Mystery Mile. Margery Allingham

CHAPTER 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