The Crime at Black Dudley

by

Margery Allingham

First published 1929

Published in Penguin Books 1950

Contents

To
‘THE GANG’

CHAPTER I
Candle-Light

The view from the narrow window was dreary and inexpressibly lonely. Miles of neglected park-land stretched in an unbroken plain to the horizon and the sea beyond. On all sides it was the same.

The grey-green stretches were hayed once a year, perhaps, but otherwise uncropped save by the herd of heavy-shouldered black cattle who wandered about them, their huge forms immense and grotesque in the fast-thickening twilight.

In the centre of this desolation, standing in a thousand acres of its own land, was the mansion, Black Dudley; a great grey building, bare and ugly as a fortress. No creepers hid its nakedness, and the long narrow windows were dark-curtained and uninviting.

The man in the old-fashioned bedroom turned away from the window and went on with his dressing.

‘Gloomy old place,’ he remarked to his reflection in the mirror. ‘Thank God it’s not mine.’

He tweaked his black tie deftly as he spoke, and stood back to survey the effect.

George Abbershaw, although his appearance did not indicate it, was a minor celebrity.

He was a smallish man, chubby and solemn, with a choir-boy expression and a head of ridiculous bright-red curls which gave him a somewhat fantastic appearance. He was fastidiously tidy in his dress and there was an air of precision in everything he did or said which betrayed an amazingly orderly mind. Apart from this, however, there was nothing about him to suggest that he was particularly distinguished or even mildly interesting, yet in a small and exclusive circle of learned men Dr George Abbershaw was an important person.

His book on pathology, treated with special reference to fatal wounds and the means of ascertaining their probable causes, was a standard work, and in view of his many services to the police in the past his name was well known and his opinion respected at the Yard.

At the moment he was on holiday, and the unusual care which he took over his toilet suggested that he had not come down to Black Dudley solely for the sake of recuperating in the Suffolk air.

Much to his own secret surprise and perplexity, he had fallen in love.

He recognized the symptoms at once and made no attempt at self-deception, but with his usual methodical thoroughness set himself to remove the disturbing emotion by one or other of the only two methods known to mankind – disillusionment or marriage. For that reason, therefore, when Wyatt Petrie had begged him to join a week-end party at his uncle’s house in the country, he had been persuaded to accept by the promise that Margaret Oliphant should also be of the party.

Wyatt had managed it, and she was in the house.

George Abbershaw sighed, and let his thoughts run on idly about his young host. A queer chap, Wyatt: Oxford turned out a lot of interesting young men with bees in their bonnets. Wyatt was a good lad, one of the best. He was profoundly grateful to Wyatt. Good Lord, what a profile she had, and there was brain there too, not empty prettiness. If only . . . ! He pulled himself together and mentally rebuked himself.

This problem must be attacked like any other, decently and in order.

He must talk to her; get to know her better, find out what she liked, what she thought about. With his mind still on these things the booming of the dinner gong surprised him, and he hurried down the low-stepped Tudor staircase as nearly flurried as he had ever been in his life.

However bleak and forbidding was Black Dudley’s exterior, the rooms within were none the less magnificent. Even here there were the same signs of neglect that were so evident in the Park, but there was a certain dusty majesty about the dark-panelled walls with the oil-paintings hanging in their fast-blackening frames, and in the heavy, dark-oak furniture, elaborately carved and utterly devoid of polish, that was very impressive and pleasing.

The place had not been modernized at all. There were still candles in the iron sconces in the hall, and the soft light sent great shadows, like enormous ghostly hands, creeping up to the oak-beamed ceiling.

George sniffed as he ran down the staircase. The air was faintly clammy and the tallow smelt a little.

‘Damp!’ said he to himself. ‘These old places need a lot of looking after . . . shouldn’t think the sanitary system was any too good. Very nice, but I’m glad it’s not mine.’

The dining-hall might have made him change his mind. All down one side of the long, low room was a row of stained-glass windows. In a great open fireplace a couple of faggots blazed whole, and on the long refectory table, which ran nearly the entire length of the flagged floor, eight seven-branched candlesticks held the only light. There were portraits on the walls, strangely differing in style, as the artists of the varying periods followed the fashions set by the masters of their time, but each face bearing a curious likeness to the next – the same straight noses, the same long thin lips, and above all, the same slightly rebellious expression.

Most of the party had already assembled when Abbershaw came in, and it struck him as incongruous to hear the babble of bright young conversation in this great tomb of a house with its faintly musty air and curiously archaic atmosphere.

As he caught sight of a gleam of copper-coloured hair on the other side of the table, however, he instantly forgot any sinister dampness or anything at all mysterious or unpleasant about the house.

Meggie Oliphant was one of those modern young women who manage to be fashionable without being ordinary in any way. She was a tall, slender youngster with a clean-cut white face, which was more interesting than pretty, and dark-brown eyes, slightly almond-shaped, which turned into slits of brilliance when she laughed. Her hair was her chief beauty, copper-coloured and very sleek; she wore it cut in a severe ‘John’ bob, a straight thick fringe across her forehead.

George Abbershaw’s prosaic mind quivered on the verge of poetry when he looked at her. To him she was exquisite. He found they were seated next to each other at table, and he blessed Wyatt for his thoughtfulness.

He glanced up the table at him now and thought what a good fellow he was.

The candle-light caught his clever, thoughtful face for an instant, and immediately the young scientist was struck by the resemblance to the portraits on the wall. There was the same straight nose, the same wide thin-lipped mouth.

Wyatt Petrie looked what he was, a scholar of the new type. There was a little careful disarrangement in his dress, his brown hair was not quite so sleek as his guests’, but he was obviously a cultured, fastidious man: every shadow on his face, every line and crease of his clothes indicated as much in a subtle and elusive way.

Abbershaw regarded him thoughtfully and, to a certain degree, affectionately. He had the admiration for him that one first-rate scholar always has for another out of his own line. Idly he reviewed the other man’s record. Head of a great public school, a First in Classics at Oxford, a recognized position as a minor poet, and above all a good fellow. He was a rich man, Abbershaw knew, but his tastes were simple and his charities many. He was a man with an urge, a man who took life, with its problems and its pleasures, very seriously. So far as the other man knew he had never betrayed the least interest in women in general or in one woman in particular. A month ago Abbershaw would have admired him for this attribute as much as for any other. Today, with Meggie at his side, he was not so sure that he did not pity him.

From the nephew, his glance passed slowly round to the uncle, Colonel Gordon Coombe, host of the week-end.

He sat at the head of the table, and Abbershaw glanced curiously at this old invalid who liked the society of young people so much that he persuaded his nephew to bring a houseful of young folk down to the gloomy old mansion at least half a dozen times a year.

He was a little man who sat huddled in his high-backed chair as if his backbone was not strong enough to support his frame upright. His crop of faded yellow hair was now almost white, and stood up like a hedge above a narrow forehead. But by far the most striking thing about him was the flesh-coloured plate with which clever doctors had repaired a war-mutilated face which must otherwise have been a horror too terrible to think upon. From where he sat, perhaps some fourteen feet away, Abbershaw could only just detect it, so skilfully was it fashioned. It was shaped roughly like a one-sided half-mask and covered almost all the top right-hand side of his face, and through it the Colonel’s grey-green eyes peered out shrewd and interested at the tableful of chattering young people.

George looked away hastily. For a moment his curiosity had overcome his sense of delicacy, and a wave of embarrassment passed over him as he realized that the little grey-green eyes had rested upon him for an instant and had found him eyeing the plate.

He turned to Meggie with a faint twinge of unwanted colour in his round cherubic face, and was a little disconcerted to find her looking at him, a hint of a smile on her lips and a curious brightness in her intelligent, dark-brown eyes. Just for a moment he had the uncomfortable impression that she was laughing at him.

He looked at her suspiciously, but she was no longer smiling, and when she spoke there was no amusement or superiority in her tone.

‘Isn’t it a marvellous house?’ she said.

He nodded.

‘Wonderful,’ he agreed. ‘Very old, I should say. But it’s very lonely,’ he added, his practical nature coming out in spite of himself. ‘Probably most inconvenient . . . I’m glad it’s not mine.’

The girl laughed softly.

‘Unromantic soul,’ she said.

Abbershaw looked at her and reddened and coughed and changed the conversation.

‘I say,’ he said, under the cover of the general prittle-prattle all around them, ‘do you know who everyone is? I only recognize Wyatt and young Michael Prenderby over there. Who are the others? I arrived too late to be introduced.’

The girl shook her head.

‘I don’t know many myself,’ she murmured. ‘That’s Anne Edgeware sitting next to Wyatt – she’s rather pretty, don’t you think? She’s a Stage-cum-Society person; you must have heard of her.’

Abbershaw glanced across the table, where a striking young woman in a pseudo-Victorian frock and side curls sat talking vivaciously to the young man at her side. Some of her conversation floated across the table to him. He turned away again.

‘I don’t think she’s particularly pretty,’ he said with cheerful inconsequentialness. ‘Who’s the lad?’

‘That boy with black hair talking to her? That’s Martin. I don’t know his other name, he was only introduced to me in the hall. He’s just a stray young man, I think.’ She paused and looked round the table.

‘You know Michael, you say. The little round shy girl next him is Jeanne, his fiancée; perhaps you’ve met her.’

George shook his head.

‘No,’ he said, ‘but I’ve wanted to; I take a personal interest in Michael’ – he glanced at the fair, sharp-featured young man as he spoke – ‘he’s only just qualified as an M.D., you know, but he’ll go far. Nice chap, too . . . Who is the young prize-fighter on the girl’s left?’

Meggie shook her sleek bronze head at him reprovingly as she followed his glance to the young giant a little higher up the table. ‘You mustn’t say that,’ she whispered. ‘He’s our star turn this party. That’s Chris Kennedy, the Cambridge rugger blue.’

‘Is it?’ said Abbershaw with growing respect. ‘Fine-looking man.’

Meggie glanced at him sharply, and again the faint smile appeared on her lips and the brightness in her dark eyes. For all his psychology, his theorizing, and the seriousness with which he took himself, there was very little of George Abbershaw’s mind that was not apparent to her, but for all that the light in her eyes was a happy one and the smile on her lips unusually tender.

‘That,’ she said suddenly, following the direction of his gaze and answering his unspoken thought, ‘that’s a lunatic.’

George turned to her gravely.

‘Really?’ he said.

She had the grace to become a little confused.

‘His name is Albert Campion,’ she said. ‘He came down in Anne Edgeware’s car, and the first thing he did when he was introduced to me was to show me a conjuring trick with a two-headed penny – he’s quite inoffensive, just a silly ass.’

Abbershaw nodded and stared covertly at the fresh-faced young man with the tow-coloured hair and the foolish, pale-blue eyes behind tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, and wondered where he had seen him before.

The slightly receding chin and mouth so unnecessarily full of teeth was distinctly familiar. ‘Albert Campion?’ he repeated under his breath. ‘Albert Campion? Campion? Campion?’ But still his memory would not serve him, and he gave up calling on it and once more his inquisitive glance flickered round the table.

Since the uncomfortable little moment ten minutes ago when the Colonel had observed him scrutinizing his face, he had been careful to avoid the head of the table, but now his attention was caught by a man who sat next to his host, and for an instant he stared unashamedly.

The man was a foreigner, so much was evident at a glance; but that in itself was not sufficient to interest him so particularly.

The man was an arresting type. He was white-haired, very small and delicately made, with long graceful hands which he used a great deal in his conversation, making gestures, swaying his long, pale fingers gracefully, easily.

Under the sleek white hair which waved straight back from a high forehead his face was grey, vivacious, and peculiarly wicked.

George could think of no other word to describe the thin-lipped mouth that became one-sided and O-shaped in speech, the long thin nose, and more particularly the deep-set, round, black eyes which glistened and twinkled under enormous shaggy grey brows.

George touched Meggie’s arm.

‘Who is that?’ he said.

The girl looked up and then dropped her eyes hurriedly.

‘I don’t know,’ she murmured, ‘save that his name is Gideon or something, and he is a guest of the Colonel’s – nothing to do with our crowd.’

‘Weird-looking man,’ said Abbershaw.

‘Terrible!’ she said, so softly and with such earnestness that he glanced at her sharply and found her face quite grave.

She laughed as she saw his expression.

‘I’m a fool,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realize what an impression the man had made on me until I spoke. But he looks a wicked type, doesn’t he? His friend, too, is rather startling, don’t you think – the man sitting opposite to him?’

The repetition of the word ‘wicked’, the epithet which had arisen in his own mind, surprised Abbershaw, and he glanced covertly up the table again.

The man seated opposite Gideon, on the other side of the Colonel, was striking enough indeed.

He was a foreigner, grossly fat, and heavily jowled, and there was something absurdly familiar about him. Suddenly it dawned upon George what it was. The man was the living image of the little busts of Beethoven which are sold at music shops. There were the same heavy-lidded eyes, the same broad nose, and to cap it all the same shock of hair, worn long and brushed straight back from the amazingly high forehead.

‘Isn’t it queer?’ murmured Meggie’s voice at his side. ‘See – he has no expression at all.’

As soon as she had spoken George realized that it was true. Although he had been watching the man for the last few minutes he had not seen the least change in the heavy red face; not a muscle seemed to have moved, nor the eyelids to have flickered; and although he had been talking to the Colonel at the time, his lips seemed to have moved independently of the rest of his features. It was as if one watched a statue speak.

‘I think his name is Dawlish – Benjamin Dawlish,’ said the girl. ‘We were introduced just before dinner.’

Abbershaw nodded, and the conversation drifted on to other things, but all the time he was conscious of something faintly disturbing in the back of his mind, something which hung over his thoughts like a black shadow vaguely ugly and uncomfortable.

It was a new experience for him, but he recognized it immediately.

For the first time in his life he had a presentiment – a vague, unaccountable apprehension of trouble ahead.

He glanced at Meggie dubiously.

Love played all sorts of tricks with a man’s brains. It was very bewildering.

The next moment he had pulled himself together, telling himself soberly not to be a fool. But wriggle and twist as he might, always the black shadow sat behind his thoughts, and he was glad of the candle-light and the bright conversation and the laughter of the dinner-table.

CHAPTER II
The Ritual of the Dagger

After dinner, Abbershaw was one of the first to enter the great hall or drawing-room which, with the dining-room, took up the best part of the ground floor of the magnificent old mansion. It was an amazing room, vast as a barn and heavily panelled, with a magnificently carved fire-place at each end wherein two huge fires blazed. The floor was old oak and highly polished, and there was no covering save for two or three beautiful Shiraz rugs.

The furniture here was the same as in the other parts of the house, heavy, unpolished oak, carved and very old; and here, too, the faint atmosphere of mystery and dankness, with which the whole house was redolent, was apparent also.

Abbershaw noticed it immediately, and put it down to the fact that the light of the place came from a huge iron candle-ring which held some twenty or thirty thick wax candles suspended by an iron chain from the centre beam of the ceiling, so that there were heavy shadows round the panelled walls and in the deep corners behind the great fire-places.

By far the most striking thing in the whole room was an enormous trophy which hung over the fire-place farthest from the door. It was a vast affair composed of some twenty or thirty lances arranged in a circle, heads to the centre, and surmounted by a feathered helm and a banner resplendent with the arms of the Petries.

Yet it was the actual centre-piece which commanded immediate interest. Mounted on a crimson plaque, at the point where the lance-heads made a narrow circle, was a long, fifteenth-century Italian dagger. The hilt was an exquisite piece of workmanship, beautifully chased and encrusted at the upper end with uncut jewels, but it was not this that first struck the onlooker. The blade of the Black Dudley Dagger was its most remarkable feature. Under a foot long, it was very slender and exquisitely graceful, fashioned from steel that had in it a curious greenish tinge which lent the whole weapon an unmistakably sinister appearance. It seemed to shine out of the dark background like a living and malignant thing.

No one entering the room for the first time could fail to remark upon it; in spite of its comparatively insignificant size it dominated the whole room like an idol in a temple.

George Abbershaw was struck by it as soon as he came in, and instantly the feeling of apprehension which had annoyed his prosaic soul so much in the other room returned, and he glanced round him sharply, seeking either reassurance or confirmation, he hardly knew which.

The house-party which had seemed so large round the dinner-table now looked amazingly small in this cathedral of a room.

Colonel Coombe had been wheeled into a corner just out of the firelight by a man-servant, and the old invalid now sat smiling benignly on the group of young people in the body of the room. Gideon and the man with the expressionless face sat one on either side of him, while a grey-haired, sallow-faced man whom Abbershaw understood was a Dr White Whitby, the Colonel’s private attendant, hovered about them in nervous solicitude for his patient.

On closer inspection Gideon and the man who looked like Beethoven proved to be even more unattractive than Abbershaw had supposed from his first somewhat cursory glance.

The rest of the party was in high spirits. Anne Edgeware was illustrating the striking contrast between Victorian clothes and modern manners, and her vivacious air and somewhat outrageous conversation made her the centre of a laughing group. Wyatt Petrie stood amongst his guests, a graceful, lazy figure, and his well-modulated voice and slow laugh sounded pleasant and reassuring in the forbidding room.

It was Anne who first brought up the subject of the dagger, as someone was bound to do.

‘What a perfectly revolting thing, Wyatt,’ she said, pointing at it. ‘I’ve been trying not to mention it ever since I came in here. I should toast your muffins with something else, my dear.’

‘Ssh!’ Wyatt turned to her with mock solemnity. ‘You mustn’t speak disrespectfully of the Black Dudley Dagger. The ghosts of a hundred dead Petries will haunt you out of sheer outraged family pride if you do.’

The words were spoken lightly, and his voice had lost none of its quiet suavity, but whether it was the effect of the dagger itself or that of the ghostly old house upon the guests none could tell, but the girl’s flippancy died away and she laughed nervously.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should just loathe to be haunted. But quite seriously, then, if we mustn’t laugh, what an incredible thing that dagger is.’

The others had gathered round her, and she and Wyatt now stood in the centre of a group looking up at the trophy. Wyatt turned round to Abbershaw. ‘What do you think of it, George?’ he said.

‘Very interesting – very interesting indeed. It is very old, of course? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like it in my life.’ The little man spoke with genuine enthusiasm. ‘It’s a curio, some old family relic, I suppose?’

Wyatt nodded, and his lazy grey eyes flickered with faint amusement.

‘Well, yes, it is,’ he said. ‘My ancestors seem to have had high old times with it if family legends are true.’

‘Ah!’ said Meggie, coming forward. ‘A ghost story?’

Wyatt glanced at her.

‘Not a ghost,’ he said, ‘but a story.’

‘Let’s have it.’ It was Chris Kennedy who spoke; the young rugger blue had more resignation than enthusiasm in his tone. Old family stories were not in his line. The rest of the party was considerably more keen, however, and Wyatt was pestered for the story.

‘It’s only a yarn, of course,’ he began. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever told it to anyone else before. I don’t think even my uncle knows it.’ He turned questioningly as he spoke, and the old man shook his head.

‘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.

Wyatt smiled. ‘I’m afraid one of the family was beheaded for the murder,’ he said; ‘and the chronicles have it that the dagger betrayed him, but I fancy that there was a good deal of juggling in affairs of justice in those days.’

‘Yes, but where does the ritual come in?’ said Albert Campion, in his absurd falsetto drawl. ‘It sounds most intriguing. I knew a fellow once who, when he went to bed, made a point of taking off everything else first before he removed his topper. He called that a ritual.’

‘It sounds more like a conjuring trick,’ said Abbershaw.

‘It does, doesn’t it?’ agreed the irrepressible Albert. ‘But I don’t suppose your family ritual was anything like that, was it, Petrie? Something more lurid, I expect.’

‘It was, a little, but nearly as absurd,’ said Wyatt, laughing. ‘Apparently it became a custom after that for the whole ceremony of the dagger to be repeated once a year – a sort of family rite as far as I can ascertain. That was only in the beginning, of course. In later years it degenerated into a sort of mixed hide-and-seek and relay race, played all over the house. I believe it was done at Christmas as late as my grandfather’s time. The procedure was very simple. All the lights in the house were put out, and the head of the family, a Petrie by name and blood, handed the dagger to the first person he met in the darkness. Acceptance was of course compulsory, and that person had to hunt out someone else to pass the dagger on to, and the game continued in that fashion – each person striving to get rid of the dagger as soon as it was handed to him – for twenty minutes. Then the head of the house rang the dinner gong in the hall, the servants relit the lights, and the person discovered with the dagger lost the game and paid a forfeit which varied, I believe, from kisses to silver coins all round.’

He stopped abruptly.

‘That’s all there is,’ he said, swinging the dagger in his fingers.

‘What a perfectly wonderful story!’

Anne Edgeware turned to the others as she spoke. ‘Isn’t it?’ she continued. ‘It just sort of fits in with this house!’

‘Let’s play it.’ It was the bright young man with the teeth again, and he beamed round fatuously at the company as he spoke. ‘For sixpences if you like,’ he ventured as an added inducement, as no one enthused immediately.

Anne looked at Wyatt. ‘Could we?’ she said.

‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea,’ remarked Chris Kennedy, who was willing to back up Anne in anything she chose to suggest. The rest of the party had also taken kindly to the idea, and Wyatt hesitated.

‘There’s no reason why we shouldn’t,’ he said, and paused. Abbershaw was suddenly seized with a violent objection to the whole scheme. The story of the dagger ritual had impressed him strangely. He had seen the eyes of Gideon fixed upon the speaker with curious intensity, and had noticed the little huddled old man with the plate over his face harking to the barbarous story with avid enjoyment. Whether it was the great dank gloomy house or the disturbing effects of love upon his nervous system he did not know, but the idea of groping round in the dark with the malignant-looking dagger filled him with a distaste more vigorous than anything he had ever felt before. He had an impression, also, that Wyatt was not too attracted by the idea, but in the face of the unanimous enthusiasm of the rest of the party he could do nothing but fall in with the scheme.

Wyatt looked at his uncle.

‘But certainly, my dear boy, why should I?’ The old man seemed to be replying to an unspoken question. ‘Let us consider it a blessing that so innocent and pleasing an entertainment can arise from something that must at one time have been very terrible.’

Abbershaw glanced at him sharply. There had been a touch of something in the voice that did not ring quite true, something hypocritical – insincere. Colonel Coombe glanced at the men on either side of him.

‘I don’t know . . .’ he began dubiously.

Gideon spoke at once: it was the first time Abbershaw had heard his voice, and it struck him unpleasantly. It was deep, liquid, and curiously caressing, like the purring of a cat.

‘To take part in such an ancient ceremony would be a privilege,’ he said.

The man who had no expression bowed his head.

‘I too,’ he said, a trace of foreign accent in his voice, ‘would be delighted.’

Once the ritual had been decided upon, preparations went forward with all ceremony and youthful enthusiasm. The man-servant was called in, and his part in the proceedings explained carefully. He was to let down the great iron candle-ring, extinguish the lights, and haul it up to the ceiling again. The lights in the hall were to be put out also, and he was then to retire to the servants’ quarters and wait there until the dinner-gong sounded, at which time he was to return with some of the other servants and relight the candles with all speed.

He was a big man with a chest like a prize-fighter and a heavy florid face with enormous pale-blue eyes which had in them an innately sullen expression. A man who could become very unpleasant if the occasion arose, Abbershaw reflected inconsequentially.

As head of the family, Wyatt the last of the Petries took command of the proceedings. He had the manner, Abbershaw considered, of one who did not altogether relish his position. There was a faintly unwilling air about everything he did, a certain over-deliberation in all his instructions which betrayed, the other thought, a distaste for his task.

At length the signal was given. With a melodramatic rattle of chains the great iron candle-ring was let down and the lights put out, so that the vast hall was in darkness save for the glowing fires at each end of the room. Gideon and the man with the face like Beethoven had joined the circle round the doorway to the corridors, and the last thing George Abbershaw saw before the candles were extinguished was the little wizened figure of Colonel Coombe sitting in his chair in the shadow of the fire-place smiling out upon the scene from behind the hideous flesh-coloured plate. Then he followed the others into the dim halls and corridors of the great eerie house, and the Black Dudley Ritual began.

CHAPTER III
In the Garage

The weirdness of the great stone staircases and unlit recesses was even more disquieting than Abbershaw had imagined it would be. There were flutterings in the dark, whisperings, and hurried footsteps. He was by no means a nervous man, and in the ordinary way an experience of this sort would probably have amused him faintly, had it not bored him. But on this particular night and in this house, which had impressed him with such a curious sense of foreboding ever since he had first seen it from the drive, he was distinctly uneasy.

To make matters worse, he had entirely lost sight of Meggie. He had missed her in the first blinding rush of darkness, and so, when by chance he found himself up against a door leading into the garden, he went out, shutting it softly behind him.

It was a fine night, and although there was no moon, the starlight made it possible for him to see his way about; he did not feel like wandering about the eerie grounds alone, and suddenly it occurred to him that he would go and inspect his A.C. two-seater which he had left in the big garage beside the drive.

He was a tidy man, and since he had no clear recollection of turning off the petrol before he left her, it struck him that now was a convenient opportunity to make sure.

He located the garage without much difficulty, and made his way to it, crossing over the broad, flagged drive to where the erstwhile barn loomed up against the starlight sky. The doors were still open and there was a certain amount of light from two hurricane lanterns hanging from a low beam in the roof. There were more than half a dozen cars lined up inside, and he reflected how very typical each was of its owner. The Rover coupé with the cream body and the black wings was obviously Anne Edgeware’s; even had he not seen her smart black-and-white motoring kit he would have known it. The Salmson with the ridiculous mascot was patently Chris Kennedy’s property; the magnificent Lanchester must be Gideon’s, and the rest were simple also; a Bentley, a Buick, and a Swift proclaimed their owners.

As his eye passed from one to another, a smile flickered for an instant on his lips. There, in the corner, derelict and dignified as a maiden aunt, was one of the pioneers of motor traffic.

This must be the house car, he reflected, as he walked over to it, Colonel Coombe’s own vehicle. It was extraordinary how well it matched the house, he thought as he reached it.

Made in the very beginning of the century, it belonged to the time when, as some brilliant American has said, cars were built, like cathedrals, with prayer. It was a brougham; coach-built and leathery, with a seating capacity in the back for six at least, and a tiny cab only in front for the driver. Abbershaw was interested in cars, and since he felt he had time to spare and there was nothing better to do, he lifted up the extraordinarily ponderous bonnet of the ‘museum-piece’ and looked in.

For some moments he stood staring at the engine within, and then, drawing a torch from his pocket, he examined it more closely.

Suddenly a smothered exclamation broke from his lips and he bent down and flashed the light on the underside of the car, peering under the ridiculously heavy running-boards and glancing at the axles and shaft. At last he stood up and shut down the bonnet, an expression of mingled amazement and curiosity on his cherubic face.

The absurd old body, which looked as if it belonged to a car which would be capable of twenty miles all out at most, was set upon the chassis and the engine of latest ‘Phantom’ type Rolls-Royce.

He had no time to reflect upon the possible motives of the owner of the strange hybrid for this inexplicable piece of eccentricity, for at that moment he was disturbed by the sounds of footsteps coming up the flagged drive. Instinctively he moved over to his own car, and was bending over it when a figure appeared in the doorway.

‘Oh – er – hullo! Having a little potter – what?’

The words, uttered in an inoffensively idiotic voice, made Abbershaw glance up to find Albert Campion smiling fatuously in upon him.

‘Hullo!’ said Abbershaw, a little nettled to have his occupation so accurately described. ‘How’s the Ritual going?’

Mr Campion looked a trifle embarrassed.

‘Oh, jogging along, I believe. Two hours’ clean fun, don’t you know.’

‘You seem to be missing yours,’ said Abbershaw pointedly.

The young man appeared to break out into a sort of Charleston, apparently to hide further embarrassment.

‘Well, yes, as a matter of fact I got fed up with it in there,’ he said, still hopping up and down in a way Abbershaw found peculiarly irritating. ‘All this running about in the dark with daggers doesn’t seem to me healthy. I don’t like knives, you know – people getting excited and all that. I came out to get away from it all.’

For the first time Abbershaw began to feel a faint sympathy for him.

‘Your car here?’ he remarked casually.

This perfectly obvious question seemed to place Mr Campion still less at ease.

‘Well – er – no. As a matter of fact, it isn’t. To be exact,’ he added in a sudden burst of confidence, ‘I haven’t got one at all. I’ve always liked them, though,’ he continued hastily, ‘nice, useful things. I’ve always thought that. Get you where you want to go, you know. Better than a horse.’

Abbershaw stared at him. He considered that the man was either a lunatic or drunk, and as he disliked both alternatives he suggested stiffly that they should return to the house. The young man did not greet the proposal with enthusiasm, but Abbershaw, who was a determined little man when roused, dragged him back to the side door through which he had come, without further ado.

As soon as they entered the great grey corridor and the faintly dank musty breath of the house came to meet them, it became evident that something had happened. There was a sound of many feet, echoing voices, and at the far end of the passage a light flickered and passed.

‘Someone kicking up a row over the forfeit, what!’ The idiotic voice of Albert Campion at his ear jarred upon Abbershaw strangely.

‘We’ll see,’ he said, and there was an underlying note of anxiety in his voice which he could not hide.

A light step sounded close at hand and there was a gleam of silk in the darkness ahead of them.

‘Who’s there?’ said a voice he recognized as Meggie’s.

‘Oh, thank God, it’s you!’ she exclaimed, as he spoke to her.

Mr Albert Campion then did the first intelligent thing Abbershaw had observed in him. He obliterated himself and faded away up the passage, leaving them together.

‘What’s happened?’ Abbershaw spoke apprehensively, as he felt her hand quiver as she caught his arm.

‘Where have you been?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Haven’t you heard? Colonel Coombe had a heart attack right in the middle of the game. Dr Whitby and Mr Gideon have taken him up to his room. It was all very awkward for them, though. There weren’t any lights. When they sounded the gong the servants didn’t come. Apparently there’s only one door leading from their quarters to the rest of the house and that seems to have been locked. They’ve got the candles alight now, though,’ she added, and he noticed that she was oddly breathless.

Abbershaw looked down at her; he wished he could see her face.

‘What’s happening in there now?’ he said. ‘Anything we can do?’

The girl shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. They’re just standing about talking. I heard Wyatt say that the news had come down that it was nothing serious, and he asked us all to go on as if nothing had happened. Apparently the Colonel often gets these attacks . . .’ She hesitated and made no attempt to move.

Abbershaw felt her trembling by his side, and once again the curious fear which had been lurking at the back of his mind all the evening showed itself to him.

‘Tell me,’ he said, with a sudden intuition that made his voice gentle and comforting in the darkness. ‘What is it?’

She started, and her voice sounded high and out of control.

‘Not – not here. Can’t we get outside? I’m frightened of this house.’ The admission in her tone made his heart leap painfully.

Something had happened, then.

He drew her arm through his.

‘Why, yes, of course we can,’ he said. ‘It’s a fine starlit night; we’ll go on to the grass.’

He led her out on to the roughly cut turf that had once been smooth lawns, and they walked together out of the shadows of the house into a little shrubbery where they were completely hidden from the windows.

‘Now,’ he said, and his voice had unconsciously assumed a protective tone; ‘what is it?’

The girl looked up at him, and he could see her keen, clever face and narrow brown eyes in the faint light.

‘It was horrible in there,’ she whispered. ‘When Colonel Coombe had his attack, I mean. I think Dr Whitby found him. He and Mr Gideon carried him up while the other man – the man with no expression on his face – rang the gong. No one knew what had happened, and there were no lights. Then Mr Gideon came down and said that the Colonel had had a heart attack . . .’ She stopped and looked steadily at him, and he was horrified to see that she was livid with terror.

‘George,’ she said suddenly, ‘if I told you something would you think I – I was mad?’

‘No, of course not,’ he assured her steadily. ‘What else happened?’

The girl swallowed hard. He saw she was striving to compose herself, and obeying a sudden impulse he slid his arm round her waist, so that she was encircled and supported by it.

‘In the game,’ she said, speaking clearly and steadily as if it were an effort, ‘about five minutes before the gong rang, someone gave me the dagger. I don’t know who it was – I think it was a woman, but I’m not sure. I was standing at the foot of the stone flight of stairs which leads down into the lower hall, when someone brushed past me in the dark and pushed the dagger into my hand. I suddenly felt frightened of it, and I ran down the corridor to find someone I could give it to.’

She paused, and he felt her shudder in his arm.

‘There is a window in the passage,’ she said, ‘and as I passed under it the faint light fell upon the dagger and – don’t think I’m crazy, or dreaming, or imagining something – but I saw the blade was covered with something dark. I touched it, it was sticky. I knew it at once, it was blood!’

‘Blood!’ The full meaning of her words dawned slowly on the man and he stared at her, half-fascinated, half-incredulous.

‘Yes. You must believe me.’ Her voice was agonized and he felt her eyes on his face. ‘I stood there staring at it,’ she went on. ‘At first I thought I was going to faint. I knew I should scream in another moment, and then – quite suddenly and noiselessly – a hand came out of the shadows and took the knife. I was so frightened I felt I was going mad. Then, just when I felt my head was bursting, the gong rang.’

Her voice died away in the silence, and she thrust something into his hand.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘if you don’t believe me. I wiped my hand with it.’

Abbershaw flashed his torch upon the little crumpled scrap in his hand. It was a handkerchief, a little filmy wisp of a thing of lawn and lace, and on it, clear and unmistakable, was a dull red smear – dry blood.

CHAPTER IV
Murder

They went slowly back to the house.

Meggie went straight up to her room, and Abbershaw joined the others in the hall.

The invalid’s corner was empty, chair and all had disappeared.

Wyatt was doing his best to relieve any feeling of constraint amongst his guests, assuring them that his uncle’s heart attacks were by no means infrequent and asking them to forget the incident if they could.

Nobody thought of the dagger. It seemed to have vanished completely. Abbershaw hesitated, wondering if he should mention it, but finally decided not to, and he joined in the half-hearted, fitful conversation.

By common consent everyone went to bed early. A depression had settled over the spirits of the company, and it was well before midnight when once again the great candle-ring was let down from the ceiling and the hall left again in darkness.

Up in his room Abbershaw removed his coat and waistcoat, and, attiring himself in a modestly luxurious dressing-gown, settled down in the armchair before the fire to smoke a last cigarette before going to bed. The apprehension he had felt all along had been by no means lessened by the events of the last hour or so.

He believed Meggie’s story implicitly: she was not the kind of girl to fabricate a story of that sort in any circumstances, and besides the whole atmosphere of the building after he had returned from the garage had been vaguely suggestive and mysterious.

There was something going on in the house that was not ordinary, something that as yet he did not understand, and once again the face of the absurd young man with the horn-rimmed spectacles flashed into his mind and he strove vainly to remember where he had seen it before.

His meditations were cut short by the sound of footsteps in the passage outside, and the next moment there was a discreet tap at his door.

Abbershaw rose and opened it, to discover Michael Prenderby, the young, newly qualified M.D., standing fully dressed in the doorway.

The boy looked worried, and came into the room quickly, shutting the door behind him after he had glanced up and down the corridor outside as if to make certain that he had not been followed.

‘Forgive the melodrama,’ he said, ‘but there’s something darn queer going on in this place. Have a cigarette?’

Abbershaw looked at him shrewdly. The hand that held the cigarette-case out to him was not too steady, and the facetiousness of the tone was belied by the expression of anxiety in his eyes.

Michael Prenderby was a fair, slight young man, with a sense of humour entirely unexpected.

To the casual observer he was an inoffensive, colourless individual, and his extraordinary spirit and strength of character were known only to his friends.

Abbershaw took a cigarette and indicated a chair.

‘Let’s have it,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

Prenderby lit a cigarette and pulled at it vigorously, then he spoke abruptly.

‘In the first place,’ he said, ‘the old bird upstairs is dead.’

Abbershaw’s blue-grey eyes flickered, and the thought which had lurked at the back of his mind ever since Meggie’s story in the garden suddenly grew into a certainty.

‘Dead?’ he said. ‘How do you know?’

‘They told me.’ Prenderby’s pale face flushed slightly. ‘The private medico fellow – Whitby, I think his name is – came up to me just as I was coming to bed; he asked me if I would go up with him and have a look at the old boy.’

He paused awkwardly, and Abbershaw suddenly realized that it was a question of professional etiquette that was embarrassing him.

‘I thought they’d be bound to have got you up there already,’ the boy continued, ‘so I chased up after the fellow and found the Colonel stretched out on the bed, face covered up and all that. Gideon was there too, and as soon as I got up in the room I grasped what it was they wanted me for. Mine was to be the signature on the cremation certificate.’

‘Cremation? They’re in a bit of a hurry, aren’t they?’

Prenderby nodded.

‘That’s what I thought, but Gideon explained that the old boy’s last words were a wish that he should be cremated and the party should continue, so they didn’t want to keep the body in the house a moment longer than was absolutely necessary.’

‘Wanted the party to go on?’ repeated Abbershaw stupidly. ‘Absurd!’

The young doctor leant forward. ‘That’s not all by any means,’ he said. ‘When I found what they wanted, naturally I pointed out that you were the senior man and should be first approached. That seemed to annoy them both. Old Whitby, who was very nervous, I thought, got very up-stage and talked a lot of rot about “Practising M.D.s”, but it was the foreigner who got me into the really unpleasant hole. He pointed out, in that disgustingly sticky voice he has, that I was a guest in the house and could hardly refuse such a simple request. It was all damn cheek, and very awkward, but eventually I decided to rely on your decency to back me up and so . . .’ He paused.

‘Did you sign?’ Abbershaw said quickly.

Prenderby shook his head. ‘No,’ he said with determination, adding explanatorily: ‘They wouldn’t let me look at the body.’

‘What?’ Abbershaw was startled. Everything was tending in the same direction. The situation was by no means a pleasant one.

‘You refused?’ he said.

‘Rather.’ Prenderby was inclined to be angry. ‘Whitby talked a lot of the usual bilge – trotted out all the good old phrases. By the time he’d finished, the poor old bird on the bed must have been dead about a year and a half according to him. But he kept himself between me and the bed, and when I went to pull the sheet down, Gideon got in my way deliberately. Whitby seemed to take it as a personal insult that I should think even an ordinary examination necessary. And then I’m afraid I lost my temper and walked out.’

He paused, and looked at the older man awkwardly. ‘You see,’ he said, with a sudden burst of confidence, ‘I’ve never signed a cremation certificate in my life, and I didn’t feel like starting on an obviously fishy case. I only took my finals a few months ago, you know.’

‘Oh, quite right, quite right.’ Abbershaw spoke with conviction. ‘I wonder what they’re doing?’

Prenderby grinned.

‘You’ll probably find out,’ he said dryly. ‘They’ll come to you now. They thought I should be easier to manage, but having failed – and since they’re in such a hurry – I should think you were for it. It occurred to me to nip down and warn you.’

‘Good of you. Thanks very much.’ Abbershaw spoke genuinely. ‘It’s a most extraordinary business. Did it look like heart failure?’

Prenderby shrugged his shoulders.

‘My dear fellow, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even see the face. If it was heart failure why shouldn’t I examine him? It’s more than fishy, you know, Abbershaw. Do you think we ought to do anything?’

‘No. That is, not at the moment.’ George Abbershaw’s round and chubby face had suddenly taken on an expression which immediately altered its entire character. His mouth was firm and decided, and there was confidence in his eyes. In an instant he had become the man of authority, eminently capable of dealing with any situation that might arise.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘if you’ve just left them they’ll be round for me any moment. You’d better get out now, so that they don’t find us together. You see,’ he went on quickly, ‘we don’t want a row here, with women about and that sort of thing; besides, we couldn’t do anything if they turned savage. As soon as I get to town I can trot along and see old Deadwood at the Yard and get everything looked into without much fuss. That is, of course, once I’ve satisfied myself that there is something tangible to go upon. So if they press me for that signature I think I shall give it ’em. You see, I can arrange an inquiry afterwards if it seems necessary. It’s hardly likely they’ll get the body cremated before we can get on to ’em. I shall go up to town first thing in the morning.’

‘That’s the stuff,’ said Prenderby with enthusiasm. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll drop down on you afterwards to hear how things have progressed. Hullo!’

He paused, listening. ‘There’s someone coming down the passage now,’ he said. ‘Look here, if it’s all the same to you I’ll continue the melodrama and get into that press.’

He slipped into the big wardrobe at the far end of the room and closed the carved door behind him just as the footsteps paused in the passage outside and someone knocked.

On opening the door, Abbershaw found, as he had expected, Dr Whitby on the threshold. The man was in a pitiable state of nerves. His thin grey hair was damp and limp upon his forehead, and his hands twitched visibly.

‘Dr Abbershaw,’ he began, ‘I am sorry to trouble you so late at night, but I wonder if you would do something for us.’

‘My dear sir, of course.’ Abbershaw radiated good humour, and the other man warmed immediately.

‘I think you know,’ he said, ‘I am Colonel Coombe’s private physician. He has been an invalid for some years, as I dare say you are aware. In point of fact, a most unfortunate thing has happened, which although we have known for some time that it must come soon, is none the less a great shock. Colonel Coombe’s seizure this evening has proved fatal.’

Abbershaw’s expression was a masterpiece: his eyebrows rose, his mouth opened.

‘Dear, dear! How very distressing!’ he said with that touch of pomposity which makes a young man look more foolish than anything else. ‘Very distressing,’ he repeated, as if another thought had suddenly struck him. ‘It’ll break up the party, of course.’

Dr Whitby hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we had hoped not.’

‘Not break up the party?’ exclaimed Abbershaw, looking so profoundly shocked that the other hastened to explain.

‘The deceased was a most eccentric man,’ he murmured confidentially. ‘His last words were a most urgently expressed desire for the party to continue.’

‘A little trying for all concerned,’ Abbershaw commented stiffly.

‘Just so,’ said his visitor. ‘That is really why I came to you. It has always been the Colonel’s wish that he should be cremated immediately after his decease, and, as a matter of fact, all preparations have been made for some time. There is just the formality of the certificate, and I wonder if I might bother you for the necessary signature.’

He hesitated doubtfully, and shot a glance at the little red-haired man in the dressing-gown. But Abbershaw was ready for him.

‘My dear sir, anything I can do, of course. Let’s go up there now, shall we?’

All traces of nervousness had vanished from Whitby’s face, and a sigh of relief escaped his lips as he escorted the obliging Dr Abbershaw down the long, creaking corridor to the Colonel’s room.

It was a vast old-fashioned apartment, high-ceilinged, and not too well lit. Panelled on one side, it was hung on the other with heavy curtains, ancient and dusty. Not at all the sort of room that appealed to Abbershaw as a bedchamber for an invalid.

A huge four-poster bed took up all the farther end of the place, and upon it lay something very still and stiff, covered by a sheet. On a small table near the wide fire-place were pen and ink and a cremation certificate form; standing near it was Jesse Gideon, one beautiful hand shining like ivory upon the polished wood.

Abbershaw had made up his mind that the only way to establish or confute his suspicions was to act quickly, and assuming a brisk and officious manner he strode across the room rubbing his hands.

‘Heart failure?’ he said, in a tone that was on the verge of being cheerful. ‘A little unwonted excitement, perhaps – a slightly heavier meal – anything might do it. Most distressing – most distressing. Visitors in the house too.’

He was striding up and down as he spoke, at every turn edging a little nearer the bed.

‘Now let me see,’ he said suddenly. ‘Just as a matter of form, of course . . .’ On the last word, moving with incredible swiftness, he reached the bedside and flicked the sheet from the dead man’s face.

The effect was instantaneous. Whitby caught his arm and dragged him back from the bed, and from the shadows a figure that Abbershaw had not noticed before came out silently. The next moment he recognized Dawlish, the man who looked like Beethoven. His face was still expressionless, but there was no mistaking the menace in his attitude as he came forward, and the young scientist realized with a little thrill of excitement that the veneer was off and that he was up against an antagonistic force.

The moment passed, however, and in the next instant he had the situation in hand again, with added advantage of knowing exactly where he stood. He turned a mildly apologetic face to Whitby.

‘Just as a matter of form,’ he repeated. ‘I like to make a point of seeing the body. Some of us are a little too lax, I feel, in a matter like this. After all, cremation is cremation. I’m not one of those men who insist on a thorough examination, but I just like to make sure that a corpse is a corpse, don’t you know.’

He laughed as he spoke, and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the face of the man on the bed. The momentary tension in the room died down. The heavy-faced Dawlish returned to his corner, Gideon became suave again, and the doctor stood by Abbershaw a little less apprehensively.

‘Death actually took place up here, I suppose?’ Abbershaw remarked conversationally, and shot a quick sidelong glance at Whitby. The man was ready for it, however.

‘Yes, just after we carried him in.’

‘I see.’ Abbershaw glanced round the room. ‘You brought him up in his chair, I suppose? How wonderfully convenient those things are.’ He paused as if lost in thought, and Dawlish muttered impatiently.

Gideon interposed hastily.

‘It is getting late,’ he said in his unnaturally gentle voice. ‘We must not keep Dr Abbershaw –’

‘Er – no, of course not,’ said Whitby, starting nervously.

Abbershaw took the hint.

‘It is late. I bid you good night, gentlemen,’ he murmured, and moved towards the door.

Gideon slipped in front of it, pen in hand. He was suave as ever, and smiling, but the little round eyes beneath the enormous shaggy brows were bright and dangerous.

Abbershaw realized then that he was not going to be allowed to refuse to sign the certificate. The three men in the room were determined. Any objections he might raise would be confuted by force if need be. It was virtually a signature under compulsion.

He took the pen with a little impatient click of the tongue.

‘How absurd of me, I had forgotten,’ he said, laughing as though to cover his oversight. ‘Now, let me look, where is it? Oh, I see – just here – you have attended to all these particulars, of course, Dr Whitby.’

‘Yes, yes. They’re all in order.’