The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  After all it was I who had solved the first one and spotted Drayminster, and though I might not be their equal in mere physical strength it was brain that was needed on a show like this. And in that department I ventured to think the boot was on the other leg.

  I ordered another glass of port. Just local superstition, of course: good enough for inebriated yokels wandering home at night. They would hear noises and see lights anywhere. But for an educated man to be put off by such an absurd story was nothing short of ridiculous. I’d borrow a bicycle after dinner, and have a look round the place. Only three miles mine host had said: I’d be back comfortably by eleven o’clock. And if I’d found nothing I would not mention my conversation of before dinner.

  The others had drifted away from the table, and were sitting in the lounge outside as I went through. They seemed bored and depressed, and with difficulty I repressed a smile as I thought of the change that would occur when I came back with the goods. I should have to solve it for them too in all probability: in fact it had been a very fortunate moment for them when I had decided to help them.

  The first thing to do was to get hold of a bicycle, and in that I was successful at once. The landlord’s son would be only too pleased to lend me his, and after a few minutes it was brought round to the front door.

  “Be you going far, mister,” he said, “because there bain’t too much oil in the lamp.”

  “I’m going to the Mere,” I answered as casually as possible. “Which is the way?”

  The boy’s jaw dropped, and he stared at me speechlessly.

  “To the Mere,” he stammered at length. “But you can’t go to the Mere at night. It bain’t safe.”

  I smiled a little pityingly.

  “Rot, my good boy,” I said. “Anyway, I’ll chance it. Now, which is the way?”

  “Straight along the road,” he answered, pointing up the street. “And when you get about two mile out of Drayminster, you’ll find a turning going down to the right. Take that, and in about another half mile or so you’ll see the house in front of you.”

  He hesitated for a moment: then he burst out with a further warning.

  “It ain’t safe, sir: it be a terrible place at night.”

  “Light the lamp, my lad,” I said. “Your bicycle will be quite safe, anyway.”

  He fumbled with a match, and I glanced in through the open door. The others were still in the lounge, and just for a moment or two I hesitated. Should I tell them after all? When all was said and done it was their show more than mine, and the thought of Drummond beside me had much to commend it. And then I dismissed it: was I, a grown man, going to admit that I was frightened of a stupid story?

  “The lamp be lit, sir,” said the boy. “But you be terribly foolish to go.”

  He turned away and slouched in at the back door, while I got ready to mount. Foolish or not, I was going, and the sooner I started the sooner I’d be back.

  It was a beautiful night, warm and without a breath of wind, and I was soon clear of the village. The moon had not yet risen, but there was no mistake about the road which ran for the first mile beside the river. Then it swung away to the left over some high ground. I found the turning the boy had spoken of without difficulty—one that evidently would lead back towards the river. The surface was poor—it was scarcely more than a lane, and little used at that—and very soon some high trees made the darkness so intense that the going was hard. In fact, after a short time I dismounted and pushed on on foot.

  Now I make no bones about it, but the fact remains that with every step I took I found myself wishing more heartily that I had listened to the boy’s advice. Whether it was due to the effects of the port wearing off or whether the reality was worse than what I had anticipated is immaterial. But after I’d walked about fifty yards it was only by the greatest effort of will that I prevented myself turning and fleeing incontinently.

  There was a sort of dank feeling about that lane which got on my nerves, and the feeble little circle of light from the lamp dancing about in front of me as the bicycle jolted only seemed to make the surrounding darkness more impenetrable. And at last, acting on a sudden impulse, I blew it out, and left the bicycle standing against the hedge. If the landlord’s three miles was right I must be very near my destination.

  Came a sudden jink in the lane, and there within fifty yards of me stood the house. I stopped instinctively: what a fearsome-looking place it was. Trees were all round it except on one side where a large pool of water lay stagnant and unruffled—doubtless the pool that had given the place its name. The house itself was a big one, and gave an impression of indescribable gloom. It seemed to squat there in its setting of trees like a dead thing. No gleam of light came from any window: no sound broke the absolute silence.

  I sat down on the bank beside the lane: some plan of action had to be decided on. Up till now I hadn’t really thought what I was going to do when I got there: now it had to be faced. Obviously there was no use in sitting down and looking at the place: the clue, if my supposing was right, was not likely to be obtained that way. It would be inside the house, and if I wanted to get it that is where I should have to go. And the more I thought of it the less did I relish it.

  I tried to find excuse for myself. How, for instance, could I get in? The answer to that was obvious—I certainly couldn’t tell unless I tried. Was it wise for a man to attempt such a thing single-handed? The answer to that consisted of one word—coward. Had I come all this way—made all this song and dance in my own mind—merely to run away when I arrived. I forced myself to view the matter from a common-sense point of view.

  “Here,” I said out loud, “is an old untenanted house—set, it is true, in gloomy surroundings which look all the more gloomy because it happens to be dark. But it is merely a house consisting of bricks and mortar. You are a man of the world. Are you going to admit to yourself that you are afraid of exploring those bricks and mortar? Are you going to allow yourself to be influenced by an ancient story of something that happened ten years ago? At any rate go a bit closer and have a look.”

  At that I compromised to start with. I would go a bit closer and have a look. Very likely I should find everything shut and barred: if so I should have no alternative but to go home. Skirting along the undergrowth I approached the house. Stone steps covered with weeds led up to the front door, which was overhung with trailing creepers and ivy. For a moment I hesitated: then I went up the steps and cautiously tried the handle of the door. To my great relief it was locked, and the feeling that honour was satisfied was very strong. I could now go back to the Angler’s Rest in order to get something to open the door with. And even as I so decided I seemed to hear Drummond’s voice saying—”What about the ground floor windows? Didn’t you try them?”

  Right! I would. And then there would be no possibility of any back chat. Keeping close into the wall I skirted round the house. And I hadn’t gone twenty yards before I was brought up standing. There in front of me was a wide-open window. All I had to do was to put my leg over the sill and I should be inside the house.

  I peered in doubtfully: dimly I saw a table, some chairs, and, on the other side of the room, an open door. The musty smell of long disuse was overpowering, and I knew that if I hesitated for long I should hesitate for good. I flung a leg over, and stepped on to the floor.

  The dust was thick everywhere. It rose in choking clouds, and deadened the sound of my feet as I crept towards the open door. It was almost like walking on a carpet, and it struck me that whatever might have happened in the past no one, could have been in the house for months, if not years. So what was the good of going on? I paused in the doorway to consider that new point. If no one had been in, the clue could not be in the house: it must, if I was on the right track, be in the garden outside.

  In front of me was the hall. I could just see the staircase to my right, and opposite me was a piece of furniture that looked like a hat-rack. I peered across at it: was it my imagination, or was there someth
ing white that was hanging on one of the pegs—something that might be a piece of paper? Was it possible that here was the actual clue I was searching for?

  I tiptoed across the hall: and almost trembling with excitement I struck a match. One word was written on it—Excelsior.

  The match burned out, and I did not light another. No need to rack one’s brain to interpret that message. True, it proved I was on the right track, which was gratifying to my pride as a solver of conundrums, but it also indicated with painful clearness the next move. There was only one way to Excelsior in that house, and that was to go upstairs. And the thought of going upstairs left me chilled to the marrow.

  I stood staring at the dim outline of the staircase fading into utter blackness at the top. Where I was, a faint light did come from the open door by which I had entered. Above, the darkness was absolute. Should I, or should I not? And though I say it myself, I consider that a certain amount of credit was due to me for deciding in the affirmative. I’d go and have a look at the top of the stairs.

  Still on tiptoe I crossed the hall to the foot of them. A mouldering carpet existed in patches, and I began to ascend cautiously for fear of tripping up. But no care on my part could prevent the stairs creaking abominably, and in the silence of the house each step I took sounded like a pistol shot.

  At last I reached the top. Now that I was there the darkness was not quite so intense: a little of the light from the open door below managed to filter up. To my right and left ran a passage, and putting my hand in my pocket I counted the coins. Odd to the left: even to the right. There were seven, and I started feeling my way towards the left. And I can’t have taken more than half a dozen steps when a strange creaking noise came from the hall, and at the same moment I realized it was getting darker. I stopped abruptly, and peered below. And what I saw froze me stiff with fright. The door by which I had entered was closing, and even as I looked at it, it shut with a bang. Then once more absolute silence.

  For a moment or two I gave way to blind panic. I rushed as I thought in the direction of the stairs, and hit a wall. I turned round and rushed another way, and hit another wall. Then I forced myself to stand still: I’d lost my bearings completely: I hadn’t an idea where the stairs were. Like a fool that I was I had walked straight into the trap, and the trap had shut behind me.

  My first instinctive thought was to light a match—anything seemed better than this impenetrable blackness. And then prudence won. If there were people round me all I should do would be to give myself away. I was safer in the dark. At any rate we were on equal terms.

  I crouched against the wall with my heart going in sickening thumps, and listened. Not a sound. The silence was as complete as the darkness. And I began to wonder if there was anyone in the house—any human that is. Was it a material agency that had shut that door—or was it something supernatural? Would some ghastly thing suddenly hurl itself on me: something against which even Drummond with all his strength would be powerless? Every ghost story I’d ever heard of came back to me along with the comforting reflection that I had always ridiculed the idea that there were such things. But it is one thing to be sceptical in the smoking-room of your club, and quite another when you are crouching in inky darkness in a deserted house from which your line of escape has been cut off.

  Suddenly I started violently: an odd slithering noise had begun. It was rather as if a sack full of corn was being bumped on the floor, and it seemed to come from my left. I peered in what I thought was the right direction while the sweat ran off me in streams. Was it my imagination, or was there a faint luminosity in the darkness about three feet from the ground? I stared at it and it moved. With each bump it moved, and it was coming closer. Step by step I backed away from it: step by step it kept pace with me. And for the first time in my life I knew the meaning of the word terror. Frightened I had been many times: this was stark, raving horror. I was stiff and paralysed with fear. Was this the thing that had sent the other man mad?

  Then, as if a veil had suddenly been torn away, came the change. One instant there had been merely a faint lessening of the darkness: the next I found myself staring into a shining yellow face of such inconceivable malignity that I almost screamed. It was not two feet away, and about on a level with my chest. I hit at it blindly, and found my wrist caught in a grip of steel. Then I felt a hand creeping up my coat until it reached my throat, and I began to struggle wildly.

  I kicked into the darkness, and my foot hit something solid. There was a grunt of pain, and the grip on my throat tightened savagely. The face drew nearer, and there came a roaring in my ears. And I had just given myself up as finished when a thing happened so staggering that I could scarcely believe my eyes.

  Out of the darkness from behind the shining face there came a pair of hands. I could see them clearly—just the hands and nothing more, as if they were disembodied. There was a curious red scar on the middle finger of the right hand, and the left thumbnail was distorted. With the utmost deliberation they fastened on the throat of my assailant, and began to drag him backwards. For a while he resisted: then quite suddenly the grip on my throat relaxed. Half insensible I sank down on the floor and lay there watching. For the moment my only coherent thought was relief that I could breathe again, that the yellow face was going. Writhing furiously, its mouth twisted into a snarl of rage, it seemed to be borne backwards by those two detached hands. And even as I tried foolishly to understand what it all meant, there came from down below a well-known voice—”The more we are together.” The relief was too much: I did another thing for the first time in my life. I fainted.

  I came to, to find the whole bunch regarding me by the light of half a dozen candles.

  “Look here, little man,” said Drummond, “what merry jaunt have you been up to this time?”

  “How did you know I was here,” I asked feebly.

  “The landlord’s son told us you’d borrowed his bicycle,” he answered. “And since they all seemed very alarmed at the pub we thought we’d come along and see. We found your machine outside, and then we found you here unconscious. What’s the worry? have you seen a ghost?”

  “Seen and felt it,” I said grimly. “A ghastly shining yellow face, with fingers like steel bars that got me by the throat. And he’d have killed me but for a pair of hands that came out of the darkness and got him by the throat as well.”

  They looked at me suspiciously until Jerningham suddenly peered at my neck.

  “Good God!” he said, “look at the marks on his throat.”

  They crowded round, and I laughed irritably.

  “You don’t imagine I dreamed it, do you. The thing that attacked me had a grip like a mantrap.”

  “Tell us again exactly what happened,” said Drummond quietly.

  I told them, starting with my conversation with the old gentleman that afternoon. And when I’d finished he whistled softly.

  “Well done, Dixon: well done! It was a damned sporting thing to come here alone. But, laddie don’t do it again I beg of you. For unless I’m greatly mistaken, but for our happening to arrive when we did your only interest by this time would have been the site for your grave.”

  He lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “Phosphorous evidently on the man’s face who attacked you. An old trick. Probably our headlights alarmed them, and the owner of the hands dragged him off. So that there are at least two unpleasing persons in this house beside us.”

  He rubbed his hands gently together.

  “Splendid! At last we come to grips. Blow out those candles, boys: there’s no good advertising our position too clearly. And then I think a little exploration of the old family mansion.”

  Once more we were in darkness save for the beam of Drummond’s torch. He had it focused on the floor, and after a while he stooped down and examined the marks in the dust.

  “What an extraordinary track,” he remarked. “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of footmarks. It’s one broad smear.”

  We crowde
d round, and it certainly was a most peculiar trail. In width about eighteen inches to two feet, it stretched down the middle of the passage as far as we could see. And suddenly Drummond turned to me with a queer look in his eyes. “You say this face seemed to be about on a level with your chest,” he said.

  “Just about,” I answered. “Why?”

  “Because it strikes me that you’ve had even a narrower escape that we thought,” he remarked. “The thing that attacked you hadn’t got any legs. It was a monstrosity: some ghastly abnormality. The owner of the pair of hands dragged it after him, and that’s the trail it left.”

  “It is a jolly house,” murmured Darrell. “What does A. do now?”

  “What the devil do you think,” grunted Drummond. “A. follows the trail, and for the love of Mike don’t get behind the light.”

  Now I don’t suppose I should ever have thought of that. I could see Drummond in front, his right arm fully extended, holding the torch, while he kept over to the left of the passage. Behind him, in single file, we all of us followed, and, once when I drifted over to the right, Sinclair, who was just behind me, pulled me back.

  “If anyone shoots,” he muttered, “they shoot at the torch. Keep in line.”

  And the words had hardly left his mouth when there came an angry phut from in front of us, and a splintering of wood from behind. Simultaneously Drummond switched off the light. Silence, save for our heavy breathing—and then once again did I hear that ominous slithering noise.

  “Look out,” I cried. “That’s the thing moving.”