Open Warfare
Breakfast that morning showed every promise of being a gloomy and
uncomfortable meal.
Wyatt had discreetly announced his uncle’s death, and the news had
circulated amongst the guests with inevitable speed.
The general opinion was that a tactful farewell and a speedy departure
was the obvious procedure of the day. The story of the old man’s last
wish had not tended greatly to alter anyone’s decision, as it was
clear that no party was likely to be a success, or even bearable in
such circumstances. The wishes of the dead seemed more kindly in
intention than in fact.
Wyatt seemed very crestfallen, and a great deal of sympathy was felt
for him; events could not well have turned out more unfortunately for
him. He sat at the end of the table, a little paler than usual, but
otherwise the same graceful, courteous scholar as ever. He wore the
coloured tie of one of the more obscure Oxford clubs, and had not
attempted to show any outward signs of mourning.
Albert Campion, looking none the worse for his nocturnal adventure,
sat next to Anne Edgeware. They were talking quietly together, and
from the sullen look upon Chris Kennedy’s handsome face it was evident
to anybody who cared to see that the irrepressible young lady was
indulging in the harmless feminine sport of encouraging one admirer in
order to infuriate and thereby gain the interest of another more
valued suitor – even though the occasion was so inauspicious. Mr
Campion was amazingly suited to his present role, and in low tones
they planned their journey back to town together. Coming departures
were indeed a subject for the general conversation of the rather
dispirited assembly in the big sunlit hall.
Michael Prenderby was late for breakfast, and he came in, a trifle
flushed and hurried, and took his place at the table between little
Jeanne Dacre, his fiancée, and Martin Watt, the black-haired beaky
youngster whom Meggie had described as ‘Just a stray young man’. He
was, in point of fact, a chartered accountant in his father’s office,
a pleasing youth with more brains than energy.
Neither Gideon nor Dawlish had appeared, nor had places been set for
them, but the moment that Prenderby sat down and the number of the
guests was completed, the door opened and the two men who most
interested Abbershaw in the house that day walked into the room.
Dawlish came first, and in the sunlight his face appeared more
unprepossessing than it had seemed on the evening before. For the
first time it became apparent what an enormous man he was.
He was fat to the point of grossness, but tall with it, and powerfully
built. The shock of long grey hair, brushed straight back from the
forehead, hung almost to his shoulders, and the eyes, which seemed to
be the only live thing in his face, were bright now and peculiarly
arresting.
Gideon, who came in behind him, looked small and insignificant by
comparison. He was languid and sinuous as before, and he glanced over
the group of young people round the table with a thoughtful, mildly
appraising eye, as if he were estimating their combined weight – or
strength.
Wyatt looked up as they came in and bade them a polite ‘Good morning’.
To everyone’s surprise they ignored him.
Dawlish moved ponderously to the top of the table, where he stood
looking round at the astonished faces, with no expression on his own.
‘Let there be silence,’ he said.
The words were so utterly unexpected and out of keeping with the
situation that it is probable that a certain amount of amusement would
have greeted them had not the tone in his deep Teutonic voice been
singularly menacing.
As it was, the silence was complete, and the German went on, his
expression still unchanged so that it seemed that his voice came to
them through a mask.
‘Something has been lost,’ he said, dividing the words up as he
uttered them and giving equal emphasis to each. ‘It must be returned
to me. There is no need to explain what it is. Whoever has stolen it
will know of what I speak.’
At this colossal piece of impudence a sensation ran round the table,
and Wyatt sprang to his feet. He was livid with anger, but he kept his
voice under perfect control, and the polished intensity of his icy
tone contrasted sharply with the other’s heavy rudeness.
‘Mr Dawlish,’ he said, ‘I think your anxiety to recover your property
has upset your sense of proportion. Perhaps you are aware that you are
a guest in a house that is mine, and that the people that you have
just insulted are my guests also. If you will come to me after
breakfast – before you go – I will do all I can to institute a proper
search for the thing you have mislaid.’
The German did not move. He stood at the head of the table and stared
unblinkingly at the man before him.
‘Until it is returned to me nobody leaves this house,’ he said, the
same solid force behind his tone. Wyatt’s snub he did not appear to
have heard. A faint wave of colour passed over the young man’s pale
face, and he turned to the others, who were staring from one to the
other in frank astonishment.
‘I must apologize,’ he said. ‘I ask you to forgive this extraordinary
display. My uncle’s death appears to have turned this unfortunate
man’s brain.’
Dawlish turned.
‘That young man,’ he said. ‘Let him sit down and be quiet.’
Gideon smiled at Wyatt, and the look on his grey decadent face was an
insult in itself.
‘My dear Mr Petrie,’ he said, and his peculiarly oily voice was suave
and ingratiating, ‘I don’t think you quite realize the position you
are in, you and your friends. Consider: this house is two miles from
the public road. There is no telephone. We have two women servants and
six men and a gate-keeper. All of these people are in Mr Dawlish’s
employ. Your cars have been drained of petrol. I am afraid you are
entirely helpless.’ He paused, and allowed his glance to take in the
amazed expressions round the table.
‘It would be better,’ he continued, ‘to listen rationally, for I must
warn you, my friend Mr Dawlish is not a man who is accustomed to any
opposition to his wishes.’
Wyatt remained on his feet; his face had grown slowly paler, and he
was now rigid with barely controlled fury.
‘Gentlemen, this farce has gone on long enough,’ he said, in a voice
which quivered in spite of himself. ‘If you will please go away we
will get on with our breakfast.’
‘Sit down!’
The words were uttered in a sudden titanic bellow, though but for the
obvious fact that Gideon was incapable of producing so much noise
there was nothing upon Benjamin Dawlish’s face to betray that it was
he who had shouted.
Wyatt started; the limit of his patience had come. He opened his mouth
to speak, to assert his authority. Then, quite suddenly, he dropped
back into his chair, his eyes dilating with as much surprise as fear.
He was looking into the black barrel of a revolver.
The German stood stolidly, absolutely immobile, the dangerous little
weapon levelled in one ponderous hand. ‘Here,’ he said in his unwieldy
English, ‘there is one who has what I seek. To him I speak. When he
returns to me what he has taken you shall all go free. Until then no
one leaves this house – no one at all.’
In the silence which followed this extraordinary announcement Jesse
Gideon moved forward.
‘If Mr Dawlish were to receive his property immediately it would save
us all a great deal of inconvenience,’ he murmured.
For several seconds there was no movement in the room, and the singing
of the birds in the greenery outside the windows became suddenly very
noticeable.
Then Albert Campion coughed discreetly and handed something wrapped up
in his table napkin to the girl who sat next him.
She passed it to her neighbour, and in utter stillness it went the
whole length of the table until Gideon pounced on it avidly and set it
before the German on the table. With a grunt of satisfaction the big
man thrust the revolver into his coat pocket and threw aside the white
napery. Then an exclamation of anger escaped him, and he drew back so
that Mr Campion’s offering lay exposed.
It was a breakfast egg, the very one, in fact, which the fatuous young
man had been on the verge of broaching when the extraordinary
interruptions had occurred.
The effect was instantaneous; the reaction from the silent tension of
a moment before complete.
The entire table shook with laughter.
The German stood stiffly as before. There was still no expression of
any sort upon his face, and his little eyes became dull and lifeless.
Gideon, on the other hand, betrayed his anger vividly. His eyes were
narrowed with fury and his long thin lips were drawn back over his
teeth like an angry dog’s. Gradually the laughter subsided. Benjamin
Dawlish’s personality was one that could not be ignored for long. When
at last there was perfect silence in the room he put his hand in his
pocket and drew out his revolver again.
‘You laugh,’ he said heavily. ‘I do not laugh. And she, the little
one,’ he tossed the gun in his hand with incredible delicacy for one
who looked so clumsy, ‘_she does not laugh either_.’
The last words were uttered with such amazing ferocity that his
hearers started involuntarily, and for an instant there appeared upon
the heavy face, which hitherto had seemed immovable, an expression of
such animalic violence that not one at that table looked him in the
eyes.
A moment later his features had relapsed into their usual stolidity,
and followed by Jesse Gideon he walked slowly from the room.
As the door closed behind them, the silence became painful, and at
last a fitful, uneasy conversation broke out.
‘What an unpleasant old bird!’ said Prenderby, looking at Abbershaw.
He spoke lightly, but there was a worried expression in his eyes; one
hand rested over his fiancée’s, who sat very pale by his side
apparently on the verge of tears. Even Anne Edgeware’s magnificent
sang-froid seemed a little shaken, and Meggie, although the least
alarmed of the three girls, looked very white.
Wyatt was still angry. He gave up trying to apologize for the
incident, however, and joined with the others in discussing it.
‘He’s loony, of course,’ said Martin Watt lazily. ‘Campion got his
goat beautifully, I thought.’
‘Still, even if he is potty, if what he says is true, things are going
to be pretty sportive,’ remarked Chris Kennedy cheerfully. ‘I fear I
may be called upon to bash his head in.’
Abbershaw rose to his feet.
‘I don’t know what you think, Wyatt,’ he said, ‘but it occurs to me
that it might be an idea if we all went into the other room and talked
this thing over. The servants won’t disturb us there. I don’t think
there’s any real danger,’ he went on reassuringly, ‘but perhaps we
ought to find out if what Gideon says about the cars is true.’
Chris Kennedy got up eagerly.
‘I’ll toddle down and discover, shall I?’ he said. ‘Really – I should
like to,’ he added, as Wyatt regarded him doubtfully, and he went off
whistling.
The party adjourned to the next room as Abbershaw had suggested. They
still talked lightly, but there was a distinctly constrained
atmosphere amongst them. Jeanne was frankly scared, Anne Edgeware out
of her depth, and the rest apprehensive.
Abbershaw was the last to step into the enormous hall that was now a
blaze of sunlight. It poured in through long diamond-paned windows,
glinted on the polished floor, and shone softly on Tudor rose and
linenfold. But it was not these which caught his eye and made him
start back with a half-concealed exclamation.
Over the far fire-place, set in the circle of lanceheads, its clear
blade dazzling in the sun and gleaming as brightly as if it had never
left its plaque, sinister and beautiful, was the Black Dudley Dagger.