As he did not reply, Campion went on.
‘I don’t understand it at all,’ he said. ‘The man was so valuable to them . . . he must have been.’
Abbershaw hesitated, and then he said quietly:
‘Are you sure he was – I mean do you know he was?’
Campion’s pale eyes opened to their fullest extent behind his enormous glasses.
‘I know he was to be paid a fabulous sum by Simister for his services,’ he said, ‘and I know that on a certain day next month there was to be a man waiting at a big London hotel to meet him. That man is the greatest genius at disguise in Europe, and his instructions were to give the old boy a face-lift and one or two other natty gadgets and hand him a ticket for the first transatlantic liner, complete with passport, family history, and pretty niece. Von Faber didn’t know that, of course, but even if he did I don’t see why he should stick the old gentleman in the gizzard, do you? The whole thing beats me. Besides, why does he want to saddle us with the nasty piece of work? It’s the sort of thing he’d never convince us about. I don’t see it myself. It can’t be some bright notion of easing his own conscience.’
Abbershaw remained silent. He could not forget the old woman’s strangely convincing story, the likelihood of which was borne out by Campion’s own argument, but the more he thought about the man at his side, the more absurd did an explanation in that direction seem.
A smothered cry of horror from Martin at the window brought them all to their feet.
‘The swine,’ he said bitterly, turning to them, his face pale and his eyes glittering. ‘Look. I saw Dawlish coming out of the garage towards the house. He was carrying petrol cans. He intends to have a good bonfire.’
‘Good God!’ said Chris Kennedy, who had taken his place at the window. ‘Here comes a lad with a faggot. Oh, why can’t I get at ’em!’