‘I know nothing about it,’ he said. ‘My late wife brought me to this house,’ he explained. ‘It had been in the family for hundreds of years. She was a Petrie – Wyatt’s aunt. He naturally knows more about the history of the house than I. I should like to hear it, Wyatt.’
Wyatt smiled and shrugged his shoulders, then, moving forward, he climbed on to one of the high oak chairs by the fire-place, stepped up from one hidden foothold in the panelling to another, and stretching out his hand lifted the shimmering dagger off its plaque and carried it back to the group who pressed round to see it more closely.
The Black Dudley Dagger lost none of its sinister appearance by being removed from its setting. It lay there in Wyatt Petrie’s long, cultured hands, the green shade in the steel blade more apparent than ever, and a red jewel in the hilt glowing in the candle-light.
‘This,’ said Wyatt, displaying it to its full advantage, ‘is properly called the “Black Dudley Ritual Dagger”. In the time of Quentin Petrie, somewhere about 1500, a distinguished guest was found murdered with this dagger sticking in his heart.’ He paused, and glanced round the circle of faces. From the corner by the fire-place Gideon was listening intently, his grey face livid with interest, and his little black eyes wide and unblinking. The man who looked like Beethoven had turned towards the speaker also, but there was no expression on his heavy red face.
Wyatt continued in his quiet voice, choosing his words carefully and speaking with a certain scholastic precision.
‘I don’t know if you know it,’ he said, ‘but earlier than that date there had been a superstition which persisted in outlying places like this that a body touched by the hands of the murderer would bleed afresh from the mortal wound; or, failing that, if the weapon with which the murder was committed were placed into the hand which struck the blow, it would become covered with blood as it had been at the time of the crime. You’ve heard of that, haven’t you, Abbershaw?’ he said, turning towards the scientist, and George Abbershaw nodded.
‘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.