The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  Then came number one difficulty—my sparking-plugs. True, there was time for him to have walked back to where the car was, after he had been caught by the light, whilst we were lying up. It didn’t absolutely rule him out—but I didn’t like it very much. And Jean Picot began to float into my mind. Where did he come in? It was him we had seen skulking by the warehouse when we started in the car. Was he in league with le Bossu? If so what about the Vandalis? At that time I had to leave a lot to chance, and all I had arrived at up to date was that nothing had happened which absolutely ruled him out.

  “Then came the biggest poser of all. Why, in view of the fact that he had got well away from us, after the murder of Gaspard, had he deliberately delivered himself, so to speak, into our hands? Well, the answer to that, after a good deal of thought, struck me this way. We were a completely unexpected factor in his calculations. Four large men, barging round for sport, were a complication he hadn’t bargained for at all. He had failed to get into Temple Tower, through knowing nothing about the verse at the back of the plan. So he knew he would have to try again the following night. And he came to the instantaneous decision that if we were going to be there he would sooner have us as allies than enemies. That seemed to answer that.

  “Then the Inspector arrived on the scene with the information about the Nightingale’s murder. And I cast my optic on Matthews’ face. There was no doubt about it: the news had upset him. He was annoyed. How did that fit in with my assumption?

  “All right: at any rate, it didn’t disprove it. When he murdered the Nightingale his idea was that he would be through with the whole thing that night, and since the Nightingale had served his purpose by supplying the ladder, he was a nuisance who might well be removed. If you remember, Matthews himself said all this afterwards, which was where his damned cleverness came in. It was true, and his momentary annoyance was due to the fact that, having failed to get in, the body had been found; as he said, it cut le Bossu short for time, meaning that it cut him himself short for time. Then along comes Miss Verney with the news about Gaspard, and he realises that both these murders, which wouldn’t have mattered if he had succeeded the night before, are now going to complicate things badly. Police, reporters—the light of day on Temple Tower—altogether very awkward. How was he going to rectify it? I assure you I was as interested as he was.

  Well, we know how he rectified it. The cold-blooded, unscrupulous devil proceeds to murder both the Vandalis, and throws suspicion for all four murders on Vandali. Matthews was Mr. Thomas of the Dolphin. But it was there he nearly overstepped the mark. He had forgotten Jean Picot, a gentleman with whom I had a long talk yesterday afternoon.

  “Jean Picot is another of these birds with a past, and Jean Picot has been serving two masters. He had been with the Vandalis as chauffeur for three years, and in his queer way was absolutely devoted to her. But as I say, he had a past, and Matthews knew that past. And so he had but little difficulty in persuading Picot to help him. And, as a matter of fact, it was Picot who actually removed the plugs from the car, acting under Matthews’ orders.

  “But when it came to the murder of the Vandalis, Picot stuck in his toes. He knew it was Matthews who had done it—or Thomas as he called him—but he couldn’t prove it. And exactly what happened in that room we shall never know. As Mr. Thomas, Matthews had undoubtedly become acquainted with the Vandalis. And presumably he carried out that double murder in much the same method as he described it. Only he put it on Picot.

  “A clever touch, that. In the first place it gave him a ready-made Bossu to plant on us: in the second, it would fit in with any possible attempt Picot might make to get even. In fact, I should imagine that our friend, as he sat in the dining-room that evening, just before Picot’ s shooting practice, must have thought himself on velvet.

  “He had removed four obstacles in his path, without any suspicion falling on him. The outside public thought the murderer was Vandali: we thought it was Picot. In addition to that he had all of us eating out of his hand. And at that time I thought, as I told you Peter, that his plan was one of subtlety. He had presented us with the map—incidentally, how any of you could ever have thought that was an accident I don’t know. It was the one flaw in an otherwise brilliant scheme. However, he had to take a chance, and he took it.

  “We now know he made an alteration in the verse, but that does not affect what I believe his scheme to have been. It merely gave him an alternative line of action which, as events turned out, he availed himself of. And his scheme, I am convinced, was this. He intended to remain Victor Matthews with us to the end. With us he would have entered the grounds. No trace of le Bossu. With us he would have found the entrance: with us he would have forced his way into the house, and in the name of law and order compelled Granger to disgorge. And then, somehow or other, he would have given us the slip. That was his scheme, I am convinced, before I gave way to an extremely stupid impulse.

  “You remember when Picot let drive through the window and Matthews turned out the lights. Well—I couldn’t help it: I knew I was a fool at the time—but I just couldn’t help it. The door opened slowly, didn’t it?—largely because I pulled it. Then it shut, largely because I shut it. And Matthews screamed and gurgled, largely because I had my hands on his throat.”

  “You’re the limit, Drummond,” cried Freckles ecstatically.

  “Far from it, young fellow,” said Hugh gravely. “It was a damned silly thing to do, knowing what I did. From being absolutely confident that he had us fooled, he suddenly became suspicious. Was it Picot who had caught him by the throat, or was it not?

  “However, the mischief was done, and I did my best to rectify it. I took the precaution of making him sleep in a room from which he could not get out without my knowledge, and I did my best to allay his doubts. But I know I didn’t succeed. It was then he changed his plan, and took the alternative. It was then he decided to work alone: to make use of what he knew was the right verse, and leave us to stew in the wrong one.

  “But at once he was confronted with a difficulty. Miss Verney and Scott were going to find the tree, and under his first scheme of working with us that was good enough for him: working alone it wasn’t. He had to find that tree for himself. And he thought of the aeroplane.

  “Admittedly the man was a devil incarnate, but you can’t deny it was a stroke of genius. Not only did it make him independent of us, but it had the secondary effect of lulling me into a fool’s paradise. I did not see how he could get in without us. That he was going to have a dip at it that night I knew: I was lying up in the Marsh yesterday when he moved the motor-boat from its original position to where Peter and I found it.”

  “That’s when you took the plugs?” I said, and he nodded.

  “How was he going to get in?” he went on.

  That was what seemed to me to be the essence of the whole thing. And all through yesterday I still believed that my original idea was right.

  Knowing nothing of the aeroplane or the change in the verse, it was impossible to allow for the alternative plan. Even when he gave his cry for help over the telephone, I still felt absolutely safe, though that little effort positively reeked of suspicion. Why an A. A. box, of all places, to ring up from? And by what possible fluke of fate could he expect us to believe le Bossu was waiting there for him? But once again, believing that we were indispensable to him, I saw no risk in going. In fact, to tell you the truth, so preposterous did it seem to me as a blind, that I half believed something had happened to him. That possibly he had persuaded Picot for some reason or other to go with him in the car, and that in the middle of a message to us, Picot had actually set on him. Anyway, we know he didn’t, and Matthews got a start on us that, had it not been for Miss Verney, would have proved fatal. A very salutary thought, chaps: he got away with it as near as makes no odds, and but for her, he got away with it entirely. “Anyway, that’s that: only one little ceremony remains. From inquiries I made yesterday I gather that Count Vladimir still lives i
n the Rue Nitot in Paris. And since this property is his “—he held up the velvet bag—” I took the liberty of telling him that a charming lady, accompanied by a graceless young blighter, would wait upon him in due course to restore it, and to entertain him with an account of how it was recovered. He expressed himself as delighted, and confirmed the fact that the reward still stood. And so I have much pleasure in presenting Miss Verney with the bag of nuts, prior to consuming one or even two beakers of ale.”

  “But it is impossible, Captain Drummond,” cried the girl, “We must share it.”

  “My dear soul,” said Hugh, with a grin, “it’s too hot to argue. Peter would only spend it in drink and riotous living, and my share would go in bailing him out. As for John, churchyards are full of Inspectors of Taxes who have died of shock on seeing his income tax cheque. They didn’t know there was so much money in the world.”

  And so it ended—that strange affair which had started in an Apache revel nearly thirty years ago. Vengeance had come on the last two of that motor-bandit gang: vengeance had come on the mysterious being who had employed them. Whether his real name was Matthews no one will ever know. From inquiries we made, the fact emerged that there was a man of that name, whose description tallied with Matthews, employed in the Paris police round about 1900, and whose reputation was above reproach. And if they were the same it may well be that it was an extraordinary example of dual personality, a second case of Jekyll and Hyde. For without some such explanation it is well-nigh impossible to conceive how the suave, capable, courteous man we had known could turn on the sudden into a snarling brute-beast murderer.

  * * * *

  The Maid of Orleans drew slowly into the side.

  Leaning over the rail was the usual row of cross-Channel passengers calling out greetings to their friends on the quay. An odd Customs man or two drifted out of their respective offices: the R.A.C. representative raised entreating hands to High Heaven lest one of his charges should arrive without his triptyque. In fact, the usual scene on the arrival of the Boulogne boat, and mentioned only because you must end a story somewhere, and Folkestone Harbour is as good a locality as any.

  Standing side by side on the quay were two men, waving their hands in that shame-faced manner which immediately descends on the male sex when it indulges in that fatuous pursuit. The targets of their innocent pastime were two women whose handkerchiefs fluttered in response from the upper deck. And since these two charming ladies have come into the matter again, it might be as well to dispose of them forthwith. They were, in short, the wives of the two men, arriving on their lawful occasions from Le Touquet, where they had played a little golf and lost some money in the Casino. Which is really all that needs to be said about them, except, possibly, their first remark, chanted in unison, as the ship came to rest.

  “Have you both been good while we’ve been away?”

  “Of course,” answered the two men, also in unison.

  THE RETURN OF BULLDOG DRUMMOND (1932) [Part 1]

  CHAPTER I

  Slowly but relentlessly the mist was creeping over the moor. It moved in little eddies; then it would make a surge forward like a great silent wave breaking on the shore and not receding. One by one the landmarks were blotted out, until only some of the highest tors stuck up like rugged islands from a sea of white.

  As yet it had not reached Merridale Hall, which stood on highish ground, some hundred yards from the main road to Yelverton, though already it was drifting sluggishly round the base of the little hill on which the house was built. Soon it would be covered: it would become a place cut off from the outside world, a temporary prison of stones and mortar whose occupants must perforce rely upon themselves. And it is possible that a dreamer standing at the smoking-room window, and gazing over the billowing landscape of cotton wool, might have pondered on the different dramas even then being enacted in all the other isolated dwellings. Strange stories of crime, of passion; tragedies of hate and love; queer figments of imagination would perhaps have passed in succession through his mind, always provided that the dreamer was deaf. For if possessed of normal hearing, the only possible idea that could have occupied his brain would have been how to preserve it.

  Twice already had the butler entered, only to retire defeated from the scene. The cook, who had been trying to obtain a little well-earned rest herself, had then advanced into the hall and dropped a fusillade of saucepans one after another on the tiled floor without the slightest success. And finally, in despair, the staff had barricaded itself in the pantry and turned on the gramophone.

  There was something majestic about the mighty cadence. The higher note caused the window to rattle slightly: the lower one seemed to come from the deep places of the earth and dealt with the rest of the room. And ever and anon a half-strangled snort shook the performer with a dreadful convulsion. In short, Hugh Drummond was enjoying a post-prandial nap.

  His hands were thrust deep in his trouser pockets, his legs were stretched out straight in front of him.

  Between them, her head on one knee, sat Bess, his black cocker spaniel. Unperturbed by the devastating roars that came from above her, she, too, slept, trembling every now and then in an ecstasy of dream hunting. And the mist rolled slowly by outside, mounting nearer and nearer to the house.

  Suddenly, so abruptly that it seemed as if a sound-proof door had been shut, the noise ceased.

  And had the mystical dreamer by the window been really present, he would have seen a rather surprising sight. For the man who the fraction of a second before had been sound asleep was now sitting up in his chair with every sense alert. The dog, too, after one look at her master’s face, was sitting rigid with her eyes fixed on the window. Volleys of saucepans might be of no avail, but the sound which had caused this instantaneous change was different. For from the direction of the main road had come the crack of a rifle.

  Still with his hands in his pockets, the man got up and crossed to the window. The mist was not more than twenty yards away, and for a while he stared down the drive. Who could be firing on a day like that? And yet he knew that he had not imagined that shot.

  Suddenly his eyes narrowed: the figure of a man running at top speed came looming out of the fog. He raced towards the house, and on his face was a look of abject terror. And the next moment he heard the front door open and shut, and the sound of footsteps in the hall outside.

  “Down, girl!” he ordered quietly, as Bess began to growl. “It would seem that there are doings abroad.”

  Drummond strode to the door and stepped into the hall. Cowering in a corner was a young man, whose breath still came in great choking gasps, and whose trembling hands gave away the condition he was in. For a moment or two he stared at Drummond fearfully; then, getting up, he rushed over to him and seized his arm.

  “For God’s sake save me!” he stammered. “They’re after me.”

  “Who are after you?” asked Drummond quietly, and even as he spoke there came a ring at the door, accompanied by an imperative tattoo on the knocker.

  “Quick: tell me,” he went on, but he spoke to empty air. For with a cry of terror, the youngster had darted into the smoking-room and shut himself in.

  There came a further loud knocking, and with a shrug of his great shoulders Drummond crossed the hall and opened the front door. Outside stood two men in uniform, each with a rifle slung over his back, and he recognised them at once as warders from Dartmoor.

  “Good afternoon,” he said affably. “What can I do for you?”

  The senior touched his cap. “Do you mind if we search your outbuildings, sir?” he said. “A man we’re after disappeared up your drive, and got away in the fog. But he must have come here: there ain’t nowhere else he could have gone.”

  “Who is this fellow you’re looking for?” asked Drummond.

  “A mighty dangerous customer, sir,” said the warder. “You look as if you could take care of yourself all right, but there are a good many people round here who won’t sleep happy in the
ir beds till we’ve got him under lock and key again. It’s Morris, sir, the Sydenham murderer: escaped in the mist this morning. An a more brutal devil never breathed.”

  Drummond raised his eyebrows: anyone less like a brutal murderer than the frightened youngster who had taken sanctuary in the house it would have been hard to imagine.

  “Very near killed a warder this morning,” went on the officer. “And then dodged away across the moors. Of course, with a face like his he never had a chance from the beginning, but if he is here, sir, as we think, we’ll take him along with us.”

  “What is the peculiarity about his face?” demanded Drummond.

  “He’s got a great red scar down one cheek,” said the warder.

  “I see,” said Drummond. “Look here, officer, there has evidently been some error. It is perfectly true that a man dashed into this house just before you arrived and implored me to hide him. But it is equally true that from your description he is not Morris. So we will elucidate the matter. Come in.”

  He crossed the hall to the smoking-room, with the two warders at his heels.

  “Now then, young feller,” he cried, as he flung open the door, “what’s all this song and dance about? I presume this is not the man you want.”

  He turned to the warders, who were staring in a bewildered way at the panic-stricken youth cowering behind a chair.

  “Never seen the gentleman before in my life, sir,” said one of them at length.

  “Get up, man!” remarked Drummond contemptuously. “No one is going to hurt you. Now then,” he continued, as the youth slowly straightened himself and came out into the room, “let’s hear what happened.”

  “Well, sir,” said the one who was obviously the senior of the two officers, “it was this way. My mate and I were patrolling the road just by where your drive runs into it. Suddenly behind the gate-post we saw someone move, someone who it seemed to me had been hiding there. In this fog one can’t see much, and it wasn’t possible to make out the face. But when he sprang to his feet and rushed away it naturally roused our suspicions. So I fired a shot wide, as a warning, and we followed him up here.”