Read Mystery Mile Online

Authors: Margery Allingham

Mystery Mile

Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Margery Allingham in the Albert Campion series

Map

Dedication

Title Page

1 Among Those Present

2 The Simister Legend

3 Mystery Mile

4 The Lord of the Manor

5 The Seven Whistlers

6 The Man in Dress Clothes

7 By the Light of the Hurricane

8 The Envelope

9 ‘In Event of Trouble . . .'

10 The Insanity of Swithin Cush

11 The Maze

12 The Dead End

13 The Blue Suitcase

14 Campion to Move

15 The Exuberance of Mr Kettle

16 The Wheels Go Round

17 ‘Gent on a Bike'

18 The Unspeakable Thos

19 The Tradesmen's Entrance

20 The Profession

21 Mr Campion's Nerve

22 The Rough-House

23 And How!

24 ‘Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends'

25 The Bait

26 One End of the String

27 Late Night Finale

28 Moral

Copyright

About the Book

Judge Crowdy Lobbett has found evidence pointing to the identity of the criminal mastermind behind the deadly Simister gang. After four attempts on his life, he ends up seeking the help of the enigmatic and unorthodox amateur sleuth, Albert Campion.

After Campion bundles Lobbett off to a country house in Mystery Mile deep in the Suffolk countryside, all manner of adventures ensue. It's a race against time for Campion to get the judge to safety and decipher the clue to their mysterious enemy's name.

About the Author

Margery Allingham was born in London in 1904. She attended the Perse School in Cambridge before returning to London to the Regent Street Polytechnic. Her father – author H. J. Allingham – encouraged her to write, and was delighted when she contributed to her aunt's cinematic magazine,
The Picture Show
, at the age of eight.

Her first novel was published when she was seventeen. In 1928 she published her first detective story,
The White Cottage Mystery
, which had been serialised in the
Daily Express
. The following year, in
The Crime at Black Dudley
, she introduced the character who was to become the hallmark of her writing – Albert Campion. Her novels heralded the more sophisticated suspense genre: characterised by her intuitive intelligence, extraordinary energy and accurate observation, they vary from the grave to the openly satirical, whilst never losing sight of the basic rules of the classic detective tale. Famous for her London thrillers, such as
Hide My Eyes
and
The Tiger in the Smoke
, she has been compared to Dickens in her evocation of the city's shady underworld.

In 1927 she married the artist, journalist and editor Philip Youngman Carter. They divided their time between their Bloomsbury flat and an old house in the village of Tolleshunt D'Arcy in Essex. Margery Allingham died in 1966.

ALSO BY MARGERY ALLINGHAM IN THE ALBERT CAMPION SERIES

The Crime at Black Dudley

Look to the Lady

Police at the Funeral

Sweet Danger

Death of a Ghost

Dancers in Mourning

Flowers for the Judge

The Case of the Late Pig

Mr Campion and Others

The Fashion in Shrouds

Black Plumes

Coroner's Pidgin

Traitor's Purse

The Casebook of Mr Campion

More Work for the Undertaker

The Tiger in the Smoke

The Beckoning Lady

The China Governess

The Mind Readers

A Cargo of Eagles

Mr Campion's Farthing

Mr Campion's Falcon

To P.Y.C. and A.J.G.
Partners in Crime

Mystery Mile
Margery Allingham

1 Among Those Present

‘I'LL BET YOU
fifty dollars, even money,' said the American who was sitting nearest the door in the opulent lounge of the homeward-bound
Elephantine,
‘that that man over there is murdered within a fortnight.'

The Englishman at his side glanced across the sea of chairs at the handsome old man they had been watching. ‘Ten pounds,' he said. ‘All right, I'll take you. You've no idea what a safe little place England is.'

A slow smile spread over the American's face. ‘You've got no idea what a dangerous old fellow Crowdy Lobbett is,' he said. ‘If your police are going to look after him they'll have to keep him in a steel bandbox, and I don't envy them that job. It's almost a pity to take your money, though I'm giving you better odds than any Insurance Corporation in the States would offer.'

‘The whole thing sounds fantastic to me,' said the Englishman. ‘But I'll meet you at Verrey's a fortnight today and we'll make a night of it. That suit you?'

‘The twenty-second,' said the American, making a note of it in his book. ‘Seems kind of heathen celebrating over the old man's corpse. He's a great old boy.'

‘Drinking his health, you mean,' said the Englishman confidently. ‘Scotland Yard is very spry these days. That reminds me,' he added cheerfully, ‘I must take you to one of our night clubs.'

On the other side of the ship's lounge the loquacious Turk who had made himself such a nuisance to his fellow passengers since they put out from New York was chattering to his latest victim.

‘Very courageous of him to come down for the concert,' he
was saying. ‘He's a marked man, you know. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Four murders in his household within the past month and each time his escape was a miracle.'

His victim, a pale young man who seemed to be trying to hide behind his enormous spectacles, woke out of the reverie into which he had fallen ever since the talkative Oriental had first tackled him and surveyed his persecutor owlishly. ‘Not that nice old gentleman over there?' he said. ‘The one with the white hair? Four murders in his house within a month? That ought to be stopped. He's been told about it, I suppose?'

Since this was the first remark with which the young man had favoured him, the bore jumped to the conclusion that he had inadvertently stumbled on a mental case. It was inconceivable to him that anyone should not have heard of the now famous Misfire Murders, as the Press had starred them, which had filled the New York papers for the past four weeks. The young man spoke.

‘Who is the stormy old petrel?' he said.

His companion looked at him with some of the delight which a born gossip always feels upon finding an uninformed listener. His heavy red face became animated and he cocked his curious pear-shaped head, which alone betrayed his nationality, alertly on one side.

‘That fine old man, typical of the best type of hard-bitten New Englander,' he began in a rhetorical whisper, ‘is none other than Judge Crowdy Lobbett. He has been the intended victim of an extraordinary series of crimes. I can't understand how you've missed reading about it all.'

‘Oh, I've been away in Nebraska for my health,' said the young man. ‘He-man stuff, you know,' he added in his slightly falsetto voice.

He spoke with the utmost gravity, and the old man nodded unsuspectingly and continued.

‘First his secretary, seated in his master's chair, was shot,' he said slowly. ‘Then his butler, who was apparently after his master's Scotch, got poisoned. Then his chauffeur met with a very mysterious accident, and finally a man walking with him down the street got a coping stone on his head.' He sat back
and regarded his companion almost triumphantly. ‘What do you say to that?' he demanded.

‘Shocking,' said the young man. ‘Very bad taste on someone's part. Rotten marksmanship, too,' he added, after some consideration, ‘I suppose he's travelling for health now, like me?'

The Turk bent nearer and assumed a more confidential tone.

‘They say,' he mumbled, in an unsuccessful attempt to keep his voice down, ‘that it was all young Marlowe Lobbett could do to get his father to come to Europe at all. I admire a man like that, a man who's not afraid of what's coming to him.'

‘Oh, quite!' said the young man mildly. ‘The neat piece of modern youthing with the old gentleman is the son you spoke of, I suppose?'

The Turk nodded.

‘That's right, and the girl sitting on his other side is his daughter. That very black hair gives them a sort of distinction. Funny that the boy should be so big and the girl so small. She takes after her mother, one of the Edwardeses of Tennessee, you know.'

‘When's the concert going to begin?'

The Turk smiled. He felt he had consummated the acquaintanceship at last.

‘My name is Barber,' he said. ‘Ali Fergusson Barber – a rather stupid joke of my parents, I have always thought.'

He looked inquiringly at his companion, hoping for a similar exchange of confidence, but he was unrewarded. The young man appeared to have forgotten all about him, and presently to the Oriental's complete disgust, he drew a small white mouse from the pocket of his jacket and began to fondle it in his hands. Finally he held it out for Mr Barber's inspection.

‘Rather pretty, don't you think?' he said. ‘One of the cabin boys lent it to me. He keeps it to remind him of his brother, Haig. He calls it Haig, after him.'

Mr Barber looked down his immense nose at the little creature, and edged away from it.

The young man said no more, for already a very golden-haired lady with pince-nez was playing the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody with a certain amount of acid gusto.

Her performance was greeted with only mild enthusiasm, and the Turk overcame his repugnance to the noise sufficiently to lean over and inform the young man that there were several stage stars travelling and no doubt the programme would improve as it went on. For some time, however, his optimism was unrewarded.

At length the fussy, sandy-haired young man who was superintending the performance came forward with the announcement that Satsuma, the world-famous Japanese conjurer, was to perform some of his most celebrated illusions, and the audience's patience was craved while the stage was made ready for him.

For the first time Mr Barber's companion seemed to take an intelligent interest in the proceedings and he joined enthusiastically in the applause.

‘I'm potty about conjurers,' he remarked affably. ‘Haig will like it too, I fancy. I'm most interested to see the effect upon him.'

Mr Barber smiled indulgently.

‘You are making jokes,' he said naïvely.

The young man shot him a quick glance from behind his spectacles. ‘I do a little conjuring myself,' he went on confidentially. ‘And I once knew a man who could always produce a few potatoes out of the old topper, or a half bottle of Bass. He once got in some champagne that way, but it wasn't much of a brand. Hullo! what's going on up there?'

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