‘So Albert Campion was the murderer,’ she said.
Abbershaw started.
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that for a moment. In fact I’m sure of it,’ he went on, as he remembered the scene – it seemed incredible that it was only that afternoon – when Mr Campion had heard of the Colonel’s murder.
‘I’m sure of it,’ he repeated, ‘and besides,’ he added, as the extenuating circumstances occurred to him, ‘why should von Faber have taken all those precautions to conceal someone else’s crime?’
Meggie was silent at this, and Abbershaw continued. ‘There’s no doubt that the Colonel intended to cheat the gang,’ he said. ‘The documents were exquisite pieces of work, written on the finest paper in a hand so small that it would have taken a reading glass to follow the words. It was in code – not one I know, either – and it was only the tiny plans that gave the clue to what it was. All sewn into the lining of a pocket-book which Dawlish didn’t recognize when I showed it to him. Oh, what a fool I was to destroy it!’
The regret in his tone was very poignant, and for some seconds the girl did not speak. Then she moved a little nearer to him as if to compensate him for any embarrassment her question might cause him.
‘Why did you?’ she said at last.
Abbershaw was silent for some time before he spoke. Then he sighed deeply.
‘I was a crazy, interfering, well-meaning fool,’ he said, ‘and there’s no more dangerous creature on the face of the earth. I acted partly on impulse and partly because it really seemed to me to be the best thing to do at the moment. I had no idea whom we were up against. In the first place I knew that if I destroyed it I should probably be preventing a crime at least; you see, I had no means, and no time, to decipher it and thereby obtain enough information to warn Scotland Yard. I didn’t even know where the bank to be robbed was situated, or if indeed it was a bank. I knew we were up against pretty stiff customers, for one man had already been murdered, presumably on account of the papers, but I had no idea that they would dream of attempting anything so wholesale as this.’
He paused and shook his head.