The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  “Not the slightest,” said Jerningham cheerfully. “Are there any more down below?”

  “No—and at the same time, yes,” remarked Drummond.

  “Lucid as ever,” murmured Peter Darrell. “Hasn’t anybody got any beer to give him?”

  Drummond grinned gently.

  “It does sound a bit involved,” he agreed. “But it isn’t really. The passage we went down runs under the mere. Moreover, since the good-looking lady and gentleman on whom we called did not come out this way they must either still be below, or they got out some other. If they are below they also are drowned: if, on the other hand, they got out…”

  “Then they’re not,” said Algy brightly.

  “Sit on his head,” remarked Darrell.

  “There were two people moving on the other side of the mere,” pursued Drummond. “So let us assume that the passage continues under the water and comes out in the undergrowth opposite. Further, that those two escaped. What then, my brave hearts—what then? What message of fun and laughter are they going to give to our little Irma?”

  He paused triumphantly, and Algy scratched his head.

  “Dashed if I know,” he burbled.

  “Sit on his head,” repeated Darrell morosely.

  “The last thing they saw of us,” went on Drummond, “was when we were locked in that confounded room with carbon something or other pouring into it. And if old Toby hadn’t had a brain storm that is the last that anyone would ever have seen of us. Do you get me now? For the purposes of this little affair that is the last that anyone will see of us.”

  We sat staring at him, realizing at length what he was driving at.

  “But look here,” said Toby doubtfully, “if we’re going on with the chase they’re bound to find out.”

  “Why?” demanded Drummond. “We’ve disguised ourselves pretty often before. Peter, Ted and Algy will carry on as before: you, Dixon, and I are dead. Drowned, laddie, in the cold, dark waters of the mere.”

  “By Jove! Hugh,” said Darrell thoughtfully, “I believe that is a thundering good idea.”

  “I’m certain it is,” said Drummond. “Look here,” he went on gravely, “we’ve seen enough tonight to realize that this isn’t a game of kiss-in-the-ring. I confess that I hadn’t thought that she would go to quite the lengths she has done. It is by a sheer piece of luck only that one or all of us are not dead now. Don’t let there be any mistake about that. She meant to kill us—or some of us. And that gives us a foretaste of what is to come. If she has gone to these lengths in the earlier stages of the hunt, we’re going to have the devil’s own time later. Well—what’s she going to say to herself? She knows us of old. She knows that if we three had been killed, you three would not give up. She’ll expect you after her.”

  Darrell nodded. “Quite right.”

  “So we’ll have the hunter hunted,” went on Drummond cheerfully. “You’ll be chasing clues: they’ll be chasing you and we’ll be chasing them.”

  “There’s one small flaw in your otherwise excellent scheme,” I put in. “How are they to know that the next clue is contained in this morning’s Times? Only we three saw her message to that effect, and we’re dead.”

  “Damn the man,” said Drummond. “He’s quite right.”

  “Let’s wait until we see the message,” remarked Jerningham. “It may be obviously intended for you, in which case we should naturally spot it. Or it may prove necessary for us all six to cover our traces. Let’s leave that for a bit. The thing that must be done at once is for you three to go to ground here somewhere, and for us three to register alarm and despondency. We’ll go and search the grounds, and if by any chance we run into your two pals, we’ll pretend we’re looking for you. Ask them to help, or if they’ve seen you.”

  “You’re right. Ted,” said Drummond. “Go to it. We’ll lie up here.”

  CHAPTER IX

  In Which We Get the Second Clue

  And so began the second phase in this strange game. I know that I was feeling most infernally tired and yet sleep would not come. My brain was too busy with the amazing happenings of the previous night. Once again I saw that luminous face being dragged away from me through the darkness, and I fell to wondering what the poor brute had really been. Was the woman right in what she had written? Had this hideous, demented creature been the sole occupant of the house for years, and thus given it its bad reputation? Living by day in the secret passage under the mere, and coming out at night if it thought intruders were about. With a shudder I glanced through the open door where it still lay with the stone on top of it; anyway, death had been quick.

  And then my thoughts turned to the amazing brain that had planned it all. What manner of woman could this be who dealt out flippant notes and death alternately? The labour of preparing the mechanism for dropping that heavy stone and then pulling it up again must have been enormous.

  And suddenly Drummond spoke half to himself and half to me.

  “She means to get us all: nab the whole bunch. She won’t rest till she does.” Then he smiled a little grimly. “And you thought it was a joke.”

  “Guilty,” I acknowledged. “You must admit though that it’s a little unusual.”

  He laughed shortly, and then he began to frown. “I can stand anything on two legs or on four,” he grunted, “but these mechanical devices don’t give a fellow a chance. And I’m uneasy about those other three. Seems to me we’re letting them bear the brunt from now on. She’ll concentrate on them.”

  He relapsed into a moody silence, and I said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say. What he feared was quite correct, or so it appeared to me. Only the merest luck had saved several of our lives that night, and luck could not be expected to continue indefinitely. Any one of us might have pulled that fifth bolt instead of the wretched creature who now lay dead underneath it. And then, had there been time to wind it up, another might have been bagged as well.

  That was the devil of it all: we weren’t confronting ordinary dangers and risks, but specially and cunningly prepared ones. It was a case of the German booby-traps over again, where the most harmless-looking objects hid delay-action mines.

  “What the dickens are we going to do with that body?” said Drummond suddenly.

  “Why not put it into the water,” said Sinclair, “and then close the passage up?”

  “Not a bad idea. Stoop as you pass the window, in case those two are still outside.”

  And so we lifted the stone sufficiently to extricate it, and carried it down the passage to the water’s edge. More wreckage had appeared to join the chair: the place smelt and felt like a charnel-house. We toppled the poor brute in, and beat it for the house: anything was better than that dank deathtrap. And then we pushed on the sixth ring and the secret door slipped back into position.

  “Thank the Lord that’s over,” said Toby with a sigh of relief. “And all I can say is that I hope in future she confines her activities to the open air.”

  Footsteps on the stairs made us step back hurriedly, but it proved to be only the other three returning.

  “What luck?” cried Drummond.

  “I think we’ve done the trick, old boy,” said Darrell. “We ran into them on the other side—a woman of repulsive aspect and a man with his hand bound up. We were running round in small circles pretending to look for you. Incidentally, what you thought was right: that passage comes out near a broken-down old ruin on the other side. There was a rusty iron door which they had presumably opened. And when we saw them we told ’em the tale. Asked them if they’d noticed the extraordinary upheaval in the lake, and inquired with the utmost agitation if they’d seen three men anywhere about. Said we’d been ghost-hunting. I don’t know if they believed us or not, but I don’t see that it matters very much if they did. We never let on by the quiver of an eyelid that we suspected them.”

  “What did they say?” said Drummond.

  “‘If your friends have been ghost-hunting,’ the man said, ‘I fear they
’ve found a very substantial one. My wife and I were out for an early morning stroll, when we suddenly saw the upheaval in the lake. And if you will look down that passage’—he pointed through the opening—’ you will see the water. I fear that your friends must have inadvertently found a most dangerous piece of mechanism, which I have heard of often but never believed to be really existent. Nothing more nor less, in fact, than a diabolical arrangement for flooding the whole of this underwater passage which comes out into the house on the other side. Doubtless you found the opening there.’

  “We did,” I said, registering horror and despondency.

  “‘Then if your friends have not come out that end, I very much fear they must all be drowned. For they certainly haven’t come out this.’

  “‘How dreadful!’ said the woman, and Algy made hoarse noises presumably meant to indicate grief.”

  “They were damned good,” said Algy plaintively.

  “My dear man, you sounded like a cow with an alcoholic stomach cough,” said Jerningham.

  “But what happened finally?” demanded Drummond.

  “They drifted off, and it seemed to us they were still on the lookout for something. And then it suddenly struck us what it was. It’s the other bloke: the one who is drowned down below. So we sprinted back here in order to prevent them coming at any rate yet. As there seem to be only the two openings they’re almost bound to come and examine this end as soon as we are gone. And it was going to mess things up a bit if they found all you three here. So what I suggest is this. You three must go to ground in real earnest somewhere. And you must wait until we give you the all clear—in a day or two or perhaps a week.”

  “Go to blazes,” said Drummond.

  “We in the meanwhile will go and drown our sorrows in beer, and later on we’ll bring you the corks to smell. We’ll also get a copy of The Times, and then will come the problem of smuggling you out of this house unseen. We’ll have to discuss that later.”

  “Right you are, Peter,” said Drummond. “You’ve about hit it. Incidentally, where shall we go to ground?”

  He glanced round, and finally stared at the ceiling.

  “That seems to me to be the best spot,” he remarked thoughtfully. “We know it can be inhabited because that bird was up there. And if those two come we might be able to hear something. Only how the deuce do we get up there? A chair on the top of the table and I might reach.”

  He could—just—and in an instant he had swung himself through the hole and disappeared from view.

  “Splendid,” His face reappeared through the hole. “Plenty of room for all three of us. Come along, Dixon—I’ll pull you up.”

  He got me by the wrists, and heaved me up beside him as easily as I would lift a child. And then Toby Sinclair followed.

  “Take away the chair and the table, Peter,” he said. “And for the love of Allah bring back a dozen with you in your pockets. My mouth is like an asbestos washer.”

  “We’ll come back, old boy, as soon as we possibly can,” said Darrell. “I’ll drive your car and take Dixon’s bicycle. And we shall say that you have been suddenly summoned to London for failing to pay the poor girl her weekly postal order if any questions are asked.”

  “Say what you like,” said Drummond resignedly. “But bring me beer.”

  And so commenced a weary vigil. A passage, evidently communicating with the rest of the network, led out of our hiding-place, but there was no longer any incentive to explore. All we could do was to sit and wait until the others came back and told us the coast was clear. And that might not be for hours. In fact it seemed to me that anyway it would be unsafe to go before night if we were to succeed in getting away unseen. Which left us with the joyful prospect of spending fourteen or fifteen hours in the most acute discomfort.

  Suddenly Drummond sat up and put a finger to his lips. I had heard nothing myself, but as I had already discovered all his senses seemed twice as keenly developed as my own. And after a while I too heard a creak on the stairs outside, and then another.

  “Not a sound,” he breathed. “But if they find us we’ve got to sock ’em. Keep back from the opening or they may see us.”

  We drew back so that we could only just see the doorway, and waited. There was someone coming along the passage now, and a moment or two later our friend of the damaged hand put his head cautiously round the corner. Then he spoke to someone behind him.

  “All right,” he called out. “Come on.”

  The woman joined him.

  “What’s the use?” she said peevishly. “You’re not going to find him here.”

  “Cut it out,” he snarled. “If Jim was in the passage when the door gave with the water he may have escaped up this end and be waiting inside.”

  He tugged on the sixth ring, and the secret door swung open once more. Then he disappeared down the passage while the woman leaned against the wall.

  “Not a sign.” He came back into the room and closed the door. “But those three guys have bunged that madman’s body into the water.”

  He stood in the centre of the room gnawing his fingers.

  “I wonder how much they knew,” he muttered.

  “What does it matter what they knew,” said the woman. “Let’s get out of this—I’m fed up.”

  “You’ll get a clip under the jaw in a minute,” he remarked. “We’re getting a couple of hundred of the best for this job, and you ain’t likely ever to earn a couple of hundred pence with a face like yours.”

  “Well, what is it you want to know?” cried the woman irritably.

  “Whether those other three guys—the ones that came down to us—are really below there.”

  “Heaven save the man, where else can they be?” She stamped her foot. “You got ’em in the room, didn’t you? And you locked ’em in the room, didn’t you? And you turned on the gas, didn’t you? And they were still in the room twenty minutes after. Where else can they be now?”

  “I’d like to have seen ’em,” he muttered.

  “Well, since you ain’t a ruddy fish, you can’t,” she remarked. “I’m going. I want some sleep.”

  She paused in the doorway.

  “Come on. Bill,” she said in a milder voice. “It’s clear enough what happened. When Jim pulled the lever he didn’t get out quick enough. He got caught by the water, poor old stiff—and he’s down there himself now. And so are the other three.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he answered. “We’ll push off.”

  And then he glanced up towards the ceiling.

  “What about putting that stone back?”

  “Leave it,” said the woman. “If anyone gets into trouble it’s going to be those three who were fooling around outside. Nobody knows we’ve been here, and nobody ever will if you’ll only get a move on instead of standing there like a dummy. Besides, you ought to have that hand of yours looked at.”

  “Blast that big fellow,” said the man venomously. “I’d give something to have a once over with him.”

  The woman laughed shortly.

  “You would,” she said. “From what I saw of him you’d give up every hope of ever being recognized again. He’d eat you—with one hand. Come on—or I’ll fall asleep where I stand. The telegraph office won’t be open till nine, and there’s nothing to be done till then. You’ve got her address, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve got the usual one,” he answered, following her from the room.

  Their voices died away as they went along the passage, and I thought the unfortunate Drummond was going to have an apoplectic fit. “Just as we were getting something useful,” he groaned. “An address. The address.”

  “Probably only an accommodation one,” said Toby sleepily. “Wake me if I snore, chaps, but I must have a bit of shut eye.”

  And still sleep would not come to me. I got into every conceivable position I could think of: I counted innumerable sheep going through a gate: but at the end of an hour I was wider awake than ever. The other two were peac
efully unconscious, and at last I gave up trying. It was as well, in any case, that one of us should remain on guard, and so I settled myself as comfortably as I could and waited for the time to pass. From below came the occasional crack of a board as the sun’s warmth began to penetrate into the house, but except for that no sound broke the silence. Seven o’clock came—eight: in my imagination I could smell the smell of hot coffee and bacon and eggs. I could see racks of toast and marmalade disappearing down the throats of the other three thugs at the Angler’s Rest. And I wondered why Heaven was treating me so. To the best of my belief I was no worse than other men. Within reasonable limits I had paid my just whack of Income Tax: I had, only recently, registered enjoyment over the acidulated beverage which my Aunt Jane fondly imagined to be port. And as a reward I found myself sitting in an attic, several inches of dust and a bad smell on a beautiful summer’s morning. Moreover when I gazed into the vista of the future all I could see was myself disguised as a German tourist or the hind legs of a cow having fun and games in even more damnable spots than the one in which I was at present. Emphatically not what the doctor had ordered.…

  I shifted my position so as to distribute the cramp more evenly throughout my anatomy, and in doing so I saw into the room below. Just the same except that the shadow thrown by the open door had moved as the sun got higher. A simple little problem in trigonometry, I reflected. If the door was eight feet high and the shadow was nine feet long what was the height of the sun above the horizon? Door over shadow was tangent of the angle. Or was it cosine? Anyway one would want a book of logarithms.… One would want…

  My tongue grew suddenly dry. The height of the sun above the horizon had nothing to do with the sudden eddy of dust that swirled up in the passage outside. Nor had it anything to do with another shadow that had just appeared—the shadow of a human being. Someone was outside: someone whom I could not see—yet.

  I glanced round at the other two. They were six or seven feet away: to wake them up would cause noise. Moreover they were sleeping silently, so it was best to leave them as they were.