The Crime at Black Dudley (Albert Campion #1), Margery Allingham. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018 (originally published in 1929).

Summary: A house party at a remote mansion results in the death of its one reclusive resident after a “lights out” game with a 15th century dagger, followed by the party being held captive by the head of an international crime syndicate.

I’ve read extensively the works of three of the four “Queens of Crime” from the Golden Age of Mysteries–Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Ngaio Marsh. The fourth is Margery Allingham. I’ve only read one other of her works, More Work for the Undertaker (review), I’ve decided it’s time to read more of this lesser known, at least to me, of the “Queens.” Her sleuth, Albert Campion, likewise is less known that Lord Peter, Poirot, or Alleyn. It may be, however, that he is the most eccentric..

In this novel, he plays a minor, but not unimportant part, but it is actually the narrator, George Abbershaw, a renowned pathologist, who solves the murder part of this story. The story begins with an invitation to a group of young friends, including Abbershaw, to a house party at a forbidding old country mansion. Their host is Wyatt Petrie, the owner of the mansion, whose longstanding occupant, along with servants, is his uncle, Colonel Coombe. Abbershaw is joined by Meggie Oliphant, who ends up being thrown together with him in the subsequent adventures of the story. There are several other friends of Petrie. And then there is Campion. No one is quite sure how he got there.

There are other guests present, who turn out to be at the head of a ruthless international crime syndicate. They seem to be guests of Colonel Coombe. Campion is apprehensive, but the party proceeds with a macabre game involving a dagger passed from one party member to another while the lights are out. The point is to not be holding the dagger when the lights go on.

Much more happens when the lights go on. They learn that Colonel Coombe has had an attack, and subsequently that he is dead. This was not unexpected due to his weak heart. Abbershaw is called on to sign the death certificate but not allowed to examine the body but can only see the face. That’s enough–he knows this wasn’t a heart attack but death from a wound from which he “bled out.” But the pressure from the local doctor and those with Coombe is such that he signs, allowing the body to be cremated, destroying the evidence.

If all this isn’t enough to ruin a house party, they learn they are being held captive by the head of the syndicate, Dawlish, and his associates. They are after papers that Coombe was supposed to give them. It turns out that Campion, working for an unspecified employer, also was after the papers. No one knows where they are and the party is threatened in dire ways if they don’t surrender the papers, key to an international heist. One of the party attempting to escape to get help is wounded and worse is threatened. Eventually Abbershaw deduces from various comments, including those of a daffy old lady, that the murderer was not one of the syndicate but one of Petrie’s party.

We have two mysteries–that of the papers and that of the murderer. For a time, Campion even seems suspect of one or both. Yet he neither has papers or is the murderer. He raises some questions, and shows himself quite resourceful, including climbing down a chimney to rescue Abbershaw and Meggie at one point in the story. Otherwise, he seems a bit of an eccentric twit from upper class origins, who indulges in working as a private investigator. It appears Allingham is saving him for future stories, giving us just enough taste that we are curious for more.

The end of the story is exciting, and in the end, it is Abbershaw, with his friend, the young physician Prenderby who solve the crimes. Like the other work I reviewed, there are a number of threads, a lot of moving parts to Allingham’s story that require close reading. I have to say that I am yet to be won over but I’m willing to read more, if for no other reason than to see how Allingham develops Campion.