The Impetuous Mr Abbershaw
A hasty search revealed the fact that Mr Campion had indeed
disappeared, and the discovery, coupled with Chris Kennedy’s
experience of the morning, reduced the entire company to an unpleasant
state of nerves. The terrified Anne Edgeware and the wounded rugby
blue comforted each other in a corner by the fire. Prenderby’s little
fiancée clung to his hand as a frightened child might have done. The
others talked volubly, but every minute the general gloom deepened.
In the midst of this the lunch gong in the outer hall sounded, as if
nothing untoward had happened. For some moments nobody moved. Then
Wyatt got up. ‘Well, anyway,’ he said, ‘they seem to intend to feed us
– let’s go in, shall we?’
They followed him dubiously into the other room, where a cold luncheon
had been prepared at the long table. Two men-servants waited on them,
silent and surly, and the meal was a quiet one. No one felt in the
mood for trivialities, and Mr Campion was not there to provide his
usual harmless entertainment.
There was a certain amount of apprehension, also, lest Mr Dawlish
might reappear and the experience of breakfast be repeated. Everyone
felt a little relieved, therefore, when the meal ended without a
visitation. The explanation of this apparent neglect came ten minutes
or so later, when Martin Watt, who had gone up to his room to
replenish his cigarette-case, came dashing into the hall where they
were all sitting, the lazy expression for once startled out of his
grey eyes.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘the blighters have searched my room! Had a real old
beano up there by the look of it. Clothes all over the place – half
the floor boards up. I should say the Hun has done it himself – it
looks as if an elephant had run amok there. If I were you people I’d
trot up to your rooms and see if they’ve done the thing thoroughly.’
This announcement brought everybody to their feet. Wyatt, who still
considered himself the host of the party, fumed impotently. Chris
Kennedy swore lurid deeds of revenge under his breath, and Prenderby
and Abbershaw exchanged glances. Abbershaw smiled grimly. ‘I think
perhaps we had better take Watt’s suggestion,’ he said, and led the
way out of the hall.
Once in his room he found that their fears had been justified. His
belongings had been ransacked, his meticulously arranged suitcase
lying open on its side, and his clothes strewn in all directions. The
door of the big oak press with the carved front, which was built into
the wall and took up all one end of the room, stood open, its contents
all over the floor.
A wave of uncontrollable anger passed over him, and with that
peculiarly precise tidiness which was one of his most marked
characteristics he began methodically to put the room straight again.
Prisoners they might be, shots could be fired, and people could
disappear apparently into thin air, none of these could shake him, but
the sight of his belongings jumbled into this appalling confusion all
but unnerved him completely.
He packed up everything he possessed very neatly, and stowed it in the
press, then, slamming the heavy oaken door, he turned the key in the
lock, and thrust it into his pocket.
It was at this precise moment that an extraordinary mental revolution
took place in Abbershaw.
It happened as he put the cupboard key in his pocket; during the
actual movement he suddenly saw himself from the outside. He was
naturally a man of thought, not of action, and now for the first time
in his life he was thrust into a position where quick decisions and
impulsive actions were forced from him. So far, he realized suddenly,
he had always been a little late in grasping the significance of each
situation as it had arisen. This discovery horrified him, and in that
moment of enlightenment Dr George Abbershaw, the sober, deliberate man
of science, stepped into the background, and George Abbershaw the
impulsive, energetic enthusiast came forward to meet the case.
He did not lose his head, however. He realized that at the present
juncture infinite caution was vital. The next move must come from
Dawlish. Until that came they must wait patiently, ready to grasp at
the first chance of freedom. The present state of siege was only
tenable for a very short time. For a week-end Black Dudley might be
safe from visitors, tradespeople, and the like, but after Monday
inquiries must inevitably be made. Dawlish would have to act soon.
There was the affair of Albert Campion. Wyatt had been peculiarly
silent about him, and Abbershaw did not know what to make of it at
all. His impulse was to get the idiot back into their own circle at
all costs, but there was no telling if he had been removed or if he
had vanished of his own free will. No one knew anything about him.
Abbershaw went slowly out of the room and down the corridor to the
staircase, and was just about to descend when he heard the
unmistakable sound of a woman crying.
He paused to listen, and discovered that the noise came from behind a
door on his left.
He hesitated.
Half an hour before, a fear of being intrusive would have prevented
him from doing anything, but a very considerable change had taken
place in him in that time, and he listened again.
The sound continued.
The thought dawned upon him that it was Meggie; he fancied that this
was her room, and the idea of her alone and in distress banished his
last vestige of timidity and caution. He knocked at the door.
Her voice answered him.
‘It’s George,’ he said, almost defiantly. ‘Anything the matter?’
She was some seconds opening the door, and when at last she came he
saw that although she had hastily powdered her face the tear-stains
were still visible upon it.
For one moment Abbershaw felt that he was going to have a relapse into
his old staid self, but he overcame it and there was an expression of
fiery determination in his chubby round face which astonished the girl
so much that her surprise showed in her eyes. Abbershaw recognized it,
and it annoyed him.
In a flash he saw himself as she must have seen him all along, a
round, self-important little man, old for his years, inclined to be
pompous, perhaps – terrible thought – even fussy. A horrible sense of
humiliation swept over him and at the same time a growing desire to
teach her she was wrong, to show her that she had been mistaken, to
prove to her that he was a man to be reckoned with, a personality, a
man of action, vigorous, resourceful, a he-man, a . . . !
He drew a deep breath.
‘I can’t have you crying like this,’ he said, and picked her up and
kissed her.
Meggie could not have responded more gracefully. Whether it was
relief, shock, or simply the last blow to her tortured nerves, he
never knew, but she collapsed into his arms; at first he almost
thought she had fainted.
He led her firmly down the long corridor to the wide window-seat at
the far end. It was recessed, and hung with heavy curtains. He sat
down and drew her beside him, her head on his shoulder.
‘Now,’ he said, still bristling with his newly discovered confidence,
‘you’re going to escape from here tomorrow certainly, if not tonight,
and you’re going to marry me because I love you! I love you! I love
you!’
He paused breathlessly and waited, his heart thumping against his side
like a schoolboy’s.
Her face was hidden from him and she did not speak. For a moment the
awful thought occurred to him that she might be angry with him, or
even – laughing.
‘You – er – you will marry me?’ he said, a momentary anxiety creeping
into his tone. ‘I’m sorry if I startled you,’ he went on, with a faint
return of his old primness. ‘I didn’t mean to, but I – I’m an
impetuous sort of fellow.’
Meggie stirred at his side, and as she lifted her face to him he saw
that she was flushed with laughter, but there was more than mere
amusement in her brown eyes. She put her arm round his neck and drew
his head down.
‘George, you’re adorable,’ she said. ‘I love you ridiculously, my
dear.’
A slow, warm glow spread all over Abbershaw. His heart lolloped in his
side, and his eyes danced.
He kissed her again. She lay against his breast very quiet, very
happy, but still a little scared.
He felt like a giant refreshed – after all, he reflected, his first
essay in his new role had been an unparalleled success.