The stairs ended abruptly in a small oak door to the right of which a narrow passage led off into the darkness.
Through the door he could hear clearly Dawlish’s deep German voice raised menacingly.
Abbershaw took a deep breath, and pressing up the latch, carefully pushed the door open. It swung silently on well-greased hinges, and he passed through it expecting to find himself in the Colonel’s bedroom.
To his surprise he came out into what appeared to be a large cupboard. The air in it was insufferably hot, and it dawned upon him that he was in one of those hiding-places that are so often to be found in the sides of ancient fireplaces. Doubtless it was just such another cache that had swallowed up Campion when he disappeared off the hearthrug in the hall. Perhaps the mysterious passage behind him led directly down to that great sombre room.
From where he stood, every sound in the room without was distinctly audible.
Dawlish’s voice, bellowing with anger, sounded suddenly quite near to where he stood.
“Speak!” it said. “What do you know? All of it—all of it. Keep nothing back.” And then, explosively, as if he had turned back to someone else in the room—“Stop her crying—make her speak.”
There was a soft, short, unmistakable sound, and Meggie screamed. A blinding flash of red passed before Abbershaw’s eyes, and he hurled himself against the wooden panel nearest him. It gave way before him, and he shot out into the midst of Dawlish’s inquiry like a hand grenade.
XIV
Abbershaw Gets His Interview
When Abbershaw picked himself up he discovered that he was not in Colonel Coombe’s bedroom as he had supposed, but in a smaller and more luxurious apartment presumably leading off it.
It was lined with books, and had been used apparently as a study or library.
At a heavy oak table-desk set across one end sat Dawlish, his face mask-like as ever, and his ponderous hands resting among the papers in front of him.
Before him stood Jesse Gideon, looking down at Meggie, who sat on a chair; a man Abbershaw had never seen before leaning over her.
She had been crying, but in spite of her evident terror there was a vestige of spirit in her narrow brown eyes, and she held herself superbly.
Abbershaw’s somewhat precipitate entrance startled everybody, and he was on his feet again before Dawlish spoke.
The German’s dull, expressionless eyes rested on his face.
“You,” he said, in his peculiarly stilted English. “How foolish you are. Since you have come out of your turn you may stay. Sit down.”
As the young man stared at him he repeated the last words violently, but without any movement or gesture.
The man was almost unbelievably immobile.
Abbershaw remained where he was.
His anger was slowly getting the better of him, and he stood there stiffly, his flaming red hair on end and his round face white and set.
“I insist that you listen to me,” he said. “This terrorizing of women has got to stop. What are you gaining by it, anyway? Have you learnt anything of value to you from this girl?” His voice rose contemptuously. “Of course you haven’t. You’re making fools of yourselves.”
The German looked at him steadily, unblinkingly, not a muscle of his face moved.
“Gideon,” he said, “tell me, who is this foolish redheaded young man who so loves to hear his own voice?”
Gideon glided forward obsequiously and stood beside the desk, his grey face and glittering eyes hideous beneath his white hair. He used his hands as he talked, emphasizing his words with graceful fluttering gestures.
“His name is George Abbershaw,” he said. “He is a doctor of medicine, a pathologist, an expert upon external wounds and abrasions with especial regard to their causes. In this capacity he has been often consulted by Scotland Yard. As a university friend of Wyatt Petrie’s, there is no reason to suppose that he came here with any ulterior motive.”
The German continued to regard Abbershaw steadily.
“He is not a detective, ja?”
“No.” Gideon spoke emphatically. “That is obvious. English detectives are a race apart. They are evident at the first glance. No one who knew anything about the English Police Force could possibly suspect Dr. Abbershaw of holding any rank in it.”
The German grunted.
“So,” he said, and returned to Abbershaw, “you are just an ordinary headstrong young man who, like the others downstairs, is under the impression that this affair is a melodrama which has been especially devised in order that they may have the opportunity of posing heroically before the young ladies of your party. This is an old house, suitable for such gaming, but I, one of the chief actors in your theatre, I am not playing.”
He paused, and Abbershaw was conscious of a faint change in his face, although he did not appear to have moved a muscle.
“What does it matter to me,” he continued, “if you hide yourselves in priestholes or spring upon me out of cupboards? Climb from one room to another, my friend, make yourself dusty in disused passages, attempt to run your motorcars upon alcohol: it does me no harm. My only interest is in a package I have lost—a thing that can be of no use to anyone but myself and possibly one other man in the world. It is because I believe that there is in this house someone who is in the employ of that other man that I am keeping you all here until I recover my property.”
The dull, rasping voice stopped for a moment, and Abbershaw was about to speak when Dawlish again silenced him.
“To recover that property,” he repeated, “at whatever cost. I am not playing a game. I am not jumping out of cupboards in an attempt to be heroic. I am not pretending. I think the boy who attempted to drive off in his motorcar and the madman who escaped from the room upstairs where I had locked him understood me. The girl here, too, should begin to
