servants and relight the candles with all speed.

He was a big man with a chest like a prize-fighter and a heavy florid face with enormous pale-blue eyes which had in them an innately sullen expression. A man who could become very unpleasant if the occasion arose, Abbershaw reflected inconsequentially.

As head of the family, Wyatt the last of the Petries took command of the proceedings. He had the manner, Abbershaw considered, of one who did not altogether relish his position. There was a faintly unwilling air about everything he did, a certain over-deliberation in all his instructions which betrayed, the other thought, a distaste for his task.

At length the signal was given. With a melodramatic rattle of chains the great iron candle-ring was let down and the lights put out, so that the vast hall was in darkness save for the glowing fires at each end of the room. Gideon and the man with the face like Beethoven had joined the circle round the doorway to the corridors, and the last thing George Abbershaw saw before the candles were extinguished was the little wizened figure of Colonel Coombe sitting in
his chair in the shadow of the fire-place smiling out upon the scene from behind the hideous flesh-coloured plate. Then he followed the others into the dim halls and corridors of the great eerie house, and the Black Dudley Ritual began.

The weirdness of the great stone staircases and unlit recesses was even more disquieting than Abbershaw had imagined it would be. There were flutterings in the dark, whisperings, and hurried footsteps. He was by no means a nervous man, and in the ordinary way an experience of this sort would probably have amused him faintly, had it not bored him. But on this particular night and in this house, which had impressed him with such a curious sense of foreboding ever since he had first seen it from the drive, he was distinctly uneasy.

To make matters worse, he had entirely lost sight of Meggie. He had missed her in the first blinding rush of darkness, and so, when by chance he found himself up against a door leading into the garden, he went out, shutting it softly behind him.

It was a fine night, and although there was no moon, the starlight made it possible for him to see his way about; he did not feel like wandering about the eerie grounds alone, and suddenly it occurred to him that he would go and inspect his A.C. two-seater which he had left in the big garage beside the drive.

He was a tidy man, and since he had no clear recollection of turning off the petrol before he left her, it struck him that now was a convenient opportunity to make sure.

He located the garage without much difficulty, and made his way to it, crossing over the broad, flagged drive to where the erstwhile barn loomed up against the starlight sky. The doors were still open and there was a certain amount of light from two hurricane lanterns hanging from a low beam in
the roof. There were more than half a dozen cars lined up inside, and he reflected how very typical each was of its owner. The Rover coupé with the cream body and the black wings was obviously Anne Edgeware's; even had he not seen her smart black-and-white motoring kit he would have known it. The Salmson with the ridiculous mascot was patently Chris Kennedy's property; the magnificent Lanchester must be Gideon's, and the rest were simple also; a Bentley, a Buick, and a Swift proclaimed their owners.

As his eye passed from one to another, a smile flickered for an instant on his lips. There, in the corner, derelict and dignified as a maiden aunt, was one of the pioneers of motor traffic.

This must be the house car, he reflected, as he walked over to it, Colonel Coombe's own vehicle. It was extraordinary how well it matched the house, he thought as he reached it.

Made in the very beginning of the century, it belonged to the time when, as some brilliant American has said, cars were built, like cathedrals, with prayer. It was a brougham; coach-built and leathery, with a seating capacity in the back for six at least, and a tiny cab only in front for the driver. Abbershaw was interested in cars, and since he felt he had time to spare and there was nothing better to do, he lifted up the extraordinarily ponderous bonnet of the ‘museum-piece' and looked in.

For some moments he stood staring at the engine within, and then, drawing a torch from his pocket, he examined it more closely.

Suddenly a smothered exclamation broke from his lips and he bent down and flashed the light on the underside of the car, peering under the ridiculously heavy running-boards and glancing at the axles and shaft. At last he stood up and shut down the bonnet, an expression of mingled amazement and curiosity on his cherubic face.

The absurd old body, which looked as if it belonged to a car which would be capable of twenty miles all out at most, was set upon the chassis and the engine of latest ‘Phantom' type Rolls-Royce.

He had no time to reflect upon the possible motives of the owner of the strange hybrid for this inexplicable piece, of eccentricity, for at that moment he was disturbed by the sounds of footsteps coming up the flagged drive. Instinctively he moved over to his own car, and was bending over it when a figure appeared in the doorway.

‘Oh – er – hullo! Having a little potter – what?'

The words, uttered in an inoffensively idiotic voice, made Abbershaw glance up to find Albert Campion smiling fatuously in upon him.

‘Hullo!' said Abbershaw, a little nettled to have his occupation so accurately described. ‘How's the Ritual going?'

Mr Campion looked a trifle embarrassed.

‘Oh, jogging along, I believe. Two hours' clean fun, don't you know.'

‘You seem to be missing yours,' said Abbershaw pointedly.

The young man appeared to break out into a sort of Charleston, apparently to hide further embarrassment.

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact I got fed up with it in there,' he said, still hopping up and down in a way Abbershaw found peculiarly irritating. ‘All this running about in the dark with daggers doesn't seem to me healthy. I don't like knives, you know – people getting excited and all that. I came out to get away from it all.'

For the first time Abbershaw began to feel a faint sympathy for him.

‘Your car here?' he remarked casually.

This perfectly obvious question seemed to place Mr Campion still less at ease.

‘Well – er – no. As a matter of fact, it isn't. To be exact,' he added in a sudden burst of confidence, ‘I haven't got one at all. I've always liked them, though,' he continued hastily, ‘nice, useful things. I've always thought that. Get you where you want to go, you know. Better than a horse.'

Abbershaw stared at him. He considered that the man was either a lunatic or drunk, and as he disliked both alternatives he suggested stiffly that they should return to the
house. The young man did not greet the proposal with enthusiasm, but Abbershaw, who was a determined little man when roused, dragged him back to the side door through which he had come, without further ado.

As soon as they entered the great grey corridor and the faintly dank musty breath of the house came to meet them, it became evident that something had happened. There was a sound of many feet, echoing voices, and at the far end of the passage a light flickered and passed.

‘Someone kicking up a row over the forfeit, what!' The idiotic voice of Albert Campion at his ear jarred upon Abbershaw strangely.

‘We'll see,' he said, and there was an underlying note of anxiety in his voice which he could not hide.

A light step sounded close at hand and there was a gleam of silk in the darkness ahead of them.

‘Who's there?' said a voice he recognized as Meggie's.

‘Oh, thank God, it's you!' she exclaimed, as he spoke to her.

Mr Albert Campion then did the first intelligent thing Abbershaw had observed in him. He obliterated himself and faded away up the passage, leaving them together.

‘What's happened?' Abbershaw spoke apprehensively, as he felt her hand quiver as she caught his arm.

‘Where have you been?' she said breathlessly. ‘Haven't you heard? Colonel Coombe had a heart attack right in the middle of the game. Dr Whitby and Mr Gideon have taken him up to his room. It was all very awkward for them, though. There weren't any lights. When they sounded the gong the servants didn't come. Apparently there's only one door leading from their quarters to the rest of the house and that seems to have been locked. They've got the candles alight now, though,' she added, and he noticed that she was oddly breathless.

Abbershaw looked down at her; he wished he could see her face.