The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  “One of the lads,” remarked Drummond, as the swing-doors closed behind Mr Bloggs and our three quid. “Another of the same, Mother, and a drop of port for yourself.”

  “Closing time,” bellowed a raucous voice, and a general move towards the door took place. The two men next to Drummond finished their drinks, and then, still engrossed in conversation, went out into the street along with the rest, but he made no movement to follow them, which rather surprised me. In fact, he seemed to have completely lost all interest in them, and he stayed on chaffing the two women behind the bar until a general turning down of lights showed that it was closing time in earnest.

  And since my principal interest lay in the thickset burly man, who was one of the last to leave, it suited me very well. In him I felt convinced lay the first clue to what we wanted, and when I saw a second man, whom I had not previously noticed, and who had been sitting in another corner of the bar, whisper something in his ear as he went out, it seemed proof positive. However, true to my decision, I said nothing about what I had discovered, and, smiling inwardly, I waited to hear what Drummond proposed to do.

  “Not bad,” he remarked in his normal voice, as we strolled towards the nearest Tube station. “Almost too good. In fact—I wonder.”

  “Whether the London Hospital will benefit to the extent of three pounds,” I remarked sarcastically, and he laughed.

  “He was one of mother’s bright boys, wasn’t he? It was a bit too blatant, Stockton. That’s the trouble.”

  “As I’m afraid I didn’t even catch the name of the horse I can’t argue the point.”

  “The name of the horse was 10 Ashworth Gardens,” he answered.

  “What on earth do you mean?” I remarked, staring at him blankly.

  “10 Ashworth Gardens,” he repeated, “wherever that may be. Shortly we will get into a taxi and follow Toby there.”

  “I say, do you mind explaining?” I demanded. “Is that what that tout fellow told you?”

  He laughed again, and hailed a passing taxi.

  “Victoria Station, mate—Brighton Line. And ’op it. Now,” he continued, as the man turned his car, “I will endeavour to elucidate. Just before Mr Joe Bloggs gave me a whisky shower-bath in the ear, and told me that my uncle’s horse, which was scratched late this afternoon, was the winner, our two friends on my right mentioned that address. They mentioned it again when I changed my position and stood next to them. Now my experience is that people don’t shout important addresses at one another in public—at least not people of that type. That’s why I said that it struck me as being a little too blatant. However, it may have been that they thought they were perfectly safe, so that it’s worth trying.”

  He put his head through the window.

  “I’ve changed my mind, mate. I want to go to Hashworth Gardens. Know ’em?”

  “Know my face,” answered the other. “Of course I do. Up Euston way.”

  “Well, stop afore you get there, and me and my pal will walk.”

  “So that was what you wrote on the paper and showed Sinclair,” I exclaimed as he resumed his seat.

  “Bright lad,” said Drummond, and relapsed into silence.

  For a while I hesitated as to whether I should tell him of my suspicions, but I still felt a bit riled at what I regarded as his offhand manner. So I didn’t, and we sat in silence till Piccadilly Circus and Shaftesbury Avenue were left behind us.

  “Look here, Stockton,” said Drummond suddenly, “this is your palaver principally, so you’d better decide. We’re being followed.” He pointed at the little mirror in front of the driver.

  “I rather expected we might be, and now I’m sure. So what do you propose to do? It’s only fair to warn you that we may be putting our noses into a deliberate and carefully prepared trap.”

  “What would you do yourself if I wasn’t here?” I remarked. “Put my nose there, of course,” he answered.

  “Then mine goes too,” I said.

  “Good man,” he cried. “You’ll be one of the firm in no time.”

  “Tell me,” I said, laughing, “do you do this sort of thing often? I mean in this case, for no rhyme or reason as far as I can see, you are running the risk of certain death.”

  “Oh! I dunno,” he answered casually. “Probably not as bad as that. Might lead to a scrap or something of that sort, which helps to pass away the time. And, really, when you come to think of it, Stockton, this show was positively asking for it. When a man whose lunch you have spoilt literally bawls an address in your ear, it’s not decent to regard it. Incidentally, I wonder if little rat face will have the gall to come and demand his fiver tomorrow.”

  The car pulled up and the driver stuck his head round the door.

  “Second on the left up that road,” he said, and we watched his red tail lamp disappearing down the almost deserted street. At the far end just before a turn stood another stationary car, and Drummond gave a sudden little chuckle.

  “Our followers, unless I’m much mistaken. Let’s get a move on, Stockton, and see what there is to be seen before they arrive.”

  He swung off down the turning, and at the corner of Ashworth Gardens a figure detached itself from the shadows. It was Toby Sinclair.

  “Fourth house down on the left, Hugh,” he said. “And there’s something damned funny going on there. I haven’t seen the sign of a soul, but there’s the most extraordinary sort of sound coming from a room on the first floor. Just as if a sack was swinging against the blind.”

  It was an eerie sort of noise, such as you may hear sometimes in old houses in the country when the wind is blowing. Creak, shuffle, thud—creak, shuffle, thud, and every now and then a sort of drumming noise such as a man’s heels might make against woodwork. For a while we stood listening, and once it seemed to me that the blind bulged outwards with the pressure of something behind it.

  “My God! you fellows,” said Drummond quietly, “that’s no sack. I’m going in, trap or no trap; there’s foul play inside that room.” Without a second’s hesitation he walked up the steps and tried the front door. It was open, and Sinclair whistled under his breath. “It is a trap, Hugh,” he whispered.

  “Stop here, both of you,” he answered. “I’m going to see.”

  We stood there waiting in the hall, and I have no hesitation in confessing that the back of my scalp was beginning to prick uncomfortably. The silence was absolute: the noise had entirely ceased. Just once a stair creaked above us, and then very faintly we heard the sound of a door opening. Simultaneously the noise began again—thud, shuffle, creak—thud, shuffle, creak, and the next moment we heard Drummond’s voice.

  “Come up—both of you.”

  We dashed up the stairs, and into the room with the open door. At first I could hardly see in the faint light from a street lamp outside, and then things became clearer. I made out Drummond holding something in his arms by the window, then Toby flashed on his torch.

  “Cut the rope,” said Drummond curtly. “I’ve freed him from the strain.”

  It was Toby who cut it: I just stood there feeling dazed and sick. For the sack was no sack, but our rat-faced man of the morning. He was hanging from a hook in the ceiling, and his face was glazed and purple, while his eyes stared horribly. His hands were lashed behind his back and a handkerchief had been thrust into his mouth.

  “Lock the door,” ordered Drummond, as he laid the poor devil down on the floor. “He’s not quite dead, and I’m going to bring him round if every crook in London is in the house. Keep your guns handy and your ears skinned.”

  He unknotted the rope and pulled out the gag, and after ten minutes or so the breathing grew less stertorous and the face more normal in colour.

  “Take a turn, Stockton,” said Drummond at length. “Just ordinary artificial respiration. I want to explore a bit.”

  I knelt down beside the man on the floor and continued the necessary motions mechanically. It was obvious now that he was going to pull round, and if anything was going
to be discovered I wanted to be in the fun. Sinclair had lit a cracked incandescent light which hung from the middle of the ceiling, and by its light it was possible to examine the room. There was very little furniture: a drunken-looking horse-hair sofa, two or three chairs and a rickety table comprised the lot. But on one wall, not far from where I knelt, there was hanging a somewhat incongruous piece of stuff. Not that it was valuable, but it seemed to have no reason for its existence. It was the sort of thing one might put up to cover a mark on the wall, or behind a washstand to prevent splashing the paper—but why there! Someone upset the ink, perhaps: someone…

  My artificial respiration ceased, and my mouth grew dry. For the bit of stuff was moving: it was being pushed aside, and something was appearing round the edge. Something that looked like a small-calibre revolver, and it was pointed straight at me. No, not a revolver: it was a small squirt or syringe, and behind it was a big white disc. Into my mind there flashed the words of Sir John Dallas only that morning—“Something in the nature of a garden syringe”—and with a great effort I forced myself to act. I rolled over towards the window, and what happened then is still more or less a blur in my mind. A thin jet of liquid shot through the air, and hit the carpet just behind where I’d been kneeling, and at the same moment there came the crack of a revolver, followed by a scream and a heavy fall. I looked up to see Drummond ejecting a spent cartridge, and then I scrambled to my feet.

  “What the devil,” I muttered stupidly.

  “Follow it up,” snapped Drummond, “and shoot on sight.”

  He was out in the passage like a flash, with Toby and I at his heels. The door of the next room was locked, but it lasted only one charge of Drummond’s. And then for a moment or two we stood peering into the darkness—at least I did. The others did not, which is how one lives and learns. I never heard them: I never even realised they had left me, and when two torches were flashed on from the other side of the room, I shrank back into the passage.

  “Come in, man, come in,” muttered Drummond. “Never stand in a doorway like that. Ah!”

  He drew in his breath sharply as the beam of his torch picked up the thing on the floor. It was the man who had been in Hatchett’s that morning, the man who had stood behind him at the Three Cows, and he was dead. The same terrible distortion and rigour was visible: the cause of death was obvious.

  “Don’t touch him, for Heaven’s sake,” I cried, as Drummond bent forward. “It’s the same death as we saw last night?”

  “And you were darned nearly the victim, old man,” said Drummond grimly.

  “By Jove! Hugh, it was a good shot,” said Toby. “You hit the syringe itself, and the stuff splashed on his face. You can see the mark.”

  It was true: in the middle of his right cheek was an angry red circle, in which it was possible to see an eruption of tiny blisters. And the same strange, sweet smell hung heavily about the air.

  On each hand was a white glove of the same type as the one we had found the previous night, and it was evidently that which had seemed to me like a white disc around the syringe.

  “So things begin to move,” said Drummond quietly. “The whole thing was a trap, as I thought. They evidently seem to want you pretty badly, Stockton.”

  “But why?” I asked angrily. “What the devil have I got to do with it?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “They may think you know too much; that Gaunt told you things.”

  “But why hang that poor little toad in the next room?” said Toby.

  “Ask me another,” answered Drummond. “Possibly they found out we’d got at him, and they hanged him as a punishment for treachery: possibly to ensure our remaining here some time to bring him round. And incidentally—who hanged him? The occupants of the car that followed us couldn’t have got to this house before we did, and he was triced up before Toby arrived here. That means there were people here before, and the occupants of that car have yet to arrive.”

  Suddenly his torch went out, and I felt his hand on my arm warningly.

  “And unless I mistake,” he whispered, “they’ve just come. Stick by me, Stockton: you’re new to this game. Get to the window, Toby, and keep against the wall.”

  A half-breathed “Right” came from the darkness, and I felt myself led somewhere. Once the guiding hand drew me to the right, and I realised that I had just missed a chair. And then I felt the wall at my back, and a faint light coming round the blind showed the window close by. It was shut, and I could see the outline of Drummond’s head as he peered through it.

  What had caused his sudden action, I wondered? I hadn’t heard a sound, and at that time I had yet to find out his almost uncanny gift of hearing. To me the house was in absolute silence; the only sound was the heavy pounding of my own heart. And then a stair creaked as it had creaked when Drummond left us in the hall.

  I glanced at Drummond: his hand was feeling for the window-catch. With a little click it went back, and once more he crouched motionless. Again the stair creaked, and yet again, and I thought I heard men whispering outside the door. Suddenly with a crash that almost startled me out of my senses Drummond flung up the sash and the whispering ceased.

  “Stand by to jump, when I give the word,” muttered Drummond, “and then run like hell. There’s about a dozen of ’em.”

  He was crouching below the level of the window-sill; dimly on his other side I could see Toby Sinclair. And then the whispering started again; men were coming into the room. There was a stifled curse as someone stumbled against a chair, and at that moment Drummond shouted “Jump.”

  Just for a second I almost obeyed him, for my leg was over the sill. And then I heard him fighting desperately in the room behind. He was covering our retreat, a thing which no man could allow.

  There may have been a dozen in all: I know there were three of them on me. Chairs went over as we fought on in the dark, and all the time I was thinking of the liquid on the floor and the dead man’s face and what would happen if we touched it. And as if in answer to my thoughts there came Drummond’s voice.

  “I have one of you here powerless,” he said. “In this room is a dead man who died you know how. Unless my other two friends are allowed to go at once I will put this man’s hand against the dead man’s cheek. And that means death.”

  “Who is that speaking?” came another voice out of the darkness.

  “Great Scott!” Drummond’s gasp of surprise was obvious. “Is that you, MacIver?”

  “Switch on the lights,” returned the other voice angrily.

  And there stood my burly thick-set man of the Three Cows.

  “What is the meaning of this damned foolishness?” he snarled. He glared furiously at Drummond and then at me. “Why are you masquerading in that rig, Mr Stockton?” he went on suspiciously. And then his eyes fell on the dead man. “How did this happen?”

  But Drummond sprawling in a chair was laughing helplessly.

  “Rich,” he remarked, “extremely rich. Not to say ripe and fruity, old friend of my youth. Sorry, Mac”—the detective was glowering at him furiously—“but my style of conversation has become infected by a gent with whom I dallied awhile earlier in the evening.”

  “I didn’t recognise you at the Three Cows, Captain Drummond,” said McIver ominously.

  “Nor I you,” conceded Drummond. “Otherwise we’d have had a spot together.”

  “But I think it’s only right to warn you that you’re mixing yourself up in a very serious matter. Into Mr Stockton’s conduct I propose to inquire later.” Once again he looked at me suspiciously. “Just at the moment, however, I should like to know how this man died.”

  Drummond nodded and grew serious.

  “Quite right, MacIver. We were in the next room—all three of us…Good Lord! I wonder what’s happened to rat face. You see, an unfortunate little bloke had been hanged in the next room…”

  “What?” shouted MacIver, darting out into the passage. We followed, crowding after him, only
to stand in amazement at the door. The light was still burning; the rope still lay on the carpet, but of the man we had cut down from the ceiling there was no sign. He had absolutely disappeared.

  “Well, I’m damned,” muttered Drummond. “This beats cockfighting. Wouldn’t have missed it for a thousand. Look out! Don’t go near that pool on the floor. That’s some of the juice.”

  He stared round the room, and then he lit a cigarette.

  “There’s no good you looking at me like that, MacIver,” he went on quietly. “There’s the hook, my dear fellow; there’s the rope. I’m not lying. We cut him down, and we laid him on the floor just there. He was nearly dead, but not quite. For ten minutes or so I put him through artificial respiration—then Mr Stockton took it on. And it was while he was doing it—kneeling down beside him—that that bit of curtain stuff moved. I’d be careful how you touch it; there may be some of that liquid on it.”

  He drew it back, covering his hand with the table-cloth.

  “You see there’s a hole in the wall communicating with the next room. Through that hole the man who is now lying dead next door let drive with his diabolical liquid at Mr Stockton. By the mercy of Allah he rolled over in time, and the stuff hit the carpet—you can see it there, that dark stain. So then it was my turn, and I let drive with my revolver.”

  “We heard a shot,” said MacIver.

  “That’s his syringe, or whatever you like to call the implement,” continued Drummond.

  “And it obviously wasn’t empty, for some of the contents splashed back in his face. The result you see in the next room, and I can’t say I regret it.”

  “But this man whom you say was hanging? What on earth has become of him?”

  “Search me,” said Drummond. “The only conclusion I can come to is that recovered after we had left the room, and decided to clear out. When all is said and done he can’t have had an overpowering affection for the house, and he probably heard the shindy in the next room and did a bolt.”