The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  His hand dropped to his side, and he grinned.

  “Quite a break for me,” he remarked. “I’m getting hoarse. I’m now going to hand you four over to the boys. There’s an admirable, but somewhat muddy pond outside, and I’m sure you’d like to look for newts. If any of you want to summon me for assault and battery, my name is Drummond—Captain Drummond, of Half Moon Street. But I warn you that that book will be handed into Scotland Yard tonight. Out with ’em, boys, and give ’em hell…

  “And now, Carl Peterson,” he remarked, as the door closed behind the last of the struggling prophets of a new world, “it’s time that you and I settled our little account, isn’t it?”

  The master-criminal rose and stood facing him. Apparently he had completely recovered himself; the hand with which he lit his cigar was as steady as a rock.

  “I congratulate you, Captain Drummond,” he remarked suavely. “I confess I have no idea how you managed to escape from the cramped position I left you in last night, or how you have managed to install your own men in this house. But I have even less idea how you discovered about Hocking and the other two.”

  Hugh laughed shortly.

  “Another time, when you disguise yourself as the Comte de Guy, remember one thing, Carl. For effective concealment it is necessary to change other things beside your face and figure. You must change your mannerisms and unconscious little tricks. No—I won’t tell you what it is that gave you away. You can ponder over it in prison.”

  “So you mean to hand me over to the police, do you?” said Peterson slowly.

  “I see no other course open to me,” replied Drummond. “It will be quite a cause célèbre, and ought to do a lot to edify the public.”

  The sudden opening of the door made both men look round. Then Drummond bowed, to conceal a smile.

  “Just in time, Miss Irma,” he remarked, “for settling day.”

  The girl swept past him and confronted Peterson.

  “What has happened?” she panted. “The garden is full of people whom I’ve never seen. And there were two young men running down the drive covered with weeds and dripping with water.”

  Peterson smiled grimly.

  “A slight set-back has occurred, my dear. I have made a big mistake—a mistake which has proved fatal. I have underestimated the ability of Captain Drummond; and as long as I live I shall always regret that I did not kill him the night he went exploring in this house.”

  Fearfully the girl faced Drummond; then she turned again to Peterson.

  “Where’s Henry?” she demanded.

  “That again is a point on which I am profoundly ignorant,” answered Peterson. “Perhaps Captain Drummond can enlighten us on that also?”

  “Yes,” remarked Drummond, “I can. Henry has had an accident. After I drove him back from the Duchess’s last night”—the girl gave a cry, and Peterson steadied her with his arm—“we had words—dreadful words. And for a long time, Carl, I thought it would be better if you and I had similar words. In fact, I’m not sure even now that it wouldn’t be safer in the long run…”

  “But where is he?” said the girl, through dry lips.

  “Where you ought to be, Carl,” answered Hugh grimly. “Where, sooner or later, you will be.”

  He pressed the studs in the niche of the wall, and the door of the big safe swung open slowly. With a scream of terror the girl sank half-fainting on the floor, and even Peterson’s cigar dropped on the floor from his nerveless lips. For, hung from the ceiling by two ropes attached to his arms, was the dead body of Henry Lakington. And even as they watched, it sagged lower, and one of the feet hit sullenly against a beautiful old gold vase…

  “My God!” muttered Peterson. “Did you murder him?”

  “Oh, no!” answered Drummond. “He inadvertently fell in the bath he got ready for me, and then when he ran up the stairs in considerable pain, that interesting mechanical device broke his neck.”

  “Shut the door,” screamed the girl; “I can’t stand it.”

  She covered her face with her hands, shuddering, while the door slowly swung to again.

  “Yes,” remarked Drummond thoughtfully, “it should be an interesting trial. I shall have such a lot to tell them about the little entertainments here, and all your endearing ways.”

  With the big ledger under his arm he crossed the room, and called to some men who were standing outside in the hall; and as the detectives, thoughtfully supplied by Mr. Green, entered the central room, he glanced for the last time at Carl Peterson and his daughter. Never had the cigar glowed more evenly between the master-criminal’s lips; never had the girl Irma selected a cigarette from her gold and tortoiseshell case with more supreme indifference.

  “Good-bye, my ugly one!” she cried, with a charming smile, as two of the men stepped up to her.

  “Good-bye,” Hugh bowed, and a tinge of regret showed for a moment in his eyes.

  “Not good-bye, Irma.” Carl Peterson removed his cigar, and stared at Drummond steadily. “Only au revoir, my friend; only au revoir.”

  EPILOGUE

  “I simply can’t believe it, Hugh.” In the lengthening shadows Phyllis moved a little nearer to her husband, who, quite regardless of the publicity of their position, slipped an arm round her waist.

  “Can’t believe what, darling?” he demanded lazily.

  “Why, that all that awful nightmare is over. Lakington dead, and the other two in prison, and us married.”

  “They’re not actually in jug yet, old thing,” said Hugh. “And somehow…” He broke off and stared thoughtfully at a man sauntering past them. To all appearances he was a casual visitor taking his evening walk along the front of the well-known seaside resort so largely addicted to honeymoon couples. And yet…was he? Hugh laughed softly; he’d got suspicion on the brain.

  “Don’t you think they’ll be sent to prison?” cried the girl. “They may be sent right enough, but whether they arrive or not is a different matter. I don’t somehow see Carl picking oakum. It’s not his form.”

  For a while they were silent, occupied with matters quite foreign to such trifles as Peterson and his daughter.

  “Are you glad I answered your advertisement?” inquired Phyllis at length.

  “The question is too frivolous to deserve an answer,” remarked her husband severely.

  “But you aren’t sorry it’s over?” she demanded.

  “It isn’t over, kid; it’s just begun.” He smiled at her tenderly. “Your life and mine…isn’t it just wonderful?”

  And once again the man sauntered past them. But this time he dropped a piece of paper on the path, just at Hugh’s feet, and the soldier, with a quick movement which he hardly stopped to analyse, covered it with his shoe. The girl hadn’t seen the action; but then, as girls will do after such remarks, she was thinking of other things. Idly Hugh watched the saunterer disappear in the more crowded part of the esplanade, and for a moment there came on to his face a look which, happily for his wife’s peace of mind, she failed to notice.

  “No,” he said, à propos of nothing, “I don’t see the gentleman picking oakum. Let’s go and eat, and after dinner I’ll run you up to the top of the headland…”

  With a happy sigh she rose. It was just wonderful! and together they strolled back to their hotel. In his pocket was the piece of paper; and who could be sending him messages in such a manner save one man—a man now awaiting his trial?

  In the hall he stayed behind to inquire for letters, and a man nodded to him.

  “Heard the news?” he inquired.

  “No,” said Hugh. “What’s happened?”

  “That man Peterson and the girl have got away. No trace of ’em.” Then he looked at Drummond curiously. “By the way, you had something to do with that show, didn’t you?”

  “A little,” smiled Hugh. “Just a little.”

  “Police bound to catch ’em again,” continued the other. “Can’t hide yourself these days.”

  And once again Hugh sm
iled, as he drew from his pocket the piece of paper:

  “Only au revoir, my friend; only au revoir.”

  He glanced at the words written in Peterson’s neat writing, and the smile broadened. Assuredly life was still good; assuredly…

  “Are you ready for dinner, darling?”

  Quickly he swung round, and looked at the sweet face of his wife.

  “Sure thing, kid,” he grinned. “Dead sure; I’ve had the best appetiser the old pot-house can produce.”

  “Well, you’re very greedy. Where’s mine?”

  “Effects of bachelordom, old thing. For the moment I forgot you. I’ll have another. Waiter—two Martinis.”

  And into an ash-tray near by, he dropped a piece of paper torn into a hundred tiny fragments.

  “Was that a love-letter?” she demanded with assumed jealousy.

  “Not exactly, sweetheart,” he laughed back. “Not exactly.” And over the glasses their eyes met. “Here’s to hoping, kid; here’s to hoping.”

  THE BLACK GANG (1922) [Part 1]

  I

  In Which Things Happen Near Barking Creek

  The wind howled dismally round a house standing by itself almost on the shores of Barking Creek. It was the grey dusk of an early autumn day, and the occasional harsh cry of a sea-gull rising discordantly above the wind alone broke the silence of the flat, desolate waste.

  The house seemed deserted. Every window was shuttered; the garden was uncared for and a mass of weeds; the gate leading on to the road, apparently feeling the need of a deficient top hinge, propped itself drunkenly on what once had been a flower-bed. A few gloomy trees swaying dismally in the wind surrounded the house and completed the picture—one that would have caused even the least imaginative of men to draw his coat a little tighter round him, and feel thankful that it was not his fate to live in such a place.

  But then few people ever came near enough to the house to realise its sinister appearance. The road—it was little better than a cart track—which passed the gate, was out of the beaten way; only an occasional fisherman or farm labourer ever used it, and that generally by day when things assumed their proper proportion, and it was merely an empty house gradually falling to pieces through lack of attention. At night they avoided it if possible; folks did say that twelve years ago some prying explorer had found the bones of a skeleton lying on the floor in one of the upstair rooms with a mildewed rope fixed to one of the beams in the ceiling. And then it had been empty for twenty years.

  Even now when the wind lay in the east or north-east and the tide was setting in, there were those who said that you could see a light shining through the cracks in the shutters in that room upstairs, and that, should a man climb up and look in, he’d see no skeleton, but a body with purple face and staring eyes swinging gently to and fro, and tied by the neck to a beam with a rope which showed no trace of mildew. Ridiculous, of course; but then so many of these local superstitions are. Useful, too, in some cases; they afford a privacy from the prying attentions of local gossips far more cheaply and effectively than high walls and bolts and bars.

  So, at any rate, one of the two men who were walking briskly along the rough track seemed to think.

  “Admirable,” he remarked, as he paused for a moment at the entrance of the weed-grown drive. “Quite admirable, my friend. A house situated as this one is, is an acquisition, and when it is haunted in addition it becomes a godsend.”

  He spoke English perfectly with a slight foreign accent, and his companion nodded abruptly.

  “From what I heard about it I thought it would do,” he answered. “Personally I think it’s a damnable spot, but since you were so set against coming to London, I had to find somewhere in this neighbourhood.”

  The two men started to walk slowly up the drive. Branches dripping with moisture brushed across their faces, and involuntarily they both turned up the collars of their coats.

  “I will explain my reasons in due course,” said the first speaker shortly. “You may take it from me that they were good. What’s that?”

  He swung round with a little gasp, clutching his companion’s arm.

  “Nothing,” cried the other irritably. For a moment or two they stood still, peering into the dark undergrowth. “What did you think it was?”

  “I thought I heard a bush creaking as if—as if someone was moving,” he said, relaxing his grip. “It must have been the wind, I suppose.”

  He still peered fearfully into the gloomy garden, until the other man dragged him roughly towards the house.

  “Of course it was the wind,” he muttered angrily. “For heaven’s sake, Zaboleff, don’t get the jumps. If you will insist on coming to an infernal place like this to transact a little perfectly normal business you must expect a few strange noises and sounds. Let’s get indoors; the others should be here by now. It oughtn’t to take more than an hour, and you can be on board again long before dawn.”

  The man who had been addressed as Zaboleff ceased looking over his shoulder, and followed the other through a broken-down lattice-gate to the rear of the house. They paused in front of the back door, and on it the leader knocked three times in a peculiar way. It was obviously a prearranged signal, for almost at once stealthy steps could be heard coming along the passage inside. The door was cautiously pulled back a few inches, and a man peered out, only to throw it open wide with a faint sigh of relief.

  “It’s you, Mr. Waldock, is it?” he muttered. “Glad you’ve got ’ere at last. This place is fair giving us all the ’ump.”

  “Evening, Jim.” He stepped inside, followed by Zaboleff, and the door closed behind them. “Our friend’s boat was a little late. Is everyone here?”

  “Yep,” answered the other. “All the six of us. And I reckons we’d like to get it over as soon as possible. Has he “—his voice sank to a hoarse undertone—”has he brought the money?”

  “You’ll all hear in good time,” said Waldock curtly. “Which is the room?”

  “’Ere it is, guv’nor.” Jim flung open a door. “And you’ll ’ave to sit on the floor, as the chairs ain’t safe.”

  Two candles guttered on a square table in the centre of the room, showing up the faces of the five men who sat on the floor, leaning against the walls. Three of them were nondescript specimens of humanity of the type that may be seen by the thousand hurrying into the City by the early business trains. They were representative of the poorer type of clerk—the type which Woodbines its fingers to a brilliant orange; the type that screams insults at a football referee on Saturday afternoon. And yet to the close observer something more might be read on their faces: a greedy, hungry look, a shifty untrustworthy look—the look of those who are jealous of everyone better placed than themselves, but who are incapable of trying to better their own position except by the relative method of dragging back their more fortunate acquaintances; the look of little men dissatisfied not so much with their own littleness as with the bigness of other people. A nasty-faced trio with that smattering of education which is the truly dangerous thing; and—three of Mr. Waldock’s clerks.

  The two others were Jews; a little flashily dressed, distinctly addicted to cheap jewellery. They were sitting apart from the other three, talking in low tones, but as the door opened their conversation ceased abruptly and they looked up at the newcomers with the keen, searching look of their race. Waldock they hardly glanced at; it was the stranger Zaboleff who riveted their attention. They took in every detail of the shrewd, foreign face—the olive skin, the dark, piercing eyes, the fine-pointed beard; they measured him up as a boxer measures up his opponent, or a business-man takes stock of the second party in a deal; then once again they conversed together in low tones which were barely above a whisper.

  It was Jim who broke the silence—Flash Jim, to give him the full name to which he answered in the haunts he frequented.

  “Wot abaht getting on with it, guv’nor?” he remarked with an attempt at a genial smile. “This ’ere ’ouse ain’t wot I’d
choose for a blooming ’oneymoon.”

  With an abrupt gesture Waldock silenced him and advanced to the table.

  “This is Mr. Zaboleff, gentlemen,” he said quietly. “We are a little late, I am afraid, but it was unavoidable. He will explain to you now the reason why you were asked to come here, and not meet at our usual rendezvous in Soho.”

  He stepped back a couple of paces and Zaboleff took his place. For a moment or two he glanced round at the faces turned expectantly towards him, then resting his two hands on the table in front of him, he leaned forward towards them.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, and the foreign accent seemed a little more pronounced, “I have asked you to come here tonight through my good friend, Mr. Waldock, because it has come to our ears—no matter how—that London is no longer a safe meeting-place. Two or three things have occurred lately the significance of which it is impossible to disregard.”

  “Wot sort of things?” interrupted Flash Jim harshly.

  “I was about to tell you,” remarked the speaker suavely, and Flash Jim subsided, abashed. “Our chief, with whom I spent last evening, is seriously concerned about these things.”

  “You spent last night with the chief?” said Waldock, and his voice held a tremor of excitement, while the others leaned forward eagerly. “Is he, then, in Holland?”

  “He was at six o’clock yesterday evening,” answered Zaboleff with a faint smile. “Today—now—I know no more than you where he is.”

  “Who is he—this man we’re always hearing about and never seeing?” demanded one of the three clerks aggressively.

  “He is—the Chief,” replied the other, while his eyes seemed to bore into the speaker’s brain. “Just that—and no more. And that is quite enough for you.” His glance travelled round the room, and his audience relaxed. “By the way, is not that a chink in the shutter there?”