The car leapt forward, swerved over the narrow turf border into a small draining ditch, and, with a horrible sickening grind of smashing machinery, overturned.
XXIV
The Last of Black Dudley
“I’m sorry to ’ave ’ad to trouble you, sir.”
Detective-Inspector Pillow, of the County Police, flapped back a closely written page of his notebook and resettled himself on the wooden chair which seemed so small for him as he spoke. Abbershaw, who was bending over the bed in which Prenderby lay, now conscious and able to take an interest in the proceedings, did not speak.
The three of them were alone in one of the first-floor rooms of Black Dudley, and the Inspector was coming to the end of his inquiry.
He was a sturdy, red-faced man with close-cropped yellow hair, and a slow-smiling blue eye. At the moment he was slightly embarrassed, but he went on with his duty doggedly.
“We’re getting everybody’s statements—in their own words,” he said, adding importantly and with one eye on Abbershaw, “The Chief is not at all sure that Scotland Yard won’t be interested in this affair. ’E is going to acquaint them with facts right away, I believe … I know there’s no harm in me telling you that, sir.”
He paused, and cast a wary glance at the little red-haired doctor.
“Oh, quite,” said Abbershaw hastily, adding immediately: “Have you got everything you want now? I don’t want my patient here disturbed more than I can help, you understand, Inspector.”
“Oh, certainly not, sir—certainly not. I quite understand.”
The Inspector spoke vehemently, but he still fingered his notebook doubtfully.
“There’s just one point more, sir, I’d like to go into with you, if you don’t mind,” he said at last. “Just a little discrepancy ’ere. Naturally we want to get everything co’erent if we can, you understand. This is just as a matter of form, of course. Only you see I’ve got to hand my report in and—”
“That’s all right, Inspector. What is it?” said Abbershaw encouragingly.
The Inspector removed his pencil from behind his ear and, after biting the end of it reflectively for a moment, said briskly: “Well, it’s about this ’ere tale of a murder, sir. Some of the accounts ’ave it that the accused, Benjamin Dawlish, believed to be an alias, made some rather startling accusations of murder when you was all locked up together on the evening of the 27th, that is, yesterday.”
He paused and looked at Abbershaw questioningly. The doctor hesitated.
There were certain details of the affair which he had decided to reserve for higher authorities since he did not want to risk the delay which a full exposure now would inevitably cause.
Whitby and the driver of the disguised Rolls had not returned. Doubtless they had been warned in time.
Meanwhile the Inspector was still waiting.
“As I take it, sir,” he said at length, “the story was a bit of ‘colour,’ as you might say, put in by the accused to scare the ladies. Perhaps you ’ad some sort of the same idea?”
“Something very much like that,” agreed Abbershaw, glad to have evaded the awkward question so easily. “I signed the cremation certificate for Colonel Coombe’s body, you know.”
“Oh, you did, did you, sir. Well, that clears that up.”
Inspector Pillow seemed relieved. Clearly he regarded Abbershaw as something of an oracle since he was so closely associated with Scotland Yard, and incidentally he appeared to consider that the affair was tangled enough already without the introduction of further complications.
“By the way,” said Abbershaw suddenly, as the thought occurred to him, “there’s an old woman from the village in one of the attics, Inspector. Has she been rescued yet?”
A steely look came into the Inspector’s kindly blue eyes.
“Mrs. Meade?” he said heavily. “Yes. The party ’as been attended to. The local constable ’as ’er in charge at the moment.” He sniffed. “And ’e’s got ’is ’ands full,” he added feelingly. “She seems to be a well-known character round ’ere. A regular tartar,” he went on more confidentially. “Between you and me, sir”—he tapped his forehead significantly—“she seems to be a case for the County Asylum. It took three men half an hour to get ’er out of the ’ouse. Kept raving about ’ell-fire and ’er son comin’ of a Wednesday or something, I dunno. ’Owever, Police-Officer Maydew ’as ’er in ’and. Seems ’e understands ’er more or less. ’Er daughter does ’is washing, and it’s well known the old lady’s a bit queer. We come acrost strange things in our work, sir, don’t we?”
Abbershaw was properly flattered by this assumption of colleagueship.
“So you expect Scotland Yard in on this, Inspector?” he said.
The policeman wagged his head seriously.
“I shouldn’t be at all surprised, sir,” he said. “Although,” he added, a trifle regretfully, “if they don’t hurry up I shouldn’t wonder if there wasn’t much for them to do except to attend the inquest. Our Dr. Rawlins thinks ’e may pull ’em round, but ’e can’t say yet for certain.”
Abbershaw nodded.
“It was Dawlish himself who got the worst of it, wasn’t it?” he said.
“That is so,” agreed the Inspector. “The driver, curiously enough, seemed to get off very lightly, I thought. Deep cut acrost his face, but otherwise nothing much wrong with ’im. The Chief’s been interviewing ’im all the morning. Jesse Gideon, the second prisoner, is still unconscious. ’E ’as several nasty fractures, I understand, but Dawlish got all one side of the car on top of ’im and the doctor seems to think that if he keeps ’im alive ’is brain may go. There’s not
