“Good Lord!” spluttered Darrell, by now very wide awake. “How the devil has he done it?”
“There are no flies on the gentleman,” remarked Hugh. “I didn’t expect he’d do it quite so quick, I must admit. But it wasn’t very difficult for him to find out that I had a bungalow here, and so he drew the covert.”
“And he’s found the bally fox,” said Algy. “What do we do, sergeant-major?”
“We take it in turns—two at a time—to sit up with Potts.” Hugh glanced at the other three. “Damn it—you blighters—wake up!”
Darrell struggled to his feet and walked up and down the room.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said, rubbing his eyes, “I feel most infernally sleepy.”
“Well, listen to me—confound you… Toby!” Hugh hurled a tobacco-pouch at the offender’s head.
“Sorry, old man.” With a start Sinclair sat up in his chair and blinked at Hugh.
“They’re almost certain to try and get him tonight,” went on Hugh. “Having given the show away by leaving a clue on the wretched secretary, they must get the real man as soon as possible. It’s far too dangerous to leave the—leave the—” His head dropped forward on his chest: a short, half-strangled snore came from his lips. It had the effect of waking him for the moment, and he staggered to his feet.
The other three, sprawling in their chairs, were openly and unashamedly asleep; even the dogs lay in fantastic attitudes, breathing heavily, inert like logs.
“Wake up!’ shouted Hugh wildly. “For God’s sake—wake up! We’ve been drugged!”
An iron weight seemed to be pressing down on his eyelids: the desire for sleep grew stronger and stronger. For a few moments more he fought against it, hopelessly, despairingly; while his legs seemed not to belong to him, and there was a roaring noise in his ears. And then, just before unconsciousness overcame him, there came to his bemused brain the sound of a whistle thrice repeated from outside the window. With a last stupendous effort he fought his way towards it, and for a moment he stared into the darkness. There were dim figures moving through the shrubs, and suddenly one seemed to detach itself. It came nearer, and the light fell on the man’s face. His nose and mouth were covered with a sort of pad, but the cold, sneering eyes were unmistakable.
“Lakington!” gasped Hugh, and then the roaring noise increased in his head; his legs struck work altogether. He collapsed on the floor and lay sprawling, while Lakington, his face pressed against the glass outside, watched in silence.
* * * *
“Draw the curtains.” Lakington was speaking, his voice muffled behind the pad, and one of the men did as he said. There were four in all, each with a similar pad over his mouth and nose. “Where did you put the generator, Brownlow?”
“In the coal-scuttle.” A man whom Mrs. Denny would have had no difficulty in recognising, even with the mask on his face, carefully lifted a small black box out of the scuttle from behind some coal, and shook it gently, holding it to his ear. “It’s finished,” he remarked, and Lakington nodded.
“An ingenious invention is gas,” he said, addressing another of the men. “We owe your nation quite a debt of gratitude for the idea.”
A guttural grunt left no doubt as to what that nation was, and Lakington dropped the box into his pocket.
“Go and get him,” he ordered briefly, and the others left the room.
Contemptuously Lakington kicked one of the dogs; it rolled over and lay motionless in its new position. Then he went in turn to each of the three men sprawling in the chairs. With no attempt at gentleness he turned their faces up to the light, and studied them deliberately; then he let their heads roll back again with a thud. Finally he went to the window and stared down at Drummond. In his eyes was a look of cold fury, and he kicked the unconscious man savagely in the ribs.
“You young swine,” he muttered. “Do you think I’ll forget that blow on the jaw!”
He took another box out of his pocket and looked at it lovingly.
“Shall I?” With a short laugh he replaced it. “It’s too good a death for you, Captain Drummond, D.S.O., M.C. Just to snuff out in your sleep. No, my friend, I think I can devise something better than that; something really artistic.”
Two other men came in as he turned away, and Lakington looked at them.
“Well,” he asked, “have you got the old woman?”
“Bound and gagged in the kitchen,” answered one of them laconically. “Are you going to do this crowd in?”
The speaker looked at the unconscious men with hatred in his eyes.
“They encumber the earth—this breed of puppy.”
“They will not encumber it for long,” said Lakington softly. “But the one in the window there is not going to die quite so easily: I have a small unsettled score with him…”
“All right; he’s in the car.” A voice came from outside the window, and with a last look at Hugh Drummond, Lakington turned away.
“Then we’ll go,” he remarked. “Au revoir, my blundering young bull. Before I’ve finished with you, you’ll scream for mercy. And you won’t get it…”
* * * *
Through the still night air there came the thrumming of the engine of a powerful car. Gradually it died away and there was silence. Only the murmur of the river over the weir broke the silence, save for an owl which hooted mournfully in a tree near by. And then, with a sudden crack, Peter Darrell’s head rolled over and hit the arm of his chair.
CHAPTER VI
In Which a Very Old Game Takes Place on the Hog’s Back
I
A thick grey mist lay over the Thames. It covered the water and the low fields to the west like a thick white carpet; it drifted sluggishly under the old bridge which spans the river between Goring and Streatley. It was the hour before dawn, and sleepy passengers, rubbing the windows of their carriages as the Plymouth boat express rushed on towards London, shivered and drew their rugs closer around them. It looked cold…cold and dead.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the vapour rose, and spread outwards up the wooded hills by Basildon. It drifted through the shrubs and rose-bushes of a little garden, which stretched from a bungalow down to the water’s edge, until at length wisps of it brushed gently round the bungalow itself. It was a daily performance in the summer, and generally the windows of the lower rooms remained shut till long after the mist had gone and the sun was glinting through the trees on to the river below. But on this morning there was a change in the usual programme. Suddenly the window of one of the downstair rooms was flung open, and a man with a white haggard face leant out drawing great gulps of fresh air into his lungs. Softly the white wraiths eddied past him into the room behind—a room in which a queer, faintly sweet smell still hung—a room in which three other men lay sprawling uncouthly in chairs, and two dogs lay motionless on the hearthrug.
After a moment or two the man withdrew, only to appear again with one of the others in his arms. And then, having dropped his burden through the window on to the lawn outside, he repeated his performance with the remaining two. Finally he pitched the two dogs after them, and then, with his hand to his forehead, staggered down to the water’s edge.
“Holy smoke!” he muttered to himself, as he plunged his head into the cold water; “talk about the morning after!… Never have I thought of such a head.”
After a while, with the water still dripping from his face, he returned to the bungalow and found the other three in varying stages of partial insensibility.
“Wake up, my heroes,” he remarked, “and go and put your great fat heads in the river.”
Peter Darrell scrambled unsteadily to his feet. “Great Scott! Hugh,” he muttered thickly, “what’s happened?”
“We’ve been had for mugs,” said Drummond grimly.
Algy Longworth blinked at him foolishly from his position in the middle of a flower-bed.
“Dear old soul,” he murmured at length, “you’ll have to change your wine merchants. Mercifu
l Heavens! is the top of my head still on?”
“Don’t be a fool, Algy,” grunted Hugh. “You weren’t drunk last night. Pull yourself together, man; we were all of us drugged or doped somehow. And now,” he added bitterly, “we’ve all got heads, and we have not got Potts.”
“I don’t remember anything,” said Toby Sinclair, “except falling asleep. Have they taken him?”
“Of course they have,” said Hugh. “Just before I went off I saw ’em all in the garden and that swine Lakington was with them. However, while you go and put your nuts in the river, I’ll go up and make certain.”
With a grim smile he watched the three men lurch down to the water; then he turned and went upstairs to the room which had been occupied by the American millionaire. It was empty, as he had known it would be, and with a smothered curse he made his way downstairs again. And it was as he stood in the little hall saying things gently under his breath that he heard a muffled moaning noise coming from the kitchen. For a moment he was nonplussed; then, with an oath at his stupidity, he dashed through the door. Bound tightly to the table, with a gag in her mouth, the wretched Mrs. Denny was sitting on the floor, blinking at him wrathfully…
“What on earth will Denny say to me when he hears about this!” said Hugh, feverishly cutting the cords. He helped her to her feet, and then forced her gently into a chair. “Mrs. Denny, have those swine hurt you?”
Five minutes served to convince him that the damage, if any, was mental rather than bodily, and that her vocal powers were not in the least impaired. Like a dam bursting, the flood of the worthy woman’s wrath surged over him; she breathed a hideous vengeance on every one impartially. Then she drove Hugh from the kitchen, and slammed the door in his face.
“Breakfast in half an hour,” she cried from inside—“not that one of you deserves it.”
“We are forgiven,” remarked Drummond, as he joined the other three on the lawn. “Do any of you feel like breakfast? Fat sausages and crinkly bacon.”
“Shut up,” groaned Algy, “or we’ll throw you into the river. What I want is a brandy-and-soda—half a dozen of ’em.”
“I wish I knew what they did to us,” said Darrell. “Because, if I remember straight, I drank bottled beer at dinner, and I’m damned if I see how they could have doped that.”
“I’m only interested in one thing, Peter,” remarked Drummond grimly, “and that isn’t what they did to us. It’s what we’re going to do to them.”
“Count me out,” said. Algy. “For the next year I shall be fully occupied resting my head against a cold stone. Hugh, I positively detest your friends…”
* * * *
It was a few hours later that a motor-car drew up outside that celebrated chemist in Piccadilly whose pick-me-ups are known from Singapore to Alaska. From it there descended four young men, who ranged themselves in a row before the counter and spoke no word. Speech was unnecessary. Four foaming drinks were consumed, four acid-drops were eaten, and then, still in silence, the four young men got back into the car and drove away. It was a solemn rite, and on arrival at the Junior Sports Club the four performers sank into four large chairs, and pondered gently on the vileness of the morning after. Especially when there hadn’t been a night before. An unprofitable meditation evidently, for suddenly, as if actuated by a single thought, the four young men rose from their four large chairs and again entered the motor-car.
The celebrated chemist whose pick-me-ups are known from Singapore to Alaska gazed at them severely.
“A very considerable bend, gentlemen,” he remarked.
“Quite wrong,” answered the whitest and most haggard of the row. “We are all confirmed Pussyfoots, and have been consuming non-alcoholic beer.”
Once more to the scrunch of acid-drops the four young men entered the car outside; once more, after a brief and silent drive, four large chairs in the smoking-room of the Junior Sports Club received an occupant. And it was so, even until luncheon time…
“Are we better?” said Hugh, getting to his feet, and regarding the other three with a discerning eye.
“No,” murmured Toby, “but I am beginning to hope that I may live. Four Martinis and then we will gnaw a cutlet.”
II
“Has it struck you fellows,” remarked Hugh, at the conclusion of lunch, “that seated round this table are four officers who fought with some distinction and much discomfort in the recent historic struggle?”
“How beautifully you put it, old flick!” said Darrell.
“Has it further struck you fellows,” continued Hugh, “that last night we were done down, trampled on, had for mugs by a crowd of dirty blackguards composed largely of the dregs of the universe?”
“A veritable Solomon,” said Algy, gazing at him admiringly through his eyeglass. “I told you this morning I destested your friends.”
“Has it still further struck you,” went on Hugh, a trifle grimly, “that we aren’t standing for it? At any rate, I’m not. It’s my palaver this, you fellows, and if you like… Well, there’s no call on you to remain in the game. I mean—er—”
“Yes, we’re waiting to hear what the devil you do mean,” said Toby uncompromisingly.
“Well—er—” stammered Hugh, “there’s a big element of risk—er—don’t you know, and there’s no earthly reason why you fellows should get roped in and all that. I mean—er—I’m sort of pledged to see the thing through, don’t you know, and—” He relapsed into silence, and stared at the tablecloth, uncomfortably aware of three pairs of eyes fixed on him.
“Well—er—” mimicked Algy, “there’s a big element of risk—er—don’t you know, and I mean—er—we’re sort of pledged to bung you through the window, old bean, if you talk such consolidated drivel.”
Hugh grinned sheepishly.
“Well. I had to out it to you fellows. Not that I ever thought for a moment you wouldn’t see the thing through—but last evening is enough to show you that we’re up against a tough crowd. A damned tough crowd,” he added thoughtfully. “That being so,” he went on briskly, after a moment or two, “I propose that we should tackle the blighters tonight.”
“Tonight!” echoed Darrell. “Where?”
“At The Elms, of course. That’s where the wretched Potts is for a certainty.”
“And how do you propose that we should set about it?” demanded Sinclair.
Drummond drained his port and grinned gently.
“By stealth, dear old beans—by stealth. You—and I thought we might rake in Ted Jerningham, and perhaps Jerry Seymour, to join the happy throng—will make a demonstration in force, with the idea of drawing off the enemy, thereby leaving the coast clear for me to explore the house for the unfortunate Potts.”
“Sounds very nice in theory,” said Darrell dubiously, “but…”
“And what do you mean by a demonstration?” said Longworth. “You don’t propose we should sing carols outside the drawing-room window, do you?”
“My dear people,” Hugh murmured protestingly, “surely you know me well enough by now to realise that I can’t possibly have another idea for at least ten minutes. That is just the general scheme; doubtless the mere vulgar details will occur to us in time. Besides it’s someone else’s turn now.” He looked round the table hopefully.
“We might dress up or something,” remarked Toby Sinclair, after a lengthy silence.
“What in the name of Heaven is the use of that?” said Darrell witheringly. “It’s not private theatricals, nor a beauty competition.”
“Cease wrangling, you two,” said Hugh suddenly, a few moments later. “I’ve got a perfect cerebral hurricane raging. An accident… A car… What is the connecting-link… Why, drink. Write it down, Algy, or we might forget. Now, can you beat that?”
“We might have some chance,” said Darrell kindly, “if we had the slightest idea what you were talking about.”
“I should have thought it was perfectly obvious,” returned Hugh coldly. “You know, Peter, your worry i
s that your’re too quick on the uptake. Your brain is too sharp.”
“How do you spell connecting?” demanded Alp, looking up from his labours. “And, anyway, the damn pencil won’t write.”
“Pay attention, all of you,” said Hugh. “Tonight, some time about ten of the clock, Algy’s motor will proceed along the Godalming-Guildford road. It will contain you three—also Ted and Jerry Seymour, if we can get ’em. On approaching the gate of The Elms, you will render the night hideous with your vocal efforts. Stray passers-by will think that you are tight. Then will come the dramatic moment, when, with a heavy crash, you ram the gate.”
“How awfully jolly!” spluttered Algy. “I beg to move that your car be used for the event.”
“Can’t be done, old son,” laughed Hugh. “Mine’s faster than yours, and I’ll be wanting it myself. Now—to proceed. Horrified at this wanton damage to property, you will leave the car and proceed in mass formation up the drive.”
“Still giving tongue?” queries Darrell.
“Still giving tongue. Either Ted or Jerry or both of ’em will approach the house and inform the owner in heart-broken accents that they have damaged his gate-post. You three will remain in the garden—you might be recognised. Then it will be up to you. You’ll have several men all round you. Keep ’em occupied—somehow. They won’t hurt you; they’ll only be concerned with seeing that you don’t go where you’re not wanted. You see, as far as the world is concerned, it’s just an ordinary country residence. The last thing they want to do is to draw any suspicion on themselves—and, on the face of it, you are merely five convivial wanderers who have looked on the wine when it was red. I think,” he added thoughtfully, “that ten minutes will be enough for me…”
“What will you be doing?” said Toby.
“I shall be looking for Potts. Don’t worry about me. I may find him; I may not. But when you have given me ten minutes—you clear off. I’ll look after myself. Now is that clear?”
“Perfectly,” said Darrell, after a short silence. “But I don’t know that I like it, Hugh. It seems to me, old son, that you’re running an unnecessary lot of risk.”
The Bulldog Drummond Megapack Page 12