The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  The man cursed foully. “Disown them,” he snarled. “For two pins I’d have murdered the lot.”

  “Then it was not you who rigged up that pleasant little booby-trap?”

  “What booby-trap? Look here, mister, I’m getting fair sick of this. For God’s sake clear out.”

  The woman put a restraining hand on his arm, and whispered something in his ear. She seemed to be trying to pacify him, and after a time he shrugged his shoulders and stood up. “Sorry, sir, if I lost my temper. But if you ain’t the police, and you ain’t one of that bunch, then what do you want?”

  “One moment,” said Drummond. “Dixon,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Look here,” he whispered as I joined him, “would you recognize the hands of the man who dragged that thing away from you?”

  “I certainly should,” I answered. “And it’s not this bloke.”

  He nodded. “Good. That’s one thing settled, anyway. Now,” he resumed. “I’ll tell you what we want. Hidden somewhere in this charming country mansion is a piece of paper or a letter or a message of some sort which I am looking for. Do you know where it is?”

  The man looked at the woman, and she looked at him. “I reckon I do,” he said. “And it’s in a place you’d never find if you looked for ten years.”

  Drummond’s eyes never left his face. “How do you know where it is?” he said quietly.

  “Because I saw one of them people put it there,” answered the man.

  “Will you show me where it is?” continued Drummond.

  Once again the woman bent and whispered to him.

  “All right,” he said. “Look here, sir, I’ll show you where it is if you’ll give me your word that you won’t tell a living soul you’ve seen us here.”

  And suddenly the truth dawned on me.

  “I believe,” I whispered to Drummond, “that this is the man who murdered the farmer ten years ago. They’ve been hiding here ever since.”

  “Are you the man who murdered Farmer Jesson?” shot out Drummond abruptly.

  The woman gave a little scream, and clutched his shoulders.

  “Never you mind who I am,” he said angrily. “You’ve forced your way in here, and I’ve got to trust you. But unless you give me your word to say nothing, you can damned well look for that envelope yourself.”

  “I give you my word,” said Drummond quietly.

  “What about your friend?”

  “I speak for all of us,” said Drummond. “Now lead on. But you’d better understand one thing, my friend. Any monkey tricks, and you’ll be for it good and strong.”

  The man looked straight at him.

  “Why should there be any monkey tricks?” he remarked quietly. “All I want is to see the last of you as soon as possible. Follow me.”

  He took a lantern off a nail in the wall and lit the candle inside. Then he led the way down the stairs.

  “Who’s this?” He stopped suspiciously as the light showed up Toby Sinclair still waiting in the passage.

  “A friend of mine,” said Drummond. “My promise covers him.”

  “There’s someone else about here, Hugh,” said Toby in a low voice. “While you’ve been up there I’ve seen a gleam of light along the passage to the left, and I’m almost certain I heard movement.”

  Drummond turned to the man.

  “Do you hear that?” he said curtly. “Who is it?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders.

  “Ask me another. This place has been like a rabbit warren lately.”

  “Which way do we go?”

  “Along there,” he pointed, “where your friend says he saw the light. Don’t you want to go? It doesn’t matter to me.”

  He stood there swinging his lantern. By its light I could see Drummond staring at him intently: was it or was it not a trap? The man’s face was expressionless: he seemed completely indifferent as to whether we went or whether we didn’t. And at last Drummond made up his mind.

  “Lead on,” he ordered. “But don’t forget I’m just behind you, and there will be no soft music to herald the hitting.”

  Certainly there was no further gleam of light from in front, and the feeble flicker of the candle only seemed to intensify the surrounding darkness. The passage itself was opening out a little, and the roof was higher, so that walking was easy. And we must have gone about thirty yards when we came to a heavy wooden door. It was open, and our guide passed through without any hesitation.

  “The note is in this room,” he said, holding the lantern above his head. By its light we could see it was of a similar type to the one we had just left. There was a table and a couple of chairs, and the whole place smelt of disuse, and reeked of damp. Water dripped from the ceiling and the walls, and it struck me that wherever we had been before, we were now most certainly under the mere.

  “Well, get it,” snapped Drummond. “This place stinks worse than a seaside boarding-house.”

  “It isn’t quite so easy to get it,” said the man, and, even as he spoke, I knew we were trapped. A sudden look in his eyes; a scowl that was half a sneer—and then darkness. He had blown out the candle.

  “Hell!” roared Drummond, and from the door the man toughed.

  “You poor boobs,” came his mocking voice. “You don’t know enough to come in out of the wet.”

  Well—perhaps that remark was worth it to him: perhaps it was not. It just gave Drummond time to switch on his torch. By its light we saw the door closing, and the fingers of the man’s hand round it. And the next instant a shot rang out. For quickness of shooting combined with accuracy I would never have believed it possible. Drummond had plugged him through the fingers. A torrent of blasphemy came from the other side of the door as we sprang towards it: but we were just too late. The bolt clanged home as we got there: we were shut in. And from the other side of the door the blasphemy continued.

  At last it ceased, and Drummond bent and picked something off the floor.

  “I have here,” he said, “the top joint of one of your fingers. The next time I see you, my friend, you shall have it served up as a savoury.”

  We listened to the retreating footsteps, and he gave a short laugh.

  “On balance I think we win,” he remarked. “Peter and Co. are bound to find us, and until they do we can think out a few choice methods of cooking fingers.”

  He lit a cigarette thoughtfully, and then he laughed.

  “Damn the fellow! And that fish-faced woman was in it, too, I suppose. They certainly fooled us all right.”

  He flashed his torch round the room. There was no trace of a window, but of one thing there was more than a trace. It stared us straight in the face—a sheet of notepaper pinned in the centre of the wall opposite the door. We crowded round it, and in silence we read the message written in the handwriting we were getting to know so well.

  “Will you walk into my parlour said the spider to the fly? My dear friend, I grieve for you. This is not the old form at all. But then I always thought, little one, that your resemblance to a bull in a china shop was just a little too pronounced. And this time you’ve done it. Honestly I never thought the chase would end quite yet. In some ways I’m sorry: I had one or two beauties left for you. In fact the next clue is in tomorrow’s Times, which I now fear you will never see.

  “How many of you are there in here, I wonder? That will be reported to me naturally in due course, but my woman’s curiosity prompts me to put down the question now. Because I have taken steps to cover all tracks, and I fear your bodies will never be recovered.

  “Goodbye, mon ami. What I shall do with Phyllis remains to be seen. Play with her a little longer, anyway, I think.”

  We stared at one another speechlessly. What on earth did the woman mean—”bodies never recovered.”

  “That’s where she’s made her blooming error,” grunted Drummond. But his voice didn’t carry much conviction. “Let’s have a look at that door,” he went on. “There must be some way out.”

>   But there wasn’t; the door was as solid as the wall. And it was while we were examining the bolt that a faint hissing noise became audible. Drummond straightened up and stood listening.

  “What the deuce is that?” he muttered. “And where does it come from?”

  Once again his torch flashed round the room. The noise was increasing till it was almost a shrill whistle and we located it at once. It came from a small circular metal pipe that stuck out about three inches from the wall close by the door. I put my finger over it: the pressure was too great too keep it there. Some gas was being pumped into the room, and the same thought struck us all. There was no ventilation.

  “She would seem,” said Drummond calmly, “to have won. Unless Peter arrives in time. Sorry, you chaps.”

  “What’s the gas,” cried Toby Sinclair. “I used to know something about chemistry.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” said Drummond. “And whatever it is it’s not likely to be for the benefit of our health.”

  “Keep the torch on the pipe, Hugh,” said Toby quietly. He, too, put his finger on the end, then he tasted it and smelt it.

  “I wonder,” he muttered, and his voice was shaking a little. “No smell: practically no taste. Do you fellows mind if I take a chance.”

  “We mind strongly if you don’t,” said Drummond calmly. “And do it darned quickly.”

  Sinclair struck a match: came a sudden little pop and from the end of the pipe there shot out a long blue flame.

  “I was right,” he said, wiping his forehead. “It’s carbon monoxide. Another five minutes and she would have won. As it is if we take turns at breathing through the keyhole we ought to escape with only a head like the morning after.”

  “Mother’s bright boy,” said Drummond lightly, but I saw his hand rest for a moment on Sinclair’s shoulder. “Explain.”

  “Carbon monoxide, old boy. Don’t taste, or smell, and you can’t see it. One of the most deadly poisonous gases known to science. If you light it it forms carbon dioxide which isn’t poisonous, but only suffocates. So if as I say we breathe through the keyhole in turn, and Peter isn’t too long, we ought to get away with it.”

  It was a weird scene—almost fantastic. I remember thinking at the time that it simply couldn’t be true; that it was some incredible nightmare from which I should shortly wake up. In turn we solemnly stooped down, put our mouths to the keyhole and sucked in the pure air from the other side of the door. One, two, three; one, two, three—for all the world like performing marionettes.

  It was Sinclair who noticed it first, and nudged us both to draw our attention because speaking was ill-advised. The flame was decreasing in size. Now it was burning fitfully. At times it shot out to its original length. At others it almost died away. And then suddenly it went out altogether.

  He took a piece of paper from his pocket and a pencil.

  “Go on at the keyhole,” he wrote. “Don’t speak unless it’s essential. Room full of carbon dioxide, but no more coming now.”

  One, two, three—suck; one, two, three—suck; till my back was aching and I cursed Darrell and the others for not coming. Surely to Heaven it must be at least three hours by now since we had left them. And then another ghastly thought struck me. Even when they did come how were they going to open the door without a key? And there was no key in the keyhole.

  One, two, three—suck: damn this confounded woman and all her works. I felt that I would willingly have given the whole of my extremely modest fortune and then some to have had the privilege of putting her in the room, and laughing at her from the other side of the door.

  One, two, three—suck; t was becoming utterly intolerable. Once I chanced it and took a breath in the room, and it felt as if an eiderdown had been pressed over my mouth. Carbon dioxide—used-up air. Old tags of chemistry came back to me in the intervals of one, two, three—suck.

  Suddenly we all of us paused instinctively: a key had been put in the keyhole. The bolt was turning, and with our heads feeling as if iron bands were fastened round them we stood and watched. Trying not to breathe, and with our lungs bursting for air we watched the door open. A hand came round the edge—a hand with a curious red scar on the middle finger. It was the man who had dragged the thing away from me earlier in the evening.

  I signed furiously to Drummond, but as he said afterwards it was a matter of complete indifference to him whose hand it was. All he wanted was air, and a grip on somebody’s throat. He got both, and he was not feeling amused.

  He was a big man, the owner of the hand, and he was wearing some form of respirator. He was also a powerful man, but as I have said Drummond was not feeling amused. He shot across the room, did the owner of the hand, as if he’d been kicked from close quarters by a mule—whilst we shot into the passage. Then having locked the door and removed the key we sat down and just breathed. And if anybody is ever in doubt as to what is the most marvellous sensation in the world, they may take it from me that it consists of just breathing—under certain circumstances.

  From the other side of the door came the sound of furious blows. He seemed to be hurling himself against it with the whole weight of his body.

  “What about it, Hugh,” said Toby. “The respirator he has on is only of use against carbon monoxide.”

  “Then let him have a whack at breathing through the keyhole,” said Drummond grimly. “Gosh! I wouldn’t go through that last half hour again for twenty thousand quid. Besides I want my other little pal, and if I can find him he’ll eat his finger here and now.”

  But of neither the woman nor him was there any trace. The room was empty; the birds had flown. And as we stood in the passage at the foot of the stairs that led to the room they had been in, the only sound that broke the silence was the hoarse shouting of the man who was caught in the trap that had been laid for us.

  “I think we’ll let the swab out,” remarked Drummond thoughtfully. “We might get something out of him.”

  And it is possible we might have, had not the last little effort in that pleasing country mansion taken place. It was purely accidental, and I was responsible for it. About a yard along the passage beyond the fork a steel bar was sticking out from the wall. It looked strong: it looked quite capable of bearing my weight. So I sat on it, and found it was not capable of bearing my weight. It collapsed under me, and I found myself on the floor. And even as I picked myself up there came from the room we had left a frenzied scream of fear, and a strange rushing noise.

  Stupidly we stared at the door, focusing our torches on it. From underneath it water was pouring through. From each side, getting higher and higher, it came trickling out, until it shot like a jet from a fountain through the keyhole.

  “Run,” roared Drummond. “Run like hell. If that door gives we’re done. We’ve let the lake in.”

  It was true: the meaning of the phrase about the bodies not being recovered was clear at last. We raced wildly along the passage back towards the house. Would the door hold long enough? And it did—by about five seconds. We heard the crash as it gave when we were in the lowest part, and we pounded on up the rise. Behind us came the swish of the water now pouring unchecked through the open doorway. It came in a wall six feet high along the passage, and like a huge wave breaking on the shore it hurled itself after us two feet above the level of the mere, and then, angry and swirling, receded to its proper height.

  In front of us we could see the opening into the house: behind us, black and evil-looking, the water still eddied and heaved. A chair which had been swept along by the torrent bobbed up and down on the surface and then gradually became still. But of the man who had been in the room there was no trace. Hidden somewhere in that underground labyrinth his body still remains, and the waters of the mere have sealed his tomb.

  Slowly we climbed the last bit of the passage and stepped into the room.

  “Thank the Lord,” said Jerningham, “you’re all right. We were just coming to find you, when the most extraordinary upheaval took place in the la
ke.”

  Dawn had come, and we followed him to the window outside.

  “It’s almost died away now,” he went on. “But about five minutes ago, right out there in the centre, the water began to heave. Almost like a whirlpool. What’s happened?”

  “An airy nothing,” remarked Drummond. “They’ve tried to gas us, and they’ve tried to drown us, and—” He broke off suddenly staring across the mere. “It’s a difficult light to see in,” he said, “but isn’t there someone moving over there in the undergrowth?” Personally I could see nothing, but after a moment or two he nodded. “There is. I see ’em. Two. Back from the window, boys: this matter requires thought. No one has come out this way, I take it?”

  “Not a soul,” said Darrell.

  “Then,” said Drummond to Sinclair and me, “those two on the other side are fish-faced Lizzie and her gentleman friend.”

  “Shall we round ’em up?” remarked Toby.

  Drummond lit a cigarette thoughtfully.

  “I think not,” he said at length. “Look here—let us consider this matter because it seems to me that we have come to the parting of the ways. I suppose nobody has a bottle of Bass? Bad staff work. However, let us pull ourselves together, and get the grey matter to function.”

  He sighed profoundly.

  “A ghastly hour to do so, but I have the glimmerings of an idea. Now, first of all there were in this house four individuals that we know of. First, the legless bird who got a brick on his head. Now it’s possible that what she said in her note was right, and that he wasn’t one of the party, but just went with the house. Anyway it doesn’t matter, he is out of it.”

  He held out an enormous finger.

  “That’s one. Secondly, there’s the bloke who pulled him off Dixon, and whose face we saw through the hole in the ceiling. He, dear little chap, is very dead down below there. He’s drowned.”

  Another finger joined the first.

  “And short of sending down a diver his body can never be recovered. Nor any other body that might be down there. Do you get me?”