The soldier rose and stood in front of him.
“I have a few remarks of my own to make,” he answered, “and then we might consider the interview closed. I ask nothing better than that the gloves should be off—though with your filthy methods of fighting, anything you touch will get very dirty. As you say, I am completely in the dark as to your plans; but I have a pretty shrewd idea what I’m up against. Men who can employ thumbscrew on a poor defenceless brute seem to me to be several degrees worse than an aboriginal cannibal, and therefore if I put you down as one of the lowest types of degraded criminal I shall not be very wide of the mark. There’s no good you snarling at me, you swine; it does everybody good to hear some home truths—and don’t forget it was you who pulled off the gloves.”
Drummond lit a cigarette; then his merciless eyes fixed themselves again on Peterson.
“There is only one thing more,” he continued. “You have kindly warned me of my danger: let me give you a word of advice in my turn. I’m going to fight you; if I can, I’m going to beat you. Anything that may happen to me is part of the game. But if anything happens to Miss Benton during the course of operations, then, as surely as there is a God above, Peterson, I’ll get at you somehow and murder you with my own hands.”
For a few moments there was silence, and then with a short laugh Drummond turned away.
“Quite melodramatic,” he remarked lightly. “And very bad for the digestion so early in the morning. My regards to your charming daughter, also to him of the broken jaw. Shall we meet again soon?” He paused at the door and looked back.
Peterson was still standing by the table, his face expressionless.
“Very soon indeed, young man,” he said quietly. “Very soon indeed…”
Hugh stepped out into the warm sunshine and spoke to his chauffeur.
“Take her out into the main road, Jenkins,” he said, “and wait for me outside the entrance to the next house. I shan’t be long.”
Then he strolled through the garden towards the little wicket-gate that led to The Larches. Phyllis! The thought of her was singing in his heart to the exclusion of everything else. Just a few minutes with her; just the touch of her hand, the faint smell of the scent she used—and then back to the game.
He had almost reached the gate, when, with a sudden crashing in the undergrowth, Jem Smith blundered out into the path. His naturally ruddy face was white, and he stared round fearfully.
“Gawd! sir,” he cried, “mind out. ’Ave yer seen it?”
“Seen what, Jem?” asked Drummond.
“That there brute. ’E’s escaped; and if ’e meets a stranger—” He left the sentence unfinished, and stood listening. From somewhere behind the house came a deep-throated, snarling roar; then the clang of a padlock shooting home in metal, followed by a series of heavy thuds as if some big animal was hurling itself against the bars of a cage.
“They’ve got it,” muttered Jem, mopping his brow.
“You seem to have a nice little crowd of pets about the house,” remarked Drummond, putting a hand on the man’s arm as he was about to move off. “What was that docile creature we’ve just heard calling to its young?”
The ex-pugilist looked at him sullenly.
“Never you mind, sir; it ain’t no business of yours. An’ if I was you, I wouldn’t make it your business to find out.”
A moment later he had disappeared into the bushes, and Drummond was left alone. Assuredly a cheerful household, he reflected; just the spot for a rest-cure. Then he saw a figure on the lawn of the next house which banished everything else from his mind; and opening the gate, he walked eagerly towards Phyllis Benton.
IV
“I heard you were down here,” she said gravely, holding out her hand to him. “I’ve been sick with anxiety ever since father told me he’d seen you.”
Hugh imprisoned the little hand in his own huge ones, and smiled at the girl.
“I call that just sweet of you,” he answered. “Just sweet… Having people worry about me is not much in my line, but I think I rather like it.”
“You’re the most impossible person,” she remarked, releasing her hand. “What sort of a night did you have?”
“Somewhat parti-coloured,” returned Hugh lightly. “Like the hoary old curate’s egg—calm in parts.”
“But why did you go at all?” she cried, beating her hands together. “Don’t you realise that if anything happens to you, I shall never forgive myself?”
The soldier smiled reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, little girl,” he said. “Years ago I was told by an old gipsy that I should die in my bed of old age and excessive consumption of invalid port… As a matter of fact, the cause of my visit was rather humorous. They abducted me in the middle of the night, with an ex-soldier of my old battalion, who was, I regret to state, sleeping off the effects of much indifferent liquor in my rooms.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
“They thought he was your American millionaire cove, and the wretched Mullings was too drunk to deny it. In fact, I don’t think they ever asked his opinion at all.” Hugh grinned reminiscently. “A pathetic spectacle.”
“Oh! but splendid,” cried the girl a little breathlessly. “And where was the American?”
“Next door—safe with a very dear old friend of mine, Peter Darrell. You must meet Peter some day—you’ll like him.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “No,” he added, “on second thoughts, I’m not at all sure that I shall let you meet Peter. You might like him too much; and he’s a dirty dog.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she cried with a faint blush. “Tell me, where is the American now?”
“Many miles out of London,” answered Hugh. “I think we’ll leave it at that. The less you know, Miss Benton, at the moment—the better.”
“Have you found out anything?” she demanded eagerly. Hugh shook his head.
“Not a thing. Except that your neighbours are as pretty a bunch of scoundrels as I ever want to meet.”
“But you’ll let me know if you do.” She laid a hand beseechingly on his arm. “You know what’s at stake for me, don’t you? Father, and—oh! but you know.”
“I know,” he answered gravely. “I know, old thing. I promise I’ll let you know anything I find out. And in the meantime I want you to keep an eye fixed on what goes on next door, and let me know anything of importance by letter to the Junior Sports Club.” He lit a cigarette thoughtfully. “I have an idea that they feel so absolutely confident in their own power, that they are going to make the fatal mistake of underrating their opponents. We shall see.” He turned to her with a twinkle in his eye. “Anyway, our Mr. Lakington will see that you don’t come to any harm.”
“The brute!” she cried, very low. “How I hate him!” Then—with a sudden change of tone, she looked up at Drummond. “I don’t know whether it’s worth mentioning,” she said slowly, “but yesterday afternoon four men came at different times to The Elms. They were the sort of type one sees tub-thumping in Hyde Park, all except one, who looked like a respectable working-man.”
Hugh shook his head.
“Don’t seem to help much, does it? Still, one never knows. Let me know anything like that in future at the club.”
“Good morning, Miss Benton.” Peterson’s voice behind them made Drummond swing round with a smothered curse. “Our inestimable friend, Captain Drummond, brought such a nice young fellow to see me last night, and then left him lying about the house this morning.”
Hugh bit his lip with annoyance; until that moment he had clean forgotten that Mullings was still in The Elms.
“I have sent him along to your car,” continued Peterson suavely, “which I trust was the correct procedure. Or did you want to give him to me as a pet?”
“From a rapid survey, Mr. Peterson, I should think you have quite enough already,” said Hugh. “I trust you paid him the money you owe him.”
“I will allot it to him in my will,” re
marked Peterson. “If you do the same in yours, doubtless he will get it from one of us sooner or later. In the meantime, Miss Benton, is your father up?”
The girl frowned.
“No—not yet.”
“Then I will go and see him in bed. For the present, au revoir.” He walked towards the house, and they watched him go in silence. It was as he opened the drawing-room window that Hugh called after him:
“Do you like the horse Elliman’s or the ordinary brand?” he asked. “I’ll send you a bottle for that stiff neck of yours.” Very deliberately Peterson turned round.
“Don’t trouble, thank you, Captain Drummond. I have my own remedies, which are far more efficacious.”
CHAPTER V
In Which There Is Trouble at Goring
I
“Did you have a good night, Mullings?” remarked Hugh as he got into his car.
The man grinned sheepishly.
“I dunno what the game was, sir, but I ain’t for many more of them. They’re about the ugliest crowd of blackguards in that there ’ouse that I ever wants to see again.”
“How many did you see altogether?” asked Drummond.
“I saw six actual like, sir; but I ’eard others talking.”
The car slowed up before the post office and Hugh got out. There were one or two things he proposed to do in London before going to Goring, and it struck him that a wire to Peter Darrell might allay that gentleman’s uneasiness if he was late in getting down. So new was he to the tortuous ways of crime, that the foolishness of the proceeding never entered his head: up to date in his life, if he had wished to send a wire he had sent one. And so it may be deemed a sheer fluke on his part, that a man dawdling by the counter aroused his suspicions. He was a perfectly ordinary man, chatting casually with the girl on the other side; but it chanced that, just as Hugh was holding the post office pencil up, and gazing at its so-called point with an air of resigned anguish, the perfectly ordinary man ceased chatting and looked at him. Hugh caught his eye for a fleeting second; then the conversation continued. And as he turned to pull out the pad of forms, it struck him that the man had looked away just a trifle too quickly…
A grin spread slowly over his face, and after a moment’s hesitation he proceeded to compose a short wire. He wrote it in block letters for additional clearness; he also pressed his hardest as befitted a blunt pencil. Then with the form in his hand he advanced to the counter.
“How long will it take to deliver in London?” he asked the girl…
The girl was not helpful. It depended, he gathered, on a variety of circumstances, of which not the least was the perfectly ordinary man who talked so charmingly. She did not say so, in so many words, but Hugh respected her none the less for her maidenly reticence.
“I don’t think I’ll bother, then,” he said, thrusting the wire into his pocket. “Good morning…”
He walked to the door, and shortly afterwards his car rolled down the street. He would have liked to remain and see the finish of his little jest, but, as is so often the case, imagination is better than reality. Certain it is that he chuckled consumedly the whole way up to London, whereas the actual finish was tame.
With what the girl considered peculiar abruptness, the perfectly ordinary man concluded his conversation with her, and decided that he too would send a wire. And then, after a long and thoughtful pause at the writing-bench, she distinctly heard an unmistakable “Damn!” Then he walked out, and she saw him no more.
Moreover, it is to be regretted that the perfectly ordinary man told a lie a little later in the day, when giving his report to someone whose neck apparently inconvenienced him greatly. But then a lie is frequently more tactful than the truth, and to have announced that the sole result of his morning’s labours had been to decipher a wire addressed to The Elms, which contained the cryptic remark, “Stung again, stiff neck, stung again,” would not have been tactful. So he lied, as has been stated, thereby showing his wisdom…
But though Drummond chuckled to himself as the car rushed through the fresh morning air, once or twice a gleam that was not altogether amusement shone in his eyes. For four years he had played one game where no mistakes were allowed; the little incident of the post office had helped to bring to his mind the certainty that he had now embarked on another where the conditions were much the same. That he had scored up to date was luck rather than good management, and he was far too shrewd not to realise it. Now he was marked, and luck with a marked man cannot be tempted too far.
Alone and practically unguarded he had challenged a gang of international criminals: a gang not only utterly unscrupulous, but controlled by a mastermind. Of its power as yet he had no clear idea; of its size and immediate object he had even less. Perhaps it was as well. Had he realised even dimly the immensity of the issues he was up against, had he had but an inkling of the magnitude of the plot conceived in the sinister brain of his host of the previous evening, then, cheery optimist though he was, even Hugh Drummond might have wavered. But he had no such inkling, and so the gleam in his eyes was but transitory, the chuckle that succeeded it more whole-hearted than before. Was it not sport in a land flowing with strikes and profiteers; sport such as his soul loved?
“I am afraid, Mullings,” he said as the car stopped in front of his club, “that the kindly gentleman with whom we spent last night has repudiated his obligations. He refuses to meet the bill I gave him for your services. Just wait here a moment.”
He went inside, returning in a few moments with a folded cheque.
“Round the corner, Mullings, and an obliging fellah in a black coat will shove you out the necessary Bradbury’s.”
The man glanced at the cheque.
“Fifty quid, sir!” he gasped. “Why—it’s too much, sir—”
“The labourer, Mullings, is worthy of his hire. You have been of the very greatest assistance to me; and, incidentally, it is more than likely that I may want you again. Now; where can I get hold of you?”
“13, Green Street, Oxton, sir, ’ll always find me. And any time, sir, as you wants me, I’d like to come just for the sport of the thing.”
Hugh grinned. “Good lad. And it may be sooner than you think.”
With a cheery laugh he turned back into his club, and for a moment or two the ex-soldier stood looking after him. Then with great deliberation he turned to the chauffeur, and spat reflectively.
“If there was more like ’im, and less like ’im”—he indicated a stout vulgarian rolling past in a large car and dreadful clothes—“things wouldn’t ’appen such as is ’appening today. Ho! no…”
With which weighty dictum Mr. Mullings, late private of the Royal Loamshires, turned his steps in the direction of the “obliging fellah in a black coat”.
II
Inside the Junior Sports Club, Hugh Drummond was burying his nose in a large tankard of the ale for which that cheery pot-house was still famous. And in the intervals of this most delightful pastime he was trying to make up his mind on a peculiarly knotty point. Should he or should he not communicate with the police on the matter? He felt that as a respectable citizen of the country it was undoubtedly his duty to tell somebody something. The point was who to tell and what to tell him. On the subject of Scotland Yard his ideas were nebulous; he had a vague impression that one filled in a form and waited—tedious operations, both.
“Besides, dear old flick,” he murmured abstractedly to the portrait of the founder of the club, who had drunk the cellar dry and then died, “am I a respectable citizen? Can it be said with any certainty, that if I filled in a form saying all that had happened in the last two days, I shouldn’t be put in quod myself?”
He sighed profoundly and gazed out into the sunny square. A waiter was arranging the first editions of the evening papers on a table, and Hugh beckoned to him to bring one. His mind was still occupied with his problem, and almost mechanically he glanced over the columns. Cricket, racing, the latest divorce case and the latest strike—all the usual
headings were there. And he was just putting down the paper, to again concentrate on his problem, when a paragraph caught his eye.
STRANGE MURDER IN BELFAST
The man whose body was discovered in such peculiar circumstances near the docks has been identified as Mr. James Granger, the confidential secretary to Mr. Hiram Potts, the American multi-millionaire, at present in this country. The unfortunate victim of this dastardly outrage—his head, as we reported in our last night’s issue, was nearly severed from his body— had apparently been sent over on business by Mr. Potts, and had arrived the preceding day. What he was doing in the locality in which he was found is a mystery.
We understand that Mr. Potts, who has recently been indisposed, has returned to the Carlton, and is greatly upset at the sudden tragedy.
The police are confident that they will shortly obtain a clue, though the rough element in the locality where the murder was committed presents great difficulties. It seems clear that the motive was robbery, as all the murdered man’s pockets were rifled. But the most peculiar thing about the case is the extraordinary care taken by the murderer to prevent the identification of the body. Every article of clothing, even down to the murdered man’s socks, had had the name torn out, and it was only through the criminal overlooking the tailor’s tab inside the inner breast-pocket of Mr. Granger’s coat that the police were enabled to identify the body.
Drummond laid down the paper on his knees, and stared a little dazedly at the club’s immoral founder.
“Holy smoke! Laddie,” he murmured, “that man Peterson ought to be on the committee here. Verily, I believe, he could galvanise the staff into some semblance of activity.”
“Did you order anything, sir?” A waiter paused beside him.
“No,” murmured Drummond, “but I will rectify the omission. Another large tankard of ale.”
The waiter departed, and Hugh picked up the paper again.
“We understand,” he murmured gently to himself, “that Mr. Potts, who has recently been indisposed, has returned to the Carlton… Now that’s very interesting…” He lit a cigarette and lay back in his chair. “I was under the impression that Mr. Potts was safely tucked up in bed, consuming semolina pudding, at Goring. It requires elucidation.”
The Bulldog Drummond Megapack Page 10