‘How thrilling!’ she said. ‘It sounds just like a play!’
(Welcome to Posh World)

‘It means, Michael,’ he said…’ that we are up against the most dangerous and notorious criminal of modern times.’
(As usual)

‘You just ’aven’t realized, you and your lot downstairs, what you’re playing about wiv,’ he said. ‘This ’ere isn’t no Sunday School hunt-the-thimble-set-out. There’s nine of us, we’re armed, and he isn’t jokin’.’ The hand round Abbershaw’s throat tightened as the thug thrust his face close against his victim’s.
(A baddie with a baddie’s ghastly working class accent)

Abbershaw turned on him furiously, only to find a revolver pressed against his ribs.
(Ooops)

‘But how terrible!’ Meggie burst out suddenly. ‘I didn’t believe that people like this were allowed to exist. I thought we were civilized. I thought this sort of thing couldn’t happen.’
(Eternal cry of the pampered bourgeoisie on encountering reality)

This is a ludicrously over-the-top international spy melodrama. It was the first outing for Allingham’s absurdly posh and mysterious sleuth, Albert Campion, who would go on to appear in 17 further novels. This is a bad book. I wouldn’t bother reading it. I struggled to finish it.

The setting: Black Dudley is a great grey building, bare and ugly as a fortress, isolated in a thousand acres of parkland which stretch out to the Suffolk coast. It’s owned by old Colonel Gordon Coombe, now wheelchair bound and with a plate masking a horrific facial injury from the war (nearly ten years earlier). The colonel encourages his young nephew, Wyatt Petrie, to host weekend house parties there, half a dozen times a year. Wyatt is the last in a long, long line of the Petrie family who have owned the land and house for nearly a thousand years.

The narrator: Dr Abbershaw The building, and the novel, have a strong Gothic, spooky atmosphere. It’s a third-person narrative but seen very much through the eyes of one of the guests, no-longer-young Dr George Abbershaw, author of a standard book on pathology, adviser to Scotland Yard – ‘a smallish man, chubby and solemn, with a choir-boy expression and a head of ridiculous bright-red curls’. He has a shy passion for similarly red-haired Margaret ‘Meggie’ Oliphant, which blossoms through the course of the adventure, as boy-girl romances do in popcorn thrillers through to this day.

House party guests Allingham briskly introduces us to the other half dozen house-party guests, all bright young things down from London or Oxbridge, as well as to the three sinister companions of the old Colonel, being: his physician Dr White Whitby, the slimy Englishman Jesse Gideon, and the big fat foreigner with the improbably English name, Benjamin Dawlish.

Albert Campion One of the guests, a ludicrously posh chap with a receding chin and a mouthful of teeth, is introduced as Albert Campion. Allingham didn’t know it when she wrote this first novel, but Campion would go on to feature in another 18 novels and over 20 short stories and become the character she’s most associated with.

The plot

So in the early chapters we meet all the young chaps and chapesses gathered for the weekend. It leads up to a big dinner at which the young people are disconcerted by the two creepy men who never leave the side of crippled old Colonel Coombe.

The Black Dudley Dagger After dinner the young people go through to the big hall and are impressed by the arrangement of spears and whatnot on the wall which centre on a sparkling dagger. Wyatt explains that the dagger is the focus of the so-called ritual of the Black Dudley Dagger. The idea is to turn the lights out and pass the dagger on to whoever you bump into in the dark until a set period of time has passed and the lights are turned back on.

Murder As you might expect, during the ritual there is a murder. The Colonel’s companions give out that he has been taken ill with a heart attack and spirited off to his rooms. Later we discover that he was stabbed to death.

Eberhard von Faber Now the narrative embarks on a long, long series of narrative twists and turns, but the basic idea is this: so-called Benjamin Dawlish is none other than Eberhard Von Faber, the international criminal mastermind: ‘a leader of one of the most skilful criminal organizations in the world’.

Stolen During the lights out of the ritual, somebody got their hands on something which really matters to Von Faber and he announces to the amazed young guests that none of them will leave the house until it is returned to him. They shouldn’t even think about using their cars which have been drained of petrol.

Kennedy tries his luck One of the young chaps, Chris Kennedy the rugby blue, has a brainwave and takes some spirits down to the garage, fills up his tank and his car is pottering and banging away when someone in the castle shoots at it, hitting Kennedy in the arm (a conveniently non-fatal wound as in silly thrillers), puncturing a tyre and overturning it. Yes. It becomes clear that the entire staff (of nine) all work for Von Faber and most of them are armed tough guys.

Campion in the garage Now earlier, during the blackout and ritual, Dr Abbershaw had left the building to wander down to the garage and check out the cars. Here he had been disturbed by the mysterious Albert Campion, who comes over as a facetious simpleton but – is he hiding something?

The bloody dagger When they go back into the castle they discover a) that the Colonel has been whisked away and b) that Abbershaw’s girlfriend, Meggie, is in hysteria because someone handed her the dagger and then whisked it away ,but not before she’d realised it was covered in blood!

Campion fighting Later that night, the house is woken by loud noises and find Campion fighting wildly with one of the servants, he seems to be drunk.

Abbershaw finds the secret After they’ve separated the combatants and Campion has been led away, Abbershaw finds a leather case on the ground near the scrap, and takes it back to his room. We aren’t really told what it contains except for papers, instead the narrative jumps to him agonising about what to do with its contents which, on reflection, he decides to burn in the fireplace.

A discussion Abbershaw invites Meggie and her friend Anne out into the garden to discuss events and they discover that Campion had met Anne in London, informed her he was invited to the party and got a lift down in her car. In other words, nobody really knows who he is.

Disposing of the colonel’s body Next morning Abbershaw sees Dr Whitby and the chauffeur take Colonel Coombe’s body off to the nearest crematorium; before the situation had fully unfolded, they had called Dr Abbershaw in to sign the cremation certificate. They didn’t want him to see the body but he sneaked a quick look, enough to tell him death wasn’t from a heart attack but from loss of blood as per stabbing.

No-one can leave At breakfast Dawlish-Von Faber makes a stark announcement – the cars have been drained of fuel, and no-one is to leave the house until something he has lost is returned to him. As described, Chris Kennedy, the gung-ho rugby player, attempts to escape in a car powered by alcohol, but is shot and wounded.

Interrogations Von Faber announces he’s going to call each of the guests one by one into an interrogation room until he gets what he wants. It must be the documents Abbershaw found on the floor near the fight between Campion and one of the goons.

Secret passageways Maybe I had a bad week at work but I found it very hard indeed to care about any of this. Abbershaw and Meggie and Campion emerge as the central figures. The old castle is riddled with secret passages, hidden entries, concealed staircases and whatnot. When Von Faber is interrogating Meggie Abbershaw, enraged and fearful for her safety, finds a series of secret passages which allow him to burst into the room where the questioning is taking place. After which point, he turns out to be completely ineffectual and he and Meggie are bundled into a locked room, to be dealt with later.

Disappointments It feels like the story is full of moments like this, moments which ought to be climaxes and revelations, but which consistently fizzle out and disappoint.

Mrs Meade Meggie and Abbershaw discover there’s a mad old lady, Mrs Meade, in the adjacent room. She is a Christian zealot and tells them they are all doomed to burn in hell-fire etc.

Blocked They hope to escape when they’re given their food by a serving girl, but she is accompanied by one of the toughs with a revolver. After hours and hours of imprisonment, they are starting to despair when Campion suddenly stumbles into their room, having found a secret passage through the back of fireplaces (!)

Escape Campion leads them out of the locked room, and down secret passageways back to the main part of the building where the other young people are still at liberty, and they cook up a plan to ‘take’ the armed goons at the next mealtime.

The organisation Why is all this happening? Well, it’s not immediately obvious, and it comes out in dribs and drabs, but eventually we discover that Von Faber implements criminal plans drawn up in detail by someone else. I think that’s the Colonel.

Campion was a spy At some point Campion reveals to Meggie and Abbershaw that there’s a lot more to him than meets the eye because he was sent to the castle to talk to Colonel Coombes, to give him a codeword and receive a secret something from him to take back to his masters (in British intelligence?) in London.

‘This little affair, of course, was perfectly simple. I had only to join this house-party, take a packet of letters from the old gentleman, toddle back to the Savoy, and my client would be waiting for me. A hundred guineas, and all clean fun – no brain-work required.’

Campion got then lost the secret So during the blackout for the ritual, Campion did in fact have a chance to whisper the codeword in Coombes’s ear and Coombes did slip him the packet of documents and it was these documents which fell out of his pocket when he was having his inexplicable fight with a goon, and which Abbershaw found and proceeded to burn. So we never have the psychological pleasure of relief of finding out what they were plans for. This is typical of the narratives many blocks and frustrations. In fact, at one stage one of the characters comments on the air of permanent frustration which hangs over the narrative.

‘Let’s catch ’em up,’ said Martin. ‘It’s time something definite happened.’

Whodunnit? And then Coombes was murdered. But why? And by whom? Not the baddies because he was a key part of their organisation: at one point Abbershaw, hiding outside the baddies’ room, overhears that they themselves are mystified by the Colonel’s murder.

John Buchan Anyway, the plot rambles on with more twists and turns and escapes through hidden passages etc. As you can see, three things are obvious: 1) It is not a country house murder mystery at all but something much more like the adventure thrillers of John Buchan, centring as it does on a criminal mastermind at the apex of a secret criminal organisation.

2) It is bad. It is badly done. It contains all the elements of a John Buchan thriller but somehow none of them gell. The way they’re confined to the castle doesn’t really work, why don’t some of them just slip out at night and walk to freedom? Each new chapter introduces another secret passage or false door until it becomes a bit ridiculous.

3) And in the middle of this farrago we are meant to care about Abbershaw’s feelings for young Meggie, which lead up to him declaring that he’s passionately in love with her and being thrilled to discover she feels the same and they agree to get married ‘as soon as this is all over’.

Rebellion Back to the narrative, the gang of young people successfully attack and overwhelm the couple of goons who serve them dinner at dinner time (odd, strange, that all the formalities of a country house weekend still continue). There’s a lot of fol-de-rol trying to find the rest of the gang, scattered fights, our chaps knocked out in random corridors and what-not, until they finally overpower and lock up the baddies, and walk out a side entrance towards the cars. Hooray! Free at last!

But not so fast! Von Faber is waiting in a car outside and turns on the headlights, dazzling our chaps and telling them he and Gideon have the two girls in their sights: hands up or the girls get it!

Burned alive So the young people, so close to freedom, hand over their guns, the goons are released, and they are all packed into a secure sealed room upstairs. Here they are warned that Von Faber has loaded the fort with wood and kerosene and will set it on fire and burn them alive unless they reveal the whereabouts of the missing belongings, which Campion long ago explained to all the young people was a wallet full of documents and Abbershaw explained that he burned in his fireplace.

The hunt arrives There follows what is meant to be a tense countdown and maybe it was to readers in 1929. Just in the last few minutes before Gideon says they’re going to start the fire, chaps looking out the window notice the local fox hunt galloping into view. They start yelling out the window that they are being held prisoner but Von Faber is quick to take command of the situation and tell the leaders of the hunt, which has now gathered below the castle walls, that he runs a lunatic asylum and not to believe the inmates shouting for release.

Good old ‘Guffy’ Until Campion (and he does emerge as the leader in so many of the situations) recognises a posh buddy of his, old ‘Guffy’ Randall, among the hunt. He yells down to Guffy who recognises him and Von Faber’s game is up. He draws a gun and tries to threaten the hunt but there are too many of them and when he fires it and narrowly misses a hunt leader, the hunt round on him.

Von Faber’s failed escape Amid the resulting confusion he and Gideon bolt for the only car with gas in it, start it up and head down the drive. The hunt on horseback cut across the grounds and block the road but that doesn’t stop Von Faber hurtling towards them at to speed. At the last minute the horses leap out of the way but Guffy leans down and whips the driver round the face, with the result that the car careers into a ditch and overturns, badly injuring Von Faber.

The cops Cut to the local cops who have been called and interviewed everyone and recovered the bodies from the overturned car and after a few final bits of clearing up, allow everyone to leave.

Who is Campion? Abbershaw drives back to London and gives Campion a lift. Only as they reach Piccadilly does he ask the question he’s been burning to ask: who is Campion, and Campion bends over and whispers his parentage in Abbershaw’s ear, to his astonishment. As far as I can tell, Allingham never reveals Campion’s parentage; it is left a deliberately teasing secret.

Who killed Colonel Coombs? I hope this would be the end, but oh no. There are four gruelling chapters left to go. Because back in London Abbershaw invites a couple of the chaps who survived the ordeal round for drinks and to try and decide who killed Colonel Coombs? Theories are divided between Campion himself (who was implicated by the statements of mad Mrs Meades – but why would he?); Von Faber (but why was he overheard himself wondering who killed him?); or Martin Watt’s theory, that it was his physician, Dr White.

Car news The situation is transformed when Michael Prenderby walks in and announces that he has seen the very distinctive car they had all noticed in the Black Dudley garage, an innocuous seeming banger with the chassis and engine of a Rolls Royce. Prenderby noticed it at a garage when he recently took his own car in for a service.

Stake-out So a gang of our chaps head out to this garage (‘half-way down the Lea Bridge Road’). the owner, Mr Haywhistle, is surly and threatening because the car’s owner has been threatening him, but a small bribe softens him up. So the three chaps (Abbershaw, Martin Watts and Prenderby) wait in their car opposite the garage until the mystery owner arrives. And it does, indeed, turn out to the Von Faber’s physician, Dr White.

All-night chase The disguised Rolls pulls out of the garage and heads East, eventually going through Chelmsford, Colchester, off the main road and along endless country lanes. The little Riley car driven by our plucky trio of chaps keeps pace with it, just about, losing it at a few places, then catching up again. Finally it rolls to a halt as dawn is coming up over fields in the middle of nowhere, somewhere towards the Essex coast.

Dr White explains After they’ve taken a few pot shots at each other (both sides have revolvers) Dr White waves a white hankie and our chaps close with him. In the event this is yet another delay, block and red herring. After a good deal of verbiage the doctor finally claims that Coombe was murdered by one of the young chaps who is secretly a member of the Simister gang which are a gang to Von Faber’s mob. But as he pads out this explanation they all hear a big Fokker airplane circling overhead which lands in the field near them. White warns them not to come closer as the pilot has a machine gun trained on them and so, as frustrated and blocked as the reader (again) our trio watch White (and his butler) climb into the German plane and take off. On the drive back to London they are still no closer to really knowing who murdered Colonel Coombe or why.

Back in London Six weeks pass. The other survivors get on with their lives but Abbershaw only becomes more obsessed. Eventually, after doing research of his own he reluctantly drives to Wyatt Petrie’s apartment overlooking St James’s. Here he confronts Wyatt with murdering his uncle, Colonel Coomb and is surprised when he readily confesses. What surprises him is his motivation.

Joy Love Wyatt shows him the photo of a sweet and innocent 17-year-old girl and tells the surprised Abbershaw that he fell in love with her when he was 27, the only woman he’s ever cared for. He loved her despite the fact that she was stupid and ignorant and worked in the kind of bar where you have to pay money to talk to the girls.

But slowly Wyatt learned that Joy’s ignorance wasn’t accidental. She along with a cohort of girls like her had been born and bred and raised to lives of cattle-like ignorance and compliance by a criminal gang. And his researches led him to realise that at the apex of the gang was his despicable uncle. And so he planned the Perfect Crime, inviting guests he knew would have good alibis, inventing the so-called Dudley Dagger Ritual as a cover for his plan – and then stabbing his uncle in the back.

What he hadn’t anticipated at all was the coincidence of Campion having been sent on a mission to secure the secret documents from his uncle which led to the enormous hue and cry, to everyone being locked up and to the melodramatic series of events. He shows no remorse about committing murder, just about the fact that it was not the Perfect crime he had hoped to achieve.

He announces that he is going to leave the country, he is going into a religious retreat in Spain. Caught on the hop, Abbershaw finds himself shaking his hand and wishing him good luck.

End Abbershaw reels out of the apartment building not knowing whether Wyatt was justified in his behaviour or is a dangerous lunatic, completely confused about what is right or wrong. Luckily a beefy constable is waiting to tell him that his bad parking has brought him a parking ticket and this snaps Abbershaw out of his confusion. Of course there is a right and wrong, and officers of the law who define and maintain it.

‘It’s people like you,’ [the constable] explained, as Abbershaw climbed into the driving seat, ‘wot gives us officers all our work. But we’re not goin’ to have these offences, I can tell you. We’re making a clean sweep. Persons offending against the Law are not going to be tolerated.’
He paused suspiciously. The slightly dazed expression upon the face of the little red-haired man in the car had suddenly given place to a smile.
‘Splendid!’ he said, and there was unmistakable enthusiasm in his tone. ‘Really, really splendid, Officer! You don’t know how comforting that sounds. My fervent wishes for your success.’

As in so many of these golden age detective stories, it ends with comedy.

Cast

• Dr George Abbershaw – author of a standard book on pathology, an expert upon external wounds and abrasions with especial regard to their causes – advises the police, respected at Scotland Yard – ‘a smallish man, chubby and solemn, with a choir-boy expression and a head of ridiculous bright-red curls which gave him a somewhat fantastic appearance. He was fastidiously tidy in his dress and there was an air of precision in everything he did or said which betrayed an amazingly orderly mind’
• Wyatt Petrie – ‘the last of the Petries’ – ‘a scholar of the new type. There was a little careful disarrangement in his dress, his brown hair was not quite so sleek as his guests’, but he was obviously a cultured, fastidious man: every shadow on his face, every line and crease of his clothes indicated as much in a subtle and elusive way’ – ‘Head of a great public school, a First in Classics at Oxford, a recognized position as a minor poet, and above all a good fellow. He was a rich man’
• Colonel Gordon Coombe – Wyatt’s uncle and owner of Black Dudley – ‘a little man who sat huddled in his high-backed chair as if his backbone was not strong enough to support his frame upright. His crop of faded yellow hair was now almost white, and stood up like a hedge above a narrow forehead. But by far the most striking thing about him was the flesh-coloured plate with which clever doctors had repaired a war-mutilated face’
• Dr White Whitby – the Colonel’s private attendant, a grey-haired, sallow-faced man, a ‘harassed, scared-looking little man’
• Margaret ‘Meggie’ Oliphant – ‘one of those modern young women who manage to be fashionable without being ordinary in any way. She was a tall, slender youngster with a clean-cut white face, which was more interesting than pretty, and dark-brown eyes, slightly almond-shaped, which turned into slits of brilliance when she laughed. Her hair was her chief beauty, copper-coloured and very sleek; she wore it cut in a severe ‘John’ bob, a straight thick fringe across her forehead’
• Michael Prenderby – young, newly qualified MD – ‘a fair, slight young man, with a sense of humour entirely unexpected, to the casual observer he was an inoffensive, colourless individual, and his extraordinary spirit and strength of character were known only to his friends’
• Jeanne Dacre – Prenderby’s girlfriend
• Anne Edgeware – a ‘Stage-cum-Society person’
• Martin Watt – a ‘black-haired beaky youngster’ who Meggie describes 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’
• Chris Kennedy – gung-ho Cambridge rugger blue (a ‘blue’ denotes the highest levels of sporting success, particularly in competition against Oxford in rowing, rugby etc)
• Albert Campion – ‘the fresh-faced young man with the tow-coloured hair and the foolish, pale-blue eyes behind tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles’ – in Maggie’s opinion ‘just a silly ass’ – possessor of an ‘absurd falsetto drawl’
• Jesse Gideon – ‘white-haired, very small and delicately made, with long graceful hands which he used a great deal in his conversation, making gestures, swaying his long, pale fingers gracefully, easily. Under the sleek white hair which waved straight back from a high forehead his face was grey, vivacious, and peculiarly wicked’
• Benjamin Dawlish – ‘a foreigner, grossly fat, and heavily jowled, and there was something absurdly familiar about him. Suddenly it dawned upon George what it was. The man was the living image of the little busts of Beethoven which are sold at music shops. There were the same heavy-lidded eyes, the same broad nose, and to cap it all the same shock of hair, worn long and brushed straight back from the amazingly high forehead’ – ‘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’ – cover for Eberhard von Faber – ‘He is, without exception, the most notorious, unsavoury villain this era has produced’ – ‘his ponderous form and long grey hair…’
• the man-servant – ‘a big man with a chest like a prize-fighter and a heavy florid face with enormous pale-blue eyes which had in them an innately sullen expression’
• Mrs Daisy May Meade – ‘a striking old woman, tall and incredibly gaunt, with a great bony frame on which her clothes hung skimpily. She had a brown puckered face in which her small eyes, black and quick as a bird’s, glowed out at the world with a religious satisfaction at the coming punishment of the wicked. She was clothed in a black dress, green with age, and a stiff white apron starched like a board, which gave her a rotundity of appearance wholly false’
• Mrs Browning – Black Dudley’s housekeeper
• Lizzie Tiddy – a ‘natural’, helps Mrs Browning, washes up etc
• Detective-Inspector Pillow, of the County Police – ‘a sturdy, red-faced man with close-cropped yellow hair, and a slow-smiling blue eye’
• Inspector Deadwood – friend of Abbershaw
• Mr Haywhistle – garage owner in Shoreditch
• Sir Dorrington Wynne – Abbershaw’s uncle, one-time Professor of Archaeology in the University of Oxford

Campion as satire on Lord Peter Wimsey

According to Allingham’s Wikipedia article, the protagonist she was to become most associated with, Edward Campion, was originally conceived as a parody of Dorothy L. Sayers’ extraordinarily posh, upper-class twit of a wealthy private detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. Therefore he is loaded with aristocratic insouciance, and an unsinkably facetious attitude, all expressed in the poshest of upper-class slang. He never goes, he always ‘toddles’.

Then I toddled off down the passage, out of the side door, across the garden, and arrived all girlish with triumph at the garage and walked slap-bang into our Georgie…

I think we’d better toddle downstairs to see how the little ones progress

The poshness is relentlessly emphasised.

The slightly receding chin and mouth so unnecessarily full of teeth was distinctly familiar. ‘Albert Campion?’ he repeated under his breath.

The words, uttered in an inoffensively idiotic voice, made Abbershaw glance up to find Albert Campion smiling fatuously in upon him.

…the absurd young man with the horn-rimmed spectacles

Mr Campion’s personality was a difficult one to take seriously; it was not easy, for instance, to decide when he was lying and when he was not.

Abbershaw turned to where the young man with the tow-coloured hair and the unintelligent smile sat beaming at them through his glasses.

He said, with more gravity than was usual in his falsetto voice… Campion’s somewhat foolish voice and fatuous expression… the pleasant vacuous face,

He delivers one particularly memorable bit of posh slang:

‘If the man who calls himself Dawlish doesn’t get what he wants, I think we are all of us for a pretty parroty time.’

Campion and Wimsey

In one respect Campion is really notably like Wimsey, which is his habit of quoting advertising slogans, at length, as a kind of facetious nervous banter. One of the baddies jumps Abbershaw when the latter isn’t paying attention. Campion rescues him, knocks the baddie out and promptly lectures Abbershaw:

‘My dear old bird, don’t lose your Organizing Power, Directive Ability, Self-Confidence, Driving Force, Salesmanship, and Business Acumen,’ chattered Mr Campion cheerfully. ‘In other words, look on the bright side of things.’

This is also how Wimsey speaks, in an unstoppable tsunami of gibberish.

‘A very pretty tale of love and war,’ murmured Mr Campion, some of his old inanity returning. ‘ “Featuring Our Boys. Positively for One Night Only.”

‘While you’re gathering up the wreckage I’ll toddle round to find Poppa von Faber, and on my way back after the argument I’ll call in for the girls, and we’ll all make our final exit en masse. Dignity, Gentlemen, and British Boyhood’s Well-known Bravery, Coolness, and Distinction are the passwords of the hour.’

This rubbish-speak is so noticeable that Allingham has a character comment on it.

Martin looked at him wonderingly. ‘Do you always talk bilge?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Mr Campion lightly, ‘but I learnt the language reading advertisements. Come on.’

Campion and P.G. Wodehouse

Maybe it’s not specifically Wodehouse, maybe there was lots of fiction floating around mocking young, posh Bertie Wooster types, but at the climax of the novel Campion shouts out the window of the fortress at a chap who’s riding by as part of a fox hunt.

Mr Campion’s slightly falsetto voice interrupted him. He was very excited. ‘I know that voice,’ he said wildly. ‘That’s old “Guffy” Randall. Half a moment.’
On the last word he leapt up behind Martin and thrust his head in through the bars above the boy’s.
‘Guffy!’ he shouted. ‘Guffy Randall! Your own little Bertie is behind these prison bars in desperate need of succour. The old gentleman on your right is a fly bird – look out for him.’
…
Several heavy blows outside followed. Then there was the grating of bolts and the heavy door swung open.
On the threshold stood Guffy Randall, a pleasant, horsy young man with a broken nose and an engaging smile. He was backed by half a dozen or so eager and bewildered horsemen.
‘I say, Bertie,’ he said, without further introduction, ‘what’s up?’

Campion’s real name

Early on in the narrative Abbershaw realises that he’s met Campion before.

Abbershaw threw out his hand, indicating Mr Albert Campion.
‘That gentleman,’ he said, ‘is Mornington Dodd.’
Albert Campion smiled modestly. In spite of his obvious pain he was still lively.
‘In a way yes, and in a way no,’ he said, fixing his eyes on Abbershaw. ‘Mornington Dodd is one of my names. I have also been called the “Honourable Tootles Ash”, which I thought was rather neat when it occurred to me. Then there was a girl who used to call me “Cuddles” and a man at the Guards Club called me something quite different –’
‘Campion, this is not a joke.’ Abbershaw spoke sternly. ‘However many and varied your aliases have been, now isn’t the time to boast of them. We are up against something pretty serious now.’
‘My dear man, don’t I know it?’ said Mr Campion peevishly, indicating the state of his shoulders. ‘Even better than you do, I should think,’ he said dryly.
‘Now look here,’ said Abbershaw, whose animosity could not but be mollified by this extraordinary naïveté, ‘you know something about this business, Campion – that is your name, I suppose?’
‘Well – er – no,’ said the irrepressible young man. ‘But,’ he added, dropping his voice a tone, ‘my own is rather aristocratic, and I never use it in business. Campion will do quite well.’

Campion’s mother

After they’ve been released from the castle, at the end of driving Campion back up to London, Abbershaw finally gets to pop the question:

Campion held out his hand as he spoke, and Abbershaw, overcome by an impulse, shook it warmly, and the question that had been on his lips all the drive suddenly escaped him.
‘I say, Campion,’ he said, ‘who the hell are you?’
Mr Campion paused on the running-board and there was a faintly puckish expression behind his enormous glasses.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Shall I tell you? Listen – do you know who my mother is?’
‘No,’ said Abbershaw, with great curiosity.
Mr Campion leaned over the side of the car until his mouth was an inch or two from the other man’s ear, and murmured a name, a name so illustrious that Abbershaw started back and stared at him in astonishment.
‘Good God!’ he said. ‘You don’t mean that?’
‘No,’ said Mr Campion cheerfully, and went off striding jauntily down the street until, to Abbershaw’s amazement, he disappeared through the portals of one of the most famous and exclusive clubs in the world.

Campion takes over

I’ll quote the Wikipedia article:

Apparently, Allingham intended Abbershaw to be the hero/sleuth of this book and any future mysteries. He is, after all, a pathologist, and that would have led to many interesting stories. Campion got in the way and manages to become a far more memorable character, so much so that the American publishers strongly encouraged Allingham to focus on Campion.

And so that’s what happened and the rest is Allingham’s career, 18 novels and over 20 short stories about the preposterous upper-class twit with hidden depths.

Sherlock

I’ve noted how pretty much every Agatha Christie novel contains at least one reference to Sherlock Holmes, and then how surprised I was that the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers do the same. Well so does Margery Allingham. What Harold Bloom called The Anxiety of Influence.

‘One moment,’ he said, ‘let us do a spot of neat detective work. What the German gentleman with no manners has lost must be very small. “And why, my dear Sherlock?” you ask. Because, my little Watsons, when our obliging young comrade, Campion, offered them an egg wrapped up in a table napkin they thought they’d holed in one.’

Credit

‘The Crime at Black Dudley’ by Margery Allingham was first published in the UK by Jarrolds Publishing in 1929.

Related links

• The Crime at Black Dudley on Planet Gutenberg