The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  The trouble was that he was moving in the dark: he did not know from what direction danger was going to come. It would not be from Demonico himself, or even from Pendleton: some underling would be deputed for the job. And that underling would know Drummond whilst Drummond would not know the underling. Dare he therefore run the risk of being killed before passing on his information to Scotland Yard? What about ringing them up now and asking them to send round one of their big men? If he said it was concerned with the Sanderson affair someone would be bound to come. And his finger was actually on the dial when a sudden sound behind him made him swing round.

  Standing between the curtains was a man. He was tall and clean-shaven, and he was apparently unarmed, for both his hands were thrust in his trouser pockets.

  “Good evening, Captain Drummond,” he said quietly. “May I have a short talk with you?”

  “How the devil did you get in?” demanded Drummond, staring at him.

  “Through the open window,” answered the other with a faint smile. “I thought it would attract less attention than ringing the bell and disturbing the house.”

  “You seem,” said Drummond, “a moderately cool customer. What do you want to talk to me about?”

  “The Sanderson affair, of course. Do you mind if I sit down?” In silence Drummond pointed to a chair.

  “If you’ve got anything of interest to say,” he remarked curtly, “I am prepared to listen. Otherwise you’ll leave by the way you entered, and the first thing that hits the pavement will be your ear.”

  “I think you will find it quite interesting,” said the stranger, “I have come to tell you the name of the man who killed him.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Drummond eyed him dispassionately. The man appeared to be a gentleman, and seemed perfectly at ease. He had crossed his legs, and was calmly leaning back in his chair as if his unusual mode of entry and his last remark were the most ordinary things in the world.

  “That,” agreed Drummond, “will undoubtedly prove interesting. But may I first ask why it is I who am thus honoured and not the police, and secondly, why you should choose this ungodly hour?”

  “Certainly,” said the other. “My reason for not going to the police is a very simple one. The police have no idea that I am in England at present, and to be quite candid, I prefer that state of affairs to continue. I have come to you because your name was in all the papers, and there is only one Captain Drummond in the telephone book, whereas there are several Standishes. Lastly, the ungodly hour is due to causes beyond my control. I couldn’t come before, and it would have been dangerous for you if I had postponed my visit a moment longer than necessary.”

  “Dangerous for me!” echoed Drummond. “Why?”

  “Because,” said his visitor gravely, “a rat surrounded by terriers is a far healthier insurance proposition than you are unless you vanish and stay put. In fact, it was to make you realise that, almost as much as to tell you the other thing, that decided me to come and see you.”

  “Deuced kind of you,” remarked Drummond. “And your simile is most edifying. You propose, I take it, to blow the gaff, an operation not unattended with danger to yourself. Why this touching solicitude for my safety?”

  “Because there has been quite enough murder done,” said the other. “I came into this show, for reasons into which we need not enter, but I did not bargain for wholesale killing. And you’re the next on the list after tonight’s effort down in Sussex.”

  “I confess,” murmured Drummond, “that some such idea has already occurred to me. But before we go any farther, since we are having this heart-to-heart talk, what is this show into which you came?”

  “All in due course,” said the visitor, “though I will be as brief as I can. I’ve got to be away from here before it is light to ensure my own safety. Now, in the first place are you aware that the members of this gang communicate with one another by cipher?”

  “I am,” answered Drummond. “Do you know the key?”

  “Of course I do,” said the other, rising and going over to the desk. “If I may take a piece of paper I’ll put you wise. Come over here, Captain Drummond, and you shall see for yourself. It’s simple, but at the same time unless you know the trick it is well-nigh impossible to discover it.”

  He drew a fountain-pen from his pocket.

  “Is that the Sporting Life over there? That will do: thank you.”

  He opened the paper out on the desk.

  “Now take any pencil or pen,” he continued, “provided the pencil has a sharp point. The first thing you have to do is to look along it, as I’m doing now, selecting the left-hand column of the centre page. Now use this pen of mine—I’ll hold it for you—and look. Get your eye quite close to it.”

  And then occurred an amazing interruption, which left even Drummond gaping stupidly. He was just bending down to focus his eye to the pen, when the pen disappeared and his visitor, cursing dreadfully, leaped to his feet, wringing a hand from which blood was spouting freely.

  “What the devil is it?” cried Drummond. “What’s happened to your hand?”

  But the other, like a man bereft of his senses, was staring at the pen lying on the carpet.

  “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “I don’t understand.” And at that moment there came from the pavement outside the sound of a laugh.

  Drummond swung round and dashed to the window: a man was running up the street.

  “Hi! you,” he shouted, but the man took no notice and vanished round a corner.

  “So,” he said, coming back into the room, “it would seem that your visit here has been found out. And it strikes me, my friend, that you now join me in the rat and terrier parallel. Somebody got you through the open window.”

  The other did not answer: he was watching Drummond with terror in his eyes.

  “Pull yourself together, man,” went on Drummond contemptuously. “You’ve only been plugged through the hand. I’ll get something to bind it up with: you’re ruining my carpet. Stop over in that corner: you’re quite safe. I’ll have a look out of one of the other rooms and see if anyone else is there.”

  He crossed the hall, and going into the dining-room peered cautiously out of the window: the street was empty. Then, still marvelling at the extraordinary incident, he went upstairs for iodine and some clean handkerchiefs. Presumably the man had been followed, and had been shot as a traitor with one of the silent guns such as Standish and he had captured the previous afternoon. Luckily for him the firer had not killed him, but had only given him a very painful wound in the hand. It undoubtedly showed, however, that things wanted watching: there was a rapidity of action about the other side which was distinctly disconcerting.

  “Here we are,” he said, opening the study door, only once again to stand staring foolishly. For the room was empty: his visitor had gone.

  “Well, I’m blowed,” muttered Drummond to himself. “Have I dreamed the bally thing? Why’s the blighter hopped it?”

  But the question remained unanswered. A trail of blood leading to the window showed that he had left by the same way that he had come, but except for that no trace remained of his mysterious visitor. Even the pen with which he had been demonstrating the cipher had disappeared.

  Drummond closed the window thoughtfully: the whole thing was beyond him. What on earth could have induced the man, knowing there was danger outside, to go and run his head into it deliberately? Had his terror temporarily unhinged his brain? Nothing else could account for such an act of suicidal folly. Just as things were becoming interesting, too.

  However, it could not be helped. The man had gone, all his secrets untold: there seemed to be nothing for it now but to follow everyone else’s example and go to bed. And his hand was actually on the switch of the light when the telephone bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver: was it his late visitor calling him up to explain his sudden departure? It was not: to his surprise he heard Standish’s voice at the other end of the wire.

/>   “Cuckoo,” it came, “just to dispel any doubts. Standish speaking. I want you to obey me implicitly. Leave the house as soon as you can, and it is absolutely essential that you should shake off any watcher who may be there. You must not be followed. Make arrangements to remain away for at least a week, probably more. Get your servant to tell Darrell what has happened, in case we want to get in touch with him, so that he will be on the look-out. Got me so far?”

  “I have,” said Drummond.

  “When you leave,” continued Standish, “make your way to the Marble Arch, and walk along Oxford Street on the south side. It will be light by then, and you will see a stationary car facing west. Number ZZ 234: make, Bugatti; I’ll be waiting for you inside. And, for God’s sake, old boy, watch your step.”

  He rang off, and Drummond replaced the receiver. This was action such as he liked, but what was he to do about Daphne Frensham? She complicated matters to a certain extent, but the complication had to be faced, and faced quickly. He switched off the light: he would have to speak to her.

  He went rapidly to Denny’s quarters and beat him up.

  “Denny,” he said, “get your wife out of bed, and ask her to go and wake Miss Frensham. I don’t want lights going on all over the house, so she’d better take a candle. She is to tell Miss Frensham that I want a few words with her. I’ll be in my dressing-room. Tell your wife and then come upstairs to me.

  “Now,” he continued, when Denny rejoined him, “pay attention. I am disappearing for at least a week. Either get Mr Darrell round here and tell him, or go and see him yourself. Do not write it, or speak over the telephone to him. Do you follow?”

  “Yes, sir. Any address, sir?”

  “I can’t tell you, for I don’t know. Ah! there she is.”

  A knock had come on the door and Drummond opened it. Daphne Frensham was standing there with Mrs Denny behind her.

  “A thousand apologies, my dear,” said Drummond, “for pulling you out of bed like this, but further developments have taken place. I’ve got to leave here, and so you will have to do your get-away on your own this morning. Now it has suddenly dawned on me that it is Sunday: things have moved so hectically these last few hours that I’d forgotten the fact. I suppose you don’t go to Miss Moxton on the Sabbath, do you?”

  “No,” said the girl. “I don’t.”

  “Splendid: that makes it easy. In the first place you can have your sleep out. Then I want Mrs Denny to rig you up in some togs which will make you look as if you were the housemaid going for her day out. Can you do that, Mrs Denny?”

  “Yes, sir; I can manage that.”

  “Your own clothes,” continued Drummond, “can be done up in a parcel and posted to you on Monday by Denny. But you must appear to be one of the maidservants when you leave this house: that is essential. Another point arises. You are almost certain to be accosted by a man when you start off: at least, I shall be very much surprised if you are not. Do not be angry with him, or give him a clip on the jaw. Far from it: encourage him. And when he, as he will do, leads the conversation round to me, let him understand that, so far as you know, I have left suddenly for the Continent. Then shake him off—if he thinks you’re one of the servants, he won’t follow you—and make your way back to your own flat by a round-about route. Is that all clear?”

  “Quite. But where are you going?”

  “I don’t know myself,” said Drummond with a smile. “Now there’s one thing more. If you find out anything in the course of the next week pass it on to Peter Darrell. Good night, bless you: sleep well. Things are moving.”

  He watched her cross the passage and go back to her own rooms; then he turned once more to Denny.

  “Don’t forget that: I’ve gone to Paris, except to Mr Darrell. Give me my razor and toothbrush, and I must be off.”

  Drummond took his revolver from the drawer and loaded it: then he changed rapidly into a rougher suit.

  “And don’t forget another thing, Denny. No telephone message purporting to come from me will be genuine unless you hear the word—Cuckoo.”

  He slipped the gun into his pocket and crammed a cap on his head.

  “I’m going out the back way: lock up after me.”

  The passage led into some mews, and for a time Drummond stood in the shadow, reconnoitring. It was just dawn, and in the cold, grey light the place seemed deserted. After a while, skirting along under cover of the wall, he reached the street. Still he saw no one, and at length he decided that everything was all right. He turned and started briskly for the Marble Arch.

  The morning was chilly, and he turned up the collar of his coat. So far as he could see he had made the arrangements foolproof at his end. Provided that Daphne Frensham played up and acted her part well, she was safe. No one would worry over a maid on her Sunday out. Peter was fixed; Denny was fixed; everything, in fact, was all right except for that confounded interruption which had cost him the key to the cipher.

  He swung into Oxford Street: a hundred yards ahead of him he saw the car. And immediately afterwards Standish got out of it and beckoned to him to hurry.

  “I think it’s OK,” he said as Drummond came up, “but I shan’t feel safe until we’re well out of Town. Keep an eye skinned behind to make sure we’re not followed.”

  They drove all out till they reached the Great West By-pass, and then Drummond gave the all clear: there was no sign of anything in sight.

  “Where are we bound for?” he enquired.

  “There is a pub I know in the New Forest,” said Standish, “where the cooking is excellent and the port passing fair. Also it’s not too far from London.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Drummond. “Well, well, old lad, I’m deuced relieved to see you. I was afraid they’d got you at the Old Hall.”

  “They darned nearly did,” remarked Standish. “But nothing like as near as you ran it.”

  “What do you know about that?” said Drummond in some surprise. “You couldn’t see what happened in the squash court.”

  “I’m not alluding to what happened in the squash court,” answered Standish, “though I’d like to hear about that later. I’m alluding to what happened in your study not an hour ago. Sorry I couldn’t stop when you shouted after me.”

  “What the blazes are you talking about?” cried Drummond, staring at him in amazement.

  “Only that in another half-second Number Four would have got you just as he got Sanderson. By Gad! old boy, it was a close thing.”

  “But,” Drummond positively stuttered, “was it you who shot him through the hand just as he was going to give me the key to the cipher?”

  “Cipher my foot,” said Standish with a short laugh. “I don’t blame you a bit, Drummond: that’s the way he must have caught Sanderson. Some clever conjurer’s patter to get you to put your eye to the end of that so-called fountain-pen, which is really one of the most diabolical weapons that has ever been constructed. The ink on Sanderson’s desk ought to have put me wise to it, because I’ve heard of this contrivance before. It’s an American invention, and is, when you boil down to it, extremely simple. It looks exactly like a fountain-pen: it has a nib, and it can be written with. But instead of the ink reservoir there is a hollow steel tube covered at one end by a thin plug to make it appear solid. At the other end is a tiny cartridge and bullet, and the bullet is fired by operating the lever which in a genuine pen one uses for filling purposes. It is, in short, a tiny gun, but amply powerful enough to penetrate through a soft thing like an eye into the brain.”

  “My sainted aunt!” said Drummond slowly. “It would seem then, old boy, that I have to thank you for my jolly old wellbeing and all that sort of tripe.”

  “You have to thank the fact that I happened to be carrying that spring gun, and remembered about the pen just in time. Didn’t you see how amazed he looked after I’d hit him, when he saw that the pen was still intact? The first thought that had naturally come into his head was that something had gone wrong with the mechanism
of his beastly contraption, and that it had burst in his hand. Then he saw it hadn’t, heard me laugh, and knew he’d been shot from outside.”

  “Great Scott!” cried Drummond, “that explains what was puzzling me. I thought he’d been hit by one of his own gang, and I couldn’t understand why, that being the case, I found he’d bolted when I came down with handkerchiefs and iodine. Of course, he knew the shot had not been fired by his own people. But tell me, old boy, why didn’t you shout out to me? I’d have nobbled the swine.”

  “I’ll tell you frankly,” said Standish gravely. “I was frightened.”

  “Frightened!” echoed Drummond. “What of?”

  “Our not being able to disappear and hide. I’ll go into that more fully later, but that was the reason. I dared not plug him through the head and kill him, though he richly deserved it, and with that weapon in his hand nothing would have been said if I had. But it would have entailed our remaining in London, and getting in touch with the police. The same objection applied if I called out to you, and we’d held him prisoner. Again, the police would have had to be called in, and we should have been detained in Town. And I didn’t dare risk it. We’ll get the swine later, but at present there are far more important things to tackle, and you and I have got to tackle ’em. And to do so successfully we’ve got to lie hidden for a time. For I tell you, Drummond, speaking with all seriousness, our lives at the present moment are not worth the snap of a finger. We have butted into an enormous coup. What that coup is I don’t know, but we’ve got to find out. And it’s coming off within the next week, so we haven’t too much time.”

  “How do you know that?” demanded Drummond.

  “From the scraps of conversation I overheard from my captors, while waiting my turn in the squash court,” said Standish with a grin. “After you’d gone into the house I remained where you left me for a considerable time, until I began to get really uneasy. So I decided to go and investigate, and as luck would have it I ran full tilt into a whole bunch of them. It was hopeless from the word ‘go,’ but I gave a shout so as to let you know.”