Mr Campion paused on the running-board and there was a faintly puckish expression behind his enormous glasses.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you? Listen – do you know who my mother is?’
‘No,’ said Abbershaw, with great curiosity.
Mr Campion leaned over the side of the car until his mouth was an inch or two from the other man’s ear, and murmured a name, a name so illustrious that Abbershaw started back and stared at him in astonishment.
‘Good God!’ he said. ‘You don’t mean that?’
‘No,’ said Mr Campion cheerfully, and went off striding jauntily down the street until, to Abbershaw’s amazement, he disappeared through the portals of one of the most famous and exclusive clubs in the world.
CHAPTER XXV
Mr Watt Explains
After dinner one evening in the following week, Abbershaw held a private consultation on the affair in his rooms in the Adelphi.
He had not put the case before his friend, Inspector Deadwood, for a reason which he dared not think out, yet his conscience forbade him to ignore the mystery surrounding the death of Colonel Coombe altogether.
Since von Faber and his confederates were wanted men, the County Police had handed over their prisoners to Scotland Yard; and in the light of preliminary legal proceedings, sufficient evidence had been forthcoming to render the affair at Black Dudley merely the culminating point in a long series of charges. Every day it became increasingly clear that they would not be heard of again for some time.