“It must be something pretty fishy, anyway,” said Chris Kennedy, still white with the pain of his wound which Abbershaw was now bandaging. “Else why don’t they describe it so that we can all have a hunt round? Look here, let’s go to them and tell them that we don’t know what their infernal property is. They can search us if they like, and when they find we haven’t got it they can let us go, and by God, when they do I’ll raise hell!”
“It is precisely for that reason that I’m not inclined to endorse that suggestion, Kennedy,” said Abbershaw without looking up from the bandage he was winding. “Our friends upstairs are very determined, and they’re not likely to risk a possible visit from the police before they have got what they want and have had reasonable time to make a good getaway.”
Martin Watt raised his hand.
“One moment,” he said, “let us do a spot of neat detective work. What the German gentleman with no manners has lost must be very small. ‘And why, my dear Sherlock?’ you ask. Because, my little Watsons, when our obliging young comrade, Campion, offered them an egg wrapped up in a table napkin they thought they’d holed in one. It isn’t the Black Dudley diamonds, I suppose, Petrie?”
“There aren’t any,” said Wyatt shortly. “Damn it all!” he burst out with a sudden violence. “I never felt so helpless in my life.”
“If only we had a few guns,” mourned Chris Kennedy, whose wound even had not slaked his thirst for a scrap. “Then we might make an attempt to rush ’em. But unarmed against birds who shoot like that we shouldn’t have an earthly.”
“It’s not such a bad thing for you that we’re not armed, my lad,” said Abbershaw, straightening his shoulders and stepping back from the table. “You don’t want too much excitement with an arm like that. You’ve lost enough blood already. If I were you, I’d try and get a spot of sleep. What’s your opinion, Prenderby?”
“Oh, sleep, by all means,” said Michael, grinning, “if he can get it, which doesn’t seem likely.”
They were all standing round the patient on the hearthrug, with their backs to the fireplace, and for the moment Kennedy was the centre of interest.
Hardly were the words out of Prenderby’s mouth when they were suddenly and startlingly confirmed by an hysterical scream from Anne Edgeware.
“He’s gone!” she said wildly, as they turned to her. Her dark eyes were dilated with fear, and every trace of her usual sophisticated and slightly blasé manner had disappeared.
“He was standing here—just beside me. He spoke to me a second ago. He couldn’t have got past me to the door—I was directly in his way. He’s just vanished. Oh, God—I’m going potty! I think—I …” She screamed again.
“My dear girl!”
Abbershaw moved to her side. “What’s the matter? Who’s vanished?”
The girl looked at him in stupid amazement. “He went from my side just as if he had disappeared into the air,” she repeated. “I was just talking to him—I turned away to look at Chris for a moment—I heard a sort of thud, and when I turned round he’d gone.”
She began to cry noisily.
“Yes, but who? Who?” said Wyatt impatiently. “Who has vanished?”
Anne peered at him through her tears.
“Why, Albert!” she said, and burst into louder sobbing. “Albert Campion. They’ve got him because he made fun of them!”
X
The Impetuous Mr. Abbershaw
A hasty search revealed the fact that Mr. Campion had indeed disappeared, and the discovery, coupled with Chris Kennedy’s experience of the morning, reduced the entire company to an unpleasant state of nerves. The terrified Anne Edgeware and the wounded rugby blue comforted each other in a corner by the fire. Prenderby’s little fiancée clung to his hand as a frightened child might have done. The others talked volubly, but every minute the general gloom deepened.
In the midst of this the lunch gong in the outer hall sounded, as if nothing untoward had happened. For some moments nobody moved. Then Wyatt got up. “Well, anyway,” he said, “they seem to intend to feed us—let’s go in, shall we?”
They followed him dubiously into the other room, where a cold luncheon had been prepared at the long table. Two menservants waited on them, silent and surly, and the meal was a quiet one. No one felt in the mood for trivialities, and Mr. Campion was not there to provide his usual harmless entertainment.
There was a certain amount of apprehension, also, lest Mr. Dawlish might reappear and the experience of breakfast be repeated. Everyone felt a little relieved, therefore, when the meal ended without a visitation. The explanation of this apparent neglect came ten minutes or so later, when Martin Watt, who had gone up to his room to replenish his cigarette-case, came dashing into the hall where they were all sitting, the lazy expression for once startled out of his grey eyes.
“I say,” he said, “the blighters have searched my room! Had a real old beano up there by the look of it. Clothes all over the place—half the floor boards up. I should say the Hun has done it himself—it looks as if an elephant had run amok there. If I were you people I’d trot up to your rooms and see if they’ve done the thing thoroughly.”
This announcement brought everybody to their feet. Wyatt, who still considered himself the host of the party, fumed impotently. Chris Kennedy swore lurid deeds of revenge under his breath, and Prenderby and Abbershaw exchanged glances. Abbershaw smiled grimly. “I think perhaps we had better take Watt’s suggestion,” he said, and led the way out of the hall.
Once in his room he found that their fears had been justified. His belongings had been ransacked, his meticulously arranged suitcase lying open on its side, and his clothes strewn in all directions. The door of the big oak press with the carved front, which was built into the wall and took
