The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  “Morning, Hugh. I didn’t think they’d do that, did you?”

  “I didn’t, Peter. Certainly not her. He must have gone away and got this poison, and then put it in the drink.”

  “Well, old boy, I don’t think you need feel any guilt on the matter,” said Darrell.

  “I don’t. If ever a couple richly deserved to die, they did. But it’s a bit of a shock all the same.”

  “Have you seen the other thing in the paper?”

  “No. Anything interesting?”

  Darrell turned to the front page, and pointed half-way down the agony column.

  AOYSLKEJSSCQOOIEHORJKQSC

  AHOSDCVKQSCXJEJOLISTORNY

  XDKYDCQOYQATSKJOXYDCSH

  XEJBKMMVOXIKTSC.

  “A long one,” said Drummond. “Hell! if only Standish was conscious!”

  “You can make nothing out of it?” asked Darrell.

  “Not a letter, old boy. He hadn’t time even to give me a hint. And you know what a hopeless fool I am at anything like that.”

  “We might be able to find someone in London who could do it,” said Darrell. “If Ronald could solve the bally thing, there must be someone else who can.”

  “We’ll have a dart at it,” agreed Drummond. “But who the deuce does one go to? Is there a cipher department at Scotland Yard?”

  “Must be, I should think. Let’s go and find out. The sooner we give it in the better.”

  But the expert they eventually ran to ground held out but little hope. Having at last persuaded him that it was not a betting code, but something really serious, he consented to do his best if he had time. And at that they had to leave it, returning to their club to kick their heels and get through time as best they could.

  The late evening papers contained the result of the inquest. Evidence was given to show that the two deceased persons had been on unusually friendly terms, and that Sir Richard Pendleton had frequently visited her in her flat, and not leaving till the early hours of the morning. Further, the chauffeur stated that on the very night of the tragedy his orders had been to take them both out to dinner at a house not far from Henley.

  “It is almost certain,” said the Coroner in his summing-up, “that the poison must have been obtained by Sir Richard, as a drug of such a rare kind would be hardly procurable by a woman. It is therefore clear that it was he who was primarily responsible for the tragedy. Indeed, we have no evidence before us to show whether the deceased woman knew that the drug had been added to the cocktail ingredients, a point the jury must bear in mind when arriving at their verdict.”

  Which when given and reduced to plain English was to the effect that Sir Richard Pendleton had committed suicide while temporarily insane; and that Corinne Moxton had either done the same or been murdered by him. But the motives for such an amazing crime were naturally a profound mystery.

  “And will doubtless always remain so,” said Drummond. “What about ringing up this wench of yours, Peter, and getting her round for a bite of food? She’ll be interested to know the truth.”

  And though it was not the truth, she was: profoundly interested.

  “I’ve been puzzling my brains the whole day, Captain Drummond,” she said, “as to what could have made them do it. And even now it is almost incredible, because from what you say you promised them they would get off if they told the police.”

  “Incredible or not, they did it, and I don’t think I shall lose an hour’s sleep over the fact. Two nasty pieces of work. Well, I’ll join you after dinner. Peter’s expression indicates either indigestion or suppressed love, and I can’t run any risks after that recent round of mine with a bomb.”

  He left them in the ladies’ side of the club and went into the smoking-room. The conversation was confined almost exclusively to the Pendleton affair, and as he listened to all sorts of fantastic theories being advanced he smiled cynically to himself. And then he suddenly heard a phrase which caught his attention.

  “Undoubtedly Pendleton was one of the syndicate.”

  Hervey, a stockbroker whom he knew slightly, was talking to two or three other men, and Drummond joined the group. “And it’s a damned dangerous syndicate too,” Hervey continued, “as far as this country is concerned. They’ve been selling sterling short by the million abroad this last week.”

  “Do you know who the others are?” asked. Drummond. “Hullo! old boy,” said Hervey. “I heard you’d been blown to bits in the New Forest. Are you all right again?”

  “Quite,” said Drummond. “Feel a bit stiff still, but otherwise no harm done. But this syndicate Pendleton was in—was it a big one?”

  “Did you know the man?”

  “Slightly,” answered Drummond with a faint smile.

  “Never had a vestige of use for him myself, though I believe he was a very fine surgeon. And as far as I know, he was the only Englishman in this crowd. Daly is an Irish-American, Legrange is a Frenchman, and there’s another somewhat mysterious individual in it who no one seems to have ever seen. Calls himself Demonico, and I should imagine he might be a Greek. But whoever he is, he’s in with this bunch, and if they go on as they have been doing and the country’s credit drops they’ll get a packet.”

  Drummond strolled away: would it be possible, he wondered, to get at Demonico through Daly or Legrange? He could almost certainly get their addresses from Scotland Yard, and he was just pondering on the advisability of ringing up McIver and putting the matter to him when another man he knew came up and spoke to him. He was an eccentric individual named Jellaby, whose little peculiarity was that he was always in possession of some secret which had just been passed on to him by some highly placed official, and which only he knew. He had always heard it in strict confidence: with equal regularity he ran round the club imparting it to everyone in even stricter confidence. Generally Drummond avoided him like the plague, but on this occasion he was fairly and squarely buttonholed, and escape was impossible.

  “Heard a most amazing thing this afternoon, Drummond.” Jellaby’s voice sank to a hoarse whisper. “Straight from the horse’s mouth. For Heaven’s sake don’t pass it on: it’s a profound secret. It’s about the Ardington train disaster.”

  Drummond’s half-suppressed yawn ceased abruptly.

  “You remember the evidence given by that labourer, George Streeter, to the effect that he had seen a yellow flash in front of the engine wheels?” Jellaby rarely waited for any answer to his questions. “Now I am in a position to tell you definitely—I got it direct from one of Colonel Mayhew’s staff—that that evidence was correct. After exhaustive examination of the torn-up rails, they have discovered one place where the break, according to the experts, must have been caused by an explosive. The disaster therefore was not an accident at all, but a deliberately planned outrage.”

  “With what object?” said Drummond.

  “The very question I myself at once asked,” said Jellaby, his voice becoming even more confidential. “And the answer was an amazing one. This country, as you know, is going through a very severe financial crisis, and anything which might help to spread the idea abroad that our reputation for law and order no longer held good would tend to increase the gravity of that crisis. If then it was thought that the condition in England had become such that train wrecking was taking place, confidence abroad would be still further reduced, a state of affairs which would be most advantageous to certain speculators.”

  “I get you,” said Drummond. “Is this new development going to appear in the newspapers?”

  “Not at present, at any rate,” said Jellaby. “Sooner or later I suppose it will have to, but just at the moment it would be playing straight into their hands. Don’t forget—not a word to a soul.”

  Drummond smiled faintly as he watched Jellaby stalk his next victim: then he lit a cigarette thoughtfully. Things were becoming clearer: what had seemed to Peter Darrell so amazing because of its senselessness had taken to itself a meaning. He went back to the ladies’ side of the club and foun
d them still over their cocktails.

  “I’ve been hearing things, souls,” he said, “things which have thrown considerable light on matters. And I can summarise them for you in a nutshell.”

  “So now it is proved that it wasn’t an accident,” said the girl as he finished.

  “According to my friend Jellaby it is,” answered Drummond. “It’s almost incredible,” said Darrell.

  “Not so incredible, Peter, as it was before. Then, if you like, it was unbelievable that anyone who wasn’t a maniac should have derailed an express for the fun of it. But now we have got a reason.”

  “But would a thing like that affect us abroad?” asked the girl. Drummond shrugged his shoulders.

  “On matters of international finance I’m an infant,” he said. “But I do know that it’s a very delicately balanced affair, and I suppose as Jellaby said that it isn’t going to help a country if its neighbours come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that it’s got into such a condition of lawlessness that train wrecking is taking place. At any rate it is clear that that is what did happen, and the point now arises as to what we are going to do. Because, as I see things, we, at the present moment, are the only people who are in a position to link things up. Hervey and others in the City know that Demonico’s gang of financiers are selling sterling short, and that it is to their advantage to force down our credit abroad. The Home Office, according to Jellaby, know that the Ardington accident was a case of train wrecking. But literally the only thing that could connect and does connect the two together is that Miss Frensham heard what she did through the keyhole. And now the speaker has killed himself.”

  “I think Scotland Yard should be told all we know,” said Darrell decidedly. “I quite see that they can’t act on Daphne’s unsupported statement, and we haven’t a vestige of proof beyond that that Pendleton and that woman ever went near Ardington or knew anything about it. And since they’re both dead we can never find out. But in view of the fact that we know some crime is premeditated early this week, we should be grossly to blame if we didn’t pass on to the police that vital piece of information which, as you say, Hugh, links up the two things.”

  “Right,” said Drummond. “I’ll go down myself at once. Wait here till I get back.”

  He returned an hour later.

  “It’s electrified ’em all right,” he remarked. “As we surmised, they can’t take any action, though Daly and Legrange from now on are marked men. But the trouble is that though they’ve been combing the country since our information of a week ago for Demonico he has completely disappeared. Another thing I gathered was this: they do not think that Legrange, at any rate, would lend himself to such an abominable crime as the Ardington one. Of Daly they’re not quite so sure, but it is Demonico they believe is responsible.”

  “So they accepted Daphne’s evidence,” said Darrell.

  “Absolutely: they saw the vital importance of the fact that she mentioned Ardington to you and the time, before it happened. By the way, Miss Frensham, they may want to hear it direct from you: if so, they’ll let you know.”

  “I can go at any time they want,” said the girl.

  “And in the meantime they seem to think there is nothing more to be done. To cross-examine Legrange or Daly would be useless: even with your evidence, my dear, there is nothing to connect either of them with the accident. They were all members of the same syndicate—true—but that’s not an offence. So, for the present, the order of the day is wait and see, and all one can hope is that we shan’t see some other ghastly crime like Ardington. Are you looking for me, boy?”

  A page came up to the table.

  “Captain Drummond, sir?”

  “That’s me,” said Drummond.

  “Wanted on the telephone, sir: either you or Mr Darrell. Gentleman name of Mr Leyton.”

  Drummond jumped to his feet, his eyes gleaming.

  “By Jove! Peter, it might be news of Standish.”

  He returned a few minutes later, not quite so jubilant.

  “He recovered consciousness for a few moments about an hour ago, and seemed to recognise Leyton. He didn’t say anything, but he gave a faint smile. Leyton spoke to him, but he didn’t answer, though he seemed to try to. And now he’s relapsed again. But apparently the doctor thinks he may come to properly at any time now, and Leyton suggests we should go down there at once in case he does.”

  “I’m with you, old boy,” said Darrell.

  “Even if he still can’t speak he might be able to decode that message,” cried Drummond. “I think we ought to push off immediately, Peter. Will you be all right, my dear?”

  “My good man, you don’t imagine I’m going to be out of this hunt, do you? I’m coming too. I won’t be in the way, I promise.” The two men grinned.

  “Emphatically one of us, Peter,” said Drummond. “Come along, bless you.”

  Midnight found them at the hospital, where Bill Leyton met them.

  “No luck so far,” he said, “though the doctor says that his condition now is more nearly natural sleep than it was. But he holds out no hopes for the near future.”

  They waited all that night, taking it in turns to sit by the bedside. They waited all the next day, walking feverishly about the room whilst Standish lay there, his eyes closed, breathing easily and quietly.

  “Under no circumstances must any attempt be made to awaken him.”

  Those were the doctor’s strict orders, and Drummond, gnawing his fingers, stood by the window watching the daylight gradually fade. In the room Darrell and Leyton were pretending to play piquet, but any devotee of that magnificent game might well have failed to recognise it. And then quite suddenly the girl who was watching Standish spoke.

  “Peter, he’s awake.”

  In an instant the three men were by the bed. That Standish knew them was obvious: he looked at each of them in turn and grinned feebly.

  “How are you feeling, old man?” said Drummond.

  But though the sick man’s lips moved no sound came from them.

  “Can you hear what we say, Ronald?” asked Leyton.

  The other gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Listen, Standish,” said Drummond quietly. “I wouldn’t worry you, old son, but it’s urgent. If I got you a pencil and paper do you think you could decode a message in that cipher?”

  Gradually, like a very old man, Standish moved his right arm as if to try it: then he nodded. It took him some time to get the pencil in his hand, but at last he succeeded and with the block in front of him he began to write.

  “Here’s the message,” said Drummond, but Standish shook his head, and the three men crowded round him. It was hardly possible to read what he had written, but at last they managed to.

  “What is the day of the week?”

  “Tuesday,” cried Drummond, and Standish nodded again, and once more began to write. And they saw that with infinite difficulty he was writing out the alphabet.

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  They waited breathlessly: he had begun to write another line of letters underneath it.

  YADSEUTBCFGHIJKLMNOPQRVWXZ

  “By Jove!” cried Drummond suddenly. “I see. The day of the week backwards comes at the beginning, and if there are two A’s in it like Saturday you leave out the first. Now the message, old man: here it is.”

  He put it on the bed beside Standish, who again began to write, putting the correct letter under the code one:

  AOYSLKEJ

  BSADPOEN

  Standish paused, staring at it, and sick with anxiety the others watched him. He had got it wrong somehow: the translation was gibberish.

  “My God!” said Drummond heavily, “they must have altered the code.”

  And still worse was to come. Suddenly the pencil slipped from Standish’s fingers, and he fell back on the pillow: he was unconscious once more.

  For a while no one spoke: to have got so near, and then to fail was a bit of cruel luck.

  “The dev
ils must have altered the code,” repeated Drummond. “What an infernal piece of bad joss.”

  He picked up the piece of paper and studied it.

  “You see, the old lad had got the other one: found it out from that clue we discovered in Sanderson’s desk. What’s stung you, my dear?”

  For the girl, her eyes shining with excitement, had gripped his arm.

  “Captain Drummond,” she cried, “it’s Tuesday today, but that came out of yesterday’s paper. Let’s try Monday.”

  “You fizzer,” shouted Drummond.

  Feverishly he seized a pencil and wrote out the new code.

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  YADNOMBCEFGHIJKLPQRSTUVWXZ

  “Now then—where’s the message?”

  He laid it in front of him and started to translate.

  AOYSLKEJSSCQOOIEHORJKQSC

  AHOSDCVKQSCXJEJOLISTORNY

  XDKYDCQOYQATSKJOXYDCSHX

  EJBKMMVOXIKTSC

  BEATPOINTTHREEMILESNORTH

  BLETCHWORTHYNINEPMTUES

  DAYCOACHREARBUTONEYACHT

  LYINGOFFWEYMOUTH

  “‘Be at point three miles north Bletchworthy nine p.m. Tuesday. Coach rear but one. Yacht lying off Weymouth,’” he read out slowly. “That’s tonight.”

  “Coach rear but one,” said Leyton. “Merciful Heavens, you fellows, it can’t be another train outrage, can it?”

  “That,” remarked Drummond grimly, “is what we now propose to find out. Come on, both of you, we’ll have to drive like hell. Get hold of Standish’s torch, and his gun. Also that compressed-air rifle. That was a brainstorm of yours, Daphne, but this time, my dear, you cannot come. Sorry, but it’s out of the question.”

  “Easy for a moment, old boy,” said Darrell. “We ought to ring up the station-master at Bletchworthy.”

  “That’s true,” said Drummond. “But it means delay, Peter. Daphne can do it—can’t you, my dear? Ring up the stationmaster at Bletchworthy and tell him to have the line three miles north of the station patrolled at once. Tell him there is a possibility of an attempt to derail some train—I don’t know which—tonight round about nine o’clock.”