Here, as in the other room, the window was high up in the wall and iron-barred. There was a second door in the room but it appeared to be heavily bolted on the other side. Abbershaw made a thorough investigation of the room with his torch, and then decided that escape was impossible, and they sat down on the tapestry in silence.
Until now they had not spoken very much, save for a brief account from Abbershaw of his interview with Campion and his journey through the passage from his cupboard. Meggie’s story was simpler. She had been seized on her way up to her room and dragged off through the green-baize door to be questioned.
Neither felt that much was to be gained from talking. The German had convinced them of the seriousness of their position, and Abbershaw was overcome with self-reproach for what he could only feel was his own fault. Meggie was terrified but much too plucky to show it.
As the utter silence of the darkness descended upon them, however, the girl laid her hand on Abbershaw’s arm. “We’ll be all right,” she murmured. “It was wonderful of you to come and get me out like that.”
Abbershaw laughed bitterly. “I didn’t get you very far,” he said.
The girl peered at him through the shadow.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It’s better up here than it was down there.”
Abbershaw took her hand and spoke with unusual violence. “My God, they didn’t hurt you?” he said.
“Oh no, nothing much.”
It was evident from her voice that she was trying to make light of a terrible experience. “I was frightened more than hurt,” she said, “but it was good to see you. Who are they, George? What are they doing here? What’s it all about?”
Abbershaw covered his face with his hands and groaned in the darkness.
“I could kick myself,” he said. “It’s all my fault. I did an absurd, a foolhardy, lunatic thing when I destroyed those papers. I didn’t realize whom we were up against.”
The girl caught her breath.
“Then what you said was true?” she said. “You did destroy what they are looking for?”
“Yes.” Abbershaw spoke savagely. “I’ve behaved like an idiot all the way through,” he said. “I’ve been too clever by half, and now I’ve got you, of all people—the person I’d rather die than see any harm come to—into this appalling situation. I hit on the truth,” he went on, “but only half of it, and like a fool I acted upon my belief without being sure. Oh, my God, what a fool I’ve been!”
The girl stirred beside him and laid her head on his shoulders, her weight resting in the hollow of his arm. “Tell me,” she said.
Abbershaw was only too glad to straighten out his own thoughts in speech, and he began softly, keeping his voice down lest there should be listeners on the landing behind the bolted door.
“It was Colonel Coombe’s murder that woke me up,” he said. “And then, when I saw the body and realized that the plate across his face was unneeded and served as a disguise, I realized then that it was crooks we had to deal with, and casting about in my mind I arrived at something—not quite the truth—but very near it.”
He paused and drew the girl closer to him.
“It occurred to me that Dawlish and Gideon might very well be part of the famous Simister gang—the notorious bank thieves of the States. The descriptions of two of the leaders seemed to tally very well, and like a fool I jumped to the conclusion that they were the Simister gangsters. So that when the documents came into my hands I guessed what they were.”
The girl looked at him.
“What were they?” she said.
Abbershaw hesitated.
“I don’t want to lay down the law this time,” he said, “but I don’t see how I can be wrong. In these big gangs of crooks the science of thieving has been brought to such perfection that their internal management resembles a gigantic business concern more than anything else. Modern criminal gangs are not composed of amateurs—each man has his own particular type of work at which he is an expert. That is why the police experience such difficulty in bringing to justice the man actually responsible for a crime, and not merely capturing the comparatively innocent catspaw who performs the actual thieving.”
He paused, and the girl nodded in the darkness. “I see,” she said.
Abbershaw went on, his voice sunk to a whisper.
“Very big gangs, like Simister’s, carry this cooperative spirit to an extreme,” he continued, “and in more cases than one a really big robbery is planned and worked out to the last detail by a man who may be hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime when it is committed. A man with an ingenious criminal brain, therefore, can always sell his wares without being involved in any danger whatsoever. The thing I found was, I feel perfectly sure, a complete crime, worked out to the last detail by the hand of a master. It may have been a bank robbery, but of that I’m not sure. It was written in code, of course, and it was only from the few plans included in the mass of written matter—and my suspicions—that I got a hint of what it was.”
Meggie lifted her head.
“But would they write it down?” she said. “Would they risk that?”
Abbershaw hesitated.
“I admit that worried me at first,” he said, “but consider the circumstances. Here is an organization, enormous in its resources, but every movement of which is bound to be carried out in absolute secrecy. A lot of people sneer at the efficiency of Scotland Yard, but not those who have ever had cause to come up against it. Imagine an organization like this, captained by a mind simple, forceful, and eminently sensible. A mind that only grasps one thing at a time, but which deals with that one thing down to the last detail, with the thoroughness of
