As if unconscious of anything peculiar, he rambled on in his usual inconsequent method, heedless of whether he was answered or not; but all the time his mind was busily working. He had already decided that a Rolls-Royce was not the only car on the market which could break down mysteriously, and with the town so far away, his host could hardly fail to ask him to stop the night. And then—he had not yet quite settled how—he proposed to have a closer look at The Elms.
At length the meal was over, and the maid, placing the decanter in front of Mr. Benton, withdrew from the room.
“You’ll have a glass of port, Captain Drummond,” remarked his host, removing the stopper and pushing the bottle towards him. “An old pre-war wine which I can vouch for.”
Hugh smiled, and even as he lifted the heavy old cut glass, he stiffened suddenly in his chair. A cry—half shout, half scream, and stifled at once—had come echoing through the open windows. With a crash the stopper fell from Mr. Benton’s nerveless fingers, breaking the finger-bowl in front of him, while every vestige of colour left his face.
“It’s something these days to be able to say that,” remarked Hugh, pouring himself out a glass. “Wine, Miss Benton?” He looked at the girl, who was staring fearfully out of the window, and forced her to meet his eye. “It will do you good.”
His tone was compelling, and after a moment’s hesitation she pushed the glass over to him. “Will you pour it out?” she said, and he saw that she was trembling all over.
“Did you—did you hear—anything?” With a vain endeavour to speak calmly, his host looked at Hugh.
“That night-bird?” he answered easily. “Eerie noises they make, don’t they? Sometimes in France, when everything was still, and only the ghostly green flares went hissing up, one used to hear ’em. Startled nervous sentries out of their lives.” He talked on, and gradually the colour came back to the other man’s face. But Hugh noticed that he drained his port at a gulp, and immediately refilled his glass…
Outside everything was still; no repetition of that short, strangled cry again disturbed the silence. With the training bred of many hours in No Man’s Land, Drummond was listening, even while he was speaking, for the faintest suspicious sound—but he heard nothing. The soft whispering night-noises came gently through the window; but the man who had screamed once did not even whimper again. He remembered hearing a similar cry near the brickstacks at Guinchy, and two nights later he had found the giver of it, at the ledge of a mine-crater, with glazed eyes that still held in them the horror of the final second. And more persistently than ever, his thoughts centred on the fifth occupant of the Rolls-Royce…
It was with almost a look of relief that Mr. Benton listened to his tale of woe about his car.
“Of course you must stop here for the night,” he cried. “Phyllis, my dear, will you tell them to get a room ready?”
With an inscrutable look at Hugh, in which thankfulness and apprehension seemed mingled, the girl left the room. There was an unnatural glitter in her father’s eyes—a flush on his cheeks hardly to be accounted for by the warmth of the evening; and it struck Drummond that, during the time he had been pretending to look at his car, Mr. Benton had been fortifying himself. It was obvious, even to the soldier’s unprofessional eye, that the man’s nerves had gone to pieces; and that unless something was done soon, his daughter’s worst forebodings were likely to be fulfilled. He talked disjointedly and fast; his hands were not steady, and he seemed to be always waiting for something to happen.
Hugh had not been in the room ten minutes before his host produced the whisky, and during the time that he took to drink a mild nightcap, Mr. Benton succeeded in lowering three extremely strong glasses of spirit. And what made it the more sad was that the man was obviously not a heavy drinker by preference.
At eleven o’clock Hugh rose and said good night.
“You’ll ring if you want anything, won’t you?” said his host. “We don’t have very many visitors here, but I hope you’ll find everything you require. Breakfast at nine.”
Drummond closed the door behind him, and stood for a moment in silence, looking round the hall. It was deserted, but he wanted to get the geography of the house firmly imprinted on his mind. Then a noise from the room he had just left made him frown sharply—his host was continuing the process of fortification—and he stepped across towards the drawing-room. Inside, as he hoped, he found the girl.
She rose the instant he came in, and stood by the mantelpiece with her hands locked.
“What was it?” she half whispered—“that awful noise at dinner?”
He looked at her gravely for a while, and then he shook his head. “Shall we leave it as a night-bird for the present?” he said quietly. Then he leaned towards her, and took her hands in his own. “Go to bed, little girl,” he ordered; “this is my show. And, may I say, I think you’re just wonderful. Thank God you saw my advertisement!”
Gently he released her hands, and walking to the door, held it open for her. “If by any chance you should hear things in the night—turn over and go to sleep again.”
“But what are you going to do?” she cried.
Hugh grinned. “I haven’t the remotest idea,” he answered. “Doubtless the Lord will provide.”
The instant the girl had left the room Hugh switched off the lights and stepped across to the curtains which covered the long windows. He pulled them aside, letting them come together behind him; then, cautiously, he unbolted one side of the big centre window. The night was dark, and the moon was not due to rise for two or three hours, but he was too old a soldier to neglect any precautions. He wanted to see more of The Elms and its inhabitants; but he did not want them to see more of him.
Silently he dodged across the lawn towards the big trees at the end, and leaning up against one of them, he proceeded to make a more detailed survey of his objective. It was the same type of house as the one he had just left, and the grounds seemed about the same size. A wire fence separated the two places, and in the darkness Hugh could just make out a small wicket-gate, closing a path which connected both houses. He tried it, and found to his satisfaction that it opened silently.
Passing through, he took cover behind some bushes from which he could command a better view of Mr. Lakington’s abode. Save for one room on the ground floor the house was in darkness, and Hugh determined to have a look at that room. There was a chink in the curtains, through which the light was streaming out, which struck him as having possibilities.
Keeping under cover, he edged towards it, and at length, he got into a position from which he could see inside. And what he saw made him decide to chance it, and go even closer.
Seated at the table was a man he did not recognise; while on either side of him sat Lakington and Peterson. Lying on a sofa smoking a cigarette and reading a novel was a tall, dark girl, who seemed completely uninterested in the proceedings of the other three. Hugh placed her at once as the doubtful daughter Irma, and resumed his watch on the group at the table.
A paper was in front of the man, and Peterson, who was smoking a large cigar, was apparently suggesting that he should make use of the pen which Lakington was obligingly holding in readiness. In all respects a harmless tableau, save for one small thing the expression on the man’s face. Hugh had seen it before often—only then it had been called shell-shock. The man was dazed, semi-unconscious. Every now and then he stared round the room, as if bewildered; then he would shake his head and pass his hand wearily over his forehead. For a quarter of an hour the scene continued; then Lakington produced an instrument from his pocket. Hugh saw the man shrink back in terror, and reach for the pen. He saw the girl lie back on the sofa as if disappointed and pick up her novel again; and he saw Lakington’s face set in a cold sneer. But what impressed him most in that momentary flash of action was Peterson. There was something inhuman in his complete passivity. By not the fraction of a second did he alter the rate at which he was smoking—the slow, leisurely rate of the connoisseur; by n
ot the twitch of an eyelid did his expression change. Even as he watched the man signing his name, no trace of emotion showed on his face—whereas on Lakington’s there shone a fiendish satisfaction.
The document was still lying on the table, when Hugh produced his revolver. He knew there was foul play about, and the madness of what he had suddenly made up his mind to do never struck him: being that manner of fool, he was made that way. But he breathed a pious prayer that he would shoot straight—and then he held his breath. The crack of the shot and the bursting of the only electric-light bulb in the room were almost simultaneous; and the next second, with a roar of “Come on, boys,” he burst through the window. At an immense advantage over the others, who could see nothing for the moment, he blundered round the room. He timed the blow at Lakington to a nicety; he hit him straight on the point of the jaw and he felt the man go down like a log. Then he grabbed at the paper on the table, which tore in his hand, and picking the dazed signer up bodily, he rushed through the window on to the lawn. There was not an instant to be lost; only the impossibility of seeing when suddenly plunged into darkness had enabled him to pull the thing off so far. And before that advantage disappeared he had to be back at The Larches with his burden, no light weight for even a man of his strength to carry.
But there seemed to be no pursuit, no hue and cry. As he reached the little gate he paused and looked back, and he fancied he saw outside the window a gleam of white, such as a shirt-front. He lingered for an instant, peering into the darkness and recovering his breath, when with a vicious phut something buried itself in the tree beside him. Drummond lingered no more; long years of experience left no doubt in his mind as to what that something was.
“Compressed-air rifle—or electric,” he muttered to himself, stumbling on, and half dragging, half carrying his dazed companion.
He was not very clear in his own mind what to do next, but the matter was settled for him unexpectedly. Barely had he got into the drawing-room, when the door opened and the girl rushed in.
“Get him away at once,” she cried. “In your car… Don’t waste a second. I’ve started her up.”
“Good girl,” he cried enthusiastically. “But what about you?”
She stamped her foot impatiently. “I’m all right—absolutely all right. Get him away—that’s all that matters.”
Drummond grinned. “The humorous thing is that I haven’t an idea who the bird is—except that—” He paused, with his eyes fixed on the man’s left thumb. The top joint was crushed into a red, shapeless pulp, and suddenly the meaning of the instrument Lakington had produced from his pocket became clear. Also the reason of that dreadful cry at dinner…
“By God!” whispered Drummond, half to himself, while his jaws set like a steel vice. “A thumbscrew. The devils…the bloody swine…”
“Oh! quick, quick,” the girl urged in an agony. “They may be here at any moment.” She dragged him to the door, and together they forced the man into the car.
“Lakington won’t,” said Hugh, with a grin. “And if you see him tomorrow—don’t ask after his jaw… Good night, Phyllis.”
With a quick movement he raised her hand to his lips; then he slipped in the clutch and the car disappeared down the drive…
He felt a sense of elation and of triumph at having won the first round, and as the car whirled back to London through the cool night air his heart was singing with the joy of action. And it was perhaps as well for his peace of mind that he did not witness the scene in the room at The Elms.
Lakington still lay motionless on the floor; Peterson’s cigar still glowed steadily in the darkness. It was hard to believe that he had ever moved from the table; only the bullet imbedded in a tree proved that somebody must have got busy. Of course, it might have been the girl, who was just lighting another cigarette from the stump of the old one.
At length Peterson spoke. “A young man of dash and temperament,” he said genially. “It will be a pity to lose him.”
“Why not keep him and lose the girl?” yawned Irma. “I think he might amuse me—”
“We have always our dear Henry to consider,” answered Peterson. “Apparently the girl appeals to him. I’m afraid, Irma, he’ll have to go…and at once…”
The speaker was tapping his left knee softly with his hand; save for that slight movement he sat as if nothing had happened. And yet ten minutes before a carefully planned coup had failed at the instant of success. Even his most fearless accomplices had been known to confess that Peterson’s inhuman calmness sent cold shivers down their backs.
CHAPTER III
In Which Things Happen in Half Moon Street
I
Hugh Drummond folded up the piece of paper he was studying and rose to his feet as the doctor came into the room. He then pushed a silver box of cigarettes across the table and waited.
“Your friend,” said the doctor, “is in a very peculiar condition, Captain Drummond—very peculiar.” He sat down and, putting the tips of his fingers together, gazed at Drummond in his most professional manner. He paused for a moment, as if expecting an awed agreement with this profound utterance, but the soldier was calmly lighting a cigarette. “Can you,” resumed the doctor, “enlighten me at all as to what he has been doing during the last few days?”
Drummond shook his head. “Haven’t an earthly, doctor.”
“There is, for instance, that very unpleasant wound in his thumb,” pursued the other. “The top joint is crushed to a pulp.”
“I noticed that last night,” answered Hugh non-committally. “Looks as if it had been mixed up between a hammer and an anvil, don’t it?”
“But you have no idea how it occurred?”
“I’m full of ideas,” said the soldier. “In fact, if it’s any help to you in your diagnosis, that wound was caused by the application of an unpleasant medieval instrument known as a thumbscrew.”
The worthy doctor looked at him in amazement. “A thumbscrew! You must be joking, Captain Drummond.”
“Very far from it,” answered Hugh briefly. “If you want to know, it was touch and go whether the other thumb didn’t share the same fate.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, and smiled inwardly as he noticed the look of scandalised horror on his companion’s face. “It isn’t his thumb that concerns me,” he continued; “it’s his general condition. What’s the matter with him?”
The doctor pursed his lips and looked wise, while Drummond wondered that no one had ever passed a law allowing men of his type to be murdered on sight.
“His heart seems sound,” he answered after a weighty pause, “and I found nothing wrong with him constitutionally. In fact, I may say, Captain Drummond, he is in every respect a most healthy man. Except—er—except for this peculiar condition.”
Drummond exploded. “Damnation take it, and what on earth do you suppose I asked you to come round for? It’s of no interest to me to hear that his liver is working properly.” Then he controlled himself. “I beg your pardon, doctor: I had rather a trying evening last night. Can you give me any idea as to what has caused this peculiar condition?”
His companion accepted the apology with an acid bow. “Some form of drug,” he answered.
Drummond heaved a sigh of relief. “Now we’re getting on,” he cried. “Have you any idea what drug?”
“It is, at the moment, hard to say,” returned the other. “It seems to have produced a dazed condition mentally, without having affected him physically. In a day or two, perhaps, I might be able to—er—arrive at some conclusion…”
“Which, at present, you have not. Right! Now we know where we are.” A pained expression flitted over the doctor’s face: this young man was very direct. “To continue,” Hugh went on, “as you don’t know what the drug is, presumably you don’t know either how long it will take for the effect to wear off.”
“That—er—is, within limits, correct,” conceded the doctor. “Right! Once again we know where we are. What about diet?”
“Oh! light
… Not too much meat… No alcohol…” He rose to his feet as Hugh opened the door; really the war seemed to have produced a distressing effect on people’s manners. Diet was the one question on which he always let himself go…
“Not much meat—no alcohol. Right! Good morning, doctor. Down the stairs and straight on. Good morning.” The door closed behind him, and he descended to his waiting car with cold disapproval on his face. The whole affair struck him as most suspicious—thumbscrews, strange drugs… Possibly it was his duty to communicate with the police…
“Excuse me, sir.” The doctor paused and eyed a well-dressed man who had spoken to him uncompromisingly.
“What can I do for you, sir?” he said.
“Am I right in assuming that you are a doctor?”
“You are perfectly correct, sir, in your assumption.”
The man smiled: obviously a gentleman, thought the practitioner, with his hand on the door of his car.
“It’s about a great pal of mine, Captain Drummond, who lives in here,” went on the other. “I hope you won’t think it unprofessional, but I thought I’d ask you privately how you find him.”
The doctor looked surprised. “I wasn’t aware that he was ill,” he answered.
“But I heard he’d had a bad accident,” said the man, amazed.
The doctor smiled. “Reassure yourself, my dear sir,” he murmured in his best professional manner. “Captain Drummond, so far as I am aware, has never been better. I—er—cannot say the same of his friend.” He stepped into his car. “Why not go up and see for yourself?”
The car rolled smoothly into Piccadilly, but the man showed no signs of availing himself of the doctor’s suggestion. He turned and walked rapidly away, and a few moments later—in an exclusive West End club—a trunk call was put through to Godalming—a call which caused the recipient to nod his head in satisfaction and order the Rolls-Royce.
The Bulldog Drummond Megapack Page 6