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.’
He stopped and looked at Abbershaw steadily.
‘It doesn’t seem to be of any negotiable value,’ he said, ‘and as far as I can see, the only people who are interested in it are my client and Dawlish, but I can tell you one thing. It does interest them very much, and to get hold of it I don’t believe they’d stick at anything.’
‘But what was it?’ persisted Prenderby, who was more puzzled than ever by these explanations.