XI
One Explanation
That evening, after tea had been served in ominous silence by the same two menservants who had waited at lunch, Michael Prenderby crossed the room and spoke confidentially to Abbershaw.
“I say,” he said awkwardly, “poor old Jeanne has got the wind up pretty badly. Do you think we’ve got an earthly chance of making a bolt for it?” He paused, and then went on again quickly, “Can’t we hatch out a scheme of some sort? Between you and me, I’m feeling a bit desperate.”
Abbershaw frowned.
“We can’t do much at the moment, I’m afraid,” he said slowly; but added, as the boy’s expression grew more and more perturbed, “Look here, come up and smoke a cigarette with me in my room and we’ll talk it over.”
“I’d like to.” Prenderby spoke eagerly, and the two men slipped away from the others and went quietly up to Abbershaw’s room.
As far as they could ascertain, Dawlish and the others had their headquarters in the vast old apartment which had been Colonel Coombe’s bedroom and the rooms immediately above and below it, into which there seemed no entrance from any part of the house that they knew.
Even Wyatt could not help them with the geography of Black Dudley. The old house had been first monastery, then farmstead, and finally a dwelling-house, and in each period different alterations had been made.
Besides, before the second marriage of his aunt, the enormous old place had been shut up, and it was not until shortly before her death that Wyatt first stayed at the place. Since then his visits had been infrequent and never of a long enough duration to allow him to become familiar with the numberless rooms, galleries, passages, and staircases of which the place was composed.
Prenderby was getting nerves, his fiancée’s terror was telling on him, and, of course, he knew considerably more of the ugly facts of the situation than anyone of the party save Abbershaw himself.
“The whole thing seemed almost a joke this morning,” he said petulantly. “That old Hun might have been a music-hall turn then, but I don’t mind confessing that I’ve got the wind up now. Hang it all,” he went on bitterly, “we’re as far away from civilization here as we should be if this was the seventeenth century. The modern ‘Majesty of the Law’ and all that has made us so certain of our own safety that when a trap like this springs we’re fairly caught. Damn it, Abbershaw, brute force is the only real power, anyway.”
“Perhaps,” said Abbershaw guardedly, “but it’s early yet. Some opportunity is bound to crop up within the next twelve hours. I think we shall see our two troublesome friends in gaol before we’re finished.”
Prenderby glanced at him sharply.
“You’re very optimistic, aren’t you?” he said. “You talk as if something distinctly promising had happened. Has it?”
George Abbershaw coughed.
“In a way, yes,” he said, and was silent. Now, he felt, was not the moment to announce his engagement to Meggie.
They had reached the door of the bedroom by this time, and further inquiries on Prenderby’s part were cut short by a sudden and arresting phenomenon.
From inside the room came a series of extraordinary sounds—long, high-pitched murmurs, intermingled with howls and curses, and accompanied now and then by a sound of scuffling.
“My God!” said Prenderby. “What in the name of good fortune is that?”
Abbershaw did not answer him.
Clearly the move which he had been expecting had been made.
With all his new temerity he seized the door-latch and was about to fling it up, when Prenderby caught his arm.
“Go carefully! Go carefully!” he said, with a touch of indignation in his voice. “You don’t want to shove your head in it, whatever it is. They’re armed, remember.”
The other nodded, and raising the latch very cautiously he thrust the door gently open.
Prenderby followed him; both men were alert and tingling with expectation.
The noise continued; it was louder than before, and sounded peculiarly unearthly in that ghostly house.
Abbershaw was the first to peer round the door and look in.
“Good Lord!” he said at last, glancing back over his shoulder at Prenderby, “there’s not a soul here.”
The two men burst into the room, and the noise, although muffled, became louder still.
“I say!” said Prenderby, suddenly startled out of his annoyance, “it’s in there!”
Abbershaw followed the direction of his hand and gasped.
The extraordinary sounds were indubitably proceeding from the great oak press at the far end of the room—the wardrobe which he had locked himself not two hours before and the key of which was still heavy in his pocket. He turned to Michael.
“Shut the door,” he said. “Lock it, and take the key.” Then he advanced towards the cupboard.
Michael Prenderby stood with his back against the door of the room, waiting.
Very gingerly Abbershaw fitted the huge iron key into the cupboard, turned over the lock, and wrenched the door open, starting back instantly.
The noise stopped abruptly.
There was a smothered exclamation from Prenderby and both men stood back in utter amazement.
There, seated upon a heavy oaken shelf in a square cavity just large enough to contain him, his hair over his eyes, his clothes dishevelled, his inane face barely recognizable, was Mr. Albert Campion.
For several seconds he did not move, but sat blinking at them through the lank strands of yellow hair over his eyes. Then it was that Abbershaw’s memory revived.
In a flash it came to him where he had seen that vacuous, inoffensive face before, and a slow expression of wonderment came into his eyes.
He did not speak, however, for at that moment Campion stirred, and climbed stiffly out into the room.
“No deception, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, with a wan attempt at his own facetiousness. “All my own work.”
“How the devil did you get in there?” The words were Prenderby’s; he had come forward, his eyes fixed upon the forlorn figure in childlike astonishment.
“Oh—influence, mostly,” said Campion, and dropped into a chair. But it was evident that a great deal of his
