Mr Campion took off his spectacles and his pale eyes regarded his visitor in frank astonishment. ‘I hope for your sake that what you think is not true. If, as you said at first, the Simister Gang is after your father out of sheer temper, i.e. revenge, that’s one thing. There’s a chance for him. But if, as you suggest now, he’s got a line on them, then I’m afraid that the fabulous sums spent in hiring Mr Campion’s assistance would be a mere waste of money. Consider,’ he went on—‘what can you expect me to do? I tell you quite candidly, your only chance is to get the old boy into Brixton Jail, and that wouldn’t be fun for him.’
Marlowe Lobbett rose to his feet. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I told you you were my last hope.’
Mr Campion hesitated. ‘I’d like to have a whack at Simister,’ he said.
The young American turned to him quickly. ‘Well, here’s your chance,’ he said. ‘It may be a forlorn chance, but after all, the mischief isn’t done yet.’
‘My dear young optimist,’ said Mr Campion admonishingly, ‘in effect you’re saying, “Here’s a nice war; come and sit in it”.’
He was interrupted from further comment by a tap at the outer door.
‘The one-thirty,’ said Mr Campion. ‘Excuse me.’
He went out of the room and returned immediately with a racing edition of the Evening Standard in his hand. He was smiling. ‘Now I can dress,’ he explained cheerfully. ‘I had my shirt on the Archdeacon!’
His eye travelled down the stop-press column. Suddenly his expression changed and he handed the paper to his visitor.
‘Well-known American’s Narrow Escape’, it ran:
Judge Crowdy Lobbett, the well-known American visitor, narrowly missed a serious accident when a taxicab mounted the pavement outside his hotel in the Strand and crashed into a shop window this morning at twelve o’clock. No one was injured.
‘My God!’ Marlowe Lobbett started for the door. ‘They don’t know where I am—I didn’t leave your address. Isopel will be terrified. I must get along to them at once.’
Mr Campion had disappeared into his bedroom, which led off the room where they had been talking.
‘Wait for me,’ he shouted. ‘I shan’t be a second.’
Marlowe Lobbett appeared in the doorway. ‘I don’t quite get you.’
‘I’m in this,’ said Mr Campion.
CHAPTER 3
Mystery Mile
On the grey marshy coast of Suffolk, fifteen miles from a railway station, and joined to the mainland by the Stroud only, a narrow road of hard land, the village of Mystery Mile lay surrounded by impassable mud flats and grey-white saltings.
The name was derived from the belt of ground mist which summer and winter hung in the little valleys round the small hill on which the village stood. Like many Suffolk hamlets, the place was more of an estate than a village. The half-dozen cottages, the post office, and the Rectory were very much outbuildings of the Manor House, the dwelling of the owner of the Mile.
In olden times, when the land had been more profitable, the squire had had no difficulty in supporting his large family of retainers, and, apart from the witch burnings in James I’s reign, when well-nigh a third of the population had suffered execution for practices more peculiar than necromantic, the little place had a long history of peaceful if gradually decaying times.
The families had intermarried, and they were now almost as much one kin as the Pagets themselves.
The death of the present squire’s father, Giles Paget, had left his young son and daughter the house and worthless lands, with little or no money to keep them up, and some twenty or thirty villagers who looked to them as their natural means of support.
The Manor, hidden in the thick belt of elms which surrounded it, had but one lamp shining from the big casement windows. It was a long, low, many-gabled building, probably built round 1500 and kept in good repair ever since. The overhung front sheltered rose trees under its eaves, and the lintels of the windows were low and black, enhancing the beauty of the moulded plaster surrounding them.
In the library, round the fireplace with the deep-set chimney seat, the squire and his sister were entertaining the rector.
The squire was twenty-three. Giles Paget and his sister Biddy were twins. As they sat together they looked startlingly modern against the dark oak-furnished room which had not been materially altered for centuries.
Giles was a heavily built, fair youngster whose sturdiness suggested a much larger man. He had a square-cut face, not particularly handsome, but he had a charming smile.
Biddy was possessed of an animation unusual in a country girl. Tall as her brother, with a figure like a boy’s, she had a more practical outlook on life than had been born into the Paget family for centuries.
Their visitor, the Reverend Swithin Cush, rector of Mystery Mile, sat and beamed at them. He was a lank old man, with a hooked nose and deep-set twinkling black eyes surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His long silky white hair was cut by Biddy herself when it got past his collar, and his costume consisted of a venerable suit of plus-fours, darned at knees and elbows with a variety of wools, and a shining dog collar, the one concession he made to ‘the cloth’. His only vanity was a huge signet ring, a bloodstone, which shone dully on his gnarled first finger. For nearly fifty years he had baptized, wedded, and buried the people of the isthmus. The village was conservative, not to say medieval in its religious opinions, and the old chained Bible in the little late-Norman church was the only book of the law they considered at all.
The subject of discussion round the fire in the library was the paper Giles Paget held in his hand.
‘St Swithin can now see the telegram,’ said Biddy; ‘the first Mystery Mile has seen since Giles won the half-mile. I don’t know how Albert’s going to get here, Giles; the Ipswich taxies don’t like the Stroud at night.’
The rector took the telegram and read it aloud, holding the paper down to the fire to catch the light from the flames.
LISTEN KIDDIES UNCLE HAS LET HOUSE STOP RING OUT WILD BELLS STOP SEND NO FLOWERS STOP ARRIVING NINE THIRTY STOP SHALL EXPECT FOOD AND RARE VINTAGES STOP OBEDIENTLY YOURS EVA BOOTH.
‘If I know anything about Albert,’ said the rector, ‘he’ll arrive on a broomstick.’
Biddy sighed. ‘Think he has let the house?’ she said. ‘I never dreamed he would take us seriously. I do hope we get something for it. Cuddy’s third daughter’s having another baby in September. That’s another for the bounty. These ancient customs are a bit hard on the budget.’
‘ “The Lord will provide,” ’ said the rector regretfully, ‘is a tag which is not found in the Vulgate. But I have great faith in Albert.’
Biddy chuckled. ‘St Swithin,’ she said. ‘Albert is a fishy character and no fit associate for a dignitary of the Church.’
The old man smiled at her, and his small black eyes twinkled and danced in the firelight.
‘My daughter,’ he said, ‘out of evil cometh good. There is no reason why we should not sit in the shadow of the Bay Tree while it flourishes. Although,’ he went on seriously, ‘our very good friend Albert is a true son of the Church. In the time of Richelieu he would no doubt have become a cardinal. His associates are