The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  They dashed out of the hospital and fell into the car. And then began a race against time which Bill Leyton, seated in the back, will never forget to his dying day. Drummond drove all out, with Darrell map reading with the help of a torch beside him. It was a cross-country run which hindered them, and once Darrell made a mistake which took them three miles out of their way. But they did it: the clock showed ten minutes to nine as they roared through the tiny village of Bletchworthy.

  And now Drummond went cautiously: it was clear from the map that the road and the railway ran close together at the point they were making for.

  “Almost certain to have cars in the neighbourhood,” he said, “and we don’t want to be spotted.”

  It was a narrow road, and after they had gone about two miles they saw the red lights of the signals gleaming on their right. As at Ardington, the line was on an embankment, and as they drove along a train roared past above them, going towards London.

  Suddenly Drummond checked and switched off his headlights: his quick eyes had picked up two cars standing in the shadow of some trees in front of them.

  “We’ll stop here,” he said, “and get on to the line. Here’s a Fanny for you, Leyton: use it in preference to a gun.”

  And Leyton found a heavy loaded stick pressed into his hand. Then scrambling up the embankment he followed the other two. They paused at the top: two hundred yards away was a signal box. The signalman’s head and shoulders could clearly be seen, and suddenly Drummond started to race towards it. For the door had been opened, and a man with his arm upraised was silhouetted for a moment against the light. The signalman sprang round, even as the arm descended, and they could almost hear the crash as he fell. And a moment later a red light in the distance turned to green.

  Drummond stopped, his eyes searching the darkness feverishly. And then to the surprise of the other two he began to run in the opposite direction.

  “I see ’em,” he muttered. “Half a dozen at least on the track. Into ’em, boys: shoot, kill, murder ’em.”

  He let out a bellow of fury, and Leyton for the first time in his life had a glimpse of Hugh Drummond going berserk. He split one man’s head open like a rotten pumpkin: lifted another with his fist clean over the edge of the embankment, and then waded in on the other four. Revolver shots rang out, and one train wrecker, screaming like a stuck pig, rolled over and over till he reached the ditch below. Then they were alone: the others had bolted. And from far off they heard the rumble of an oncoming train.

  Drummond flashed his torch on the line, and a bullet spat past him into the night. Off went his torch: they had seen all they wanted to. Lashed to the inside of the rail was a packet from which protruded two wires stretching right across the permanent way and disappearing into the darkness.

  “Cut one of them,” said Drummond between his teeth, and just coming into sight saw the lights of the train.

  The wire was insulated and stout, but Drummond that night would have split a steel rope with his hands. And his knife went through the lead as if it had been string. Came a whistle, and rocking and swaying slightly the heavy train roared past them and was gone. And as Bill Leyton watched the red tail-lamp vanish in the distance he found his forehead was wet with sweat.

  “A close shave,” said Drummond briefly, and as he spoke they heard the engines of the two cars in the road start up.

  “Let ’em go,” he continued. “We’re after bigger game than that scum. Only we must do something first about that signalman, and this little packet of trouble.”

  The cars had gone, and he flashed his torch on the bomb, which was lashed to the rail with string.

  “Cut it loose, Peter, and we’ll throw it into that pond we passed a short way back. I’m going to the signal box.”

  He found the signalman looking dazed and sick, sitting on the floor.

  “Well, my lad,” he said, “you got a nasty one, didn’t you? How are you feeling now?”

  “What ’appened?” mumbled the man.

  “An attempt was made to derail that train that has just gone by,” said Drummond. “And before doing so they knocked you on the head.”

  “Derail the Northern Flier,” muttered the signalman foolishly. “Gaw lumme! Wot did they want to do that for?” He scratched his head. “So that’s why Bletchworthy rung up to say as ’ow I was to keep my eyes skinned.”

  “Well, are you all right now?” said Drummond. “I can guarantee that the people who did it won’t come back.”

  “I’m all right now, sir,” said the man. “My ’ead’s a bit sore—that’s all. I’ll get on the telephone to Bletchworthy and tell ’em what’s took place. Derail the Northern Flier! Well, I’m danged. And she had gold aboard too.”

  Drummond paused in the door and stared at him.

  “Gold!” he said. “How do you know that?”

  “Thought everyone did, sir,” answered the signalman. “Them there repeyrations to America was on her. Bars and bars of gold, they says, with an armed guard. Lumme! I wonder if that was why they wanted to wreck her.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Drummond quietly. “I suppose you don’t happen to know which coach the gold was in.”

  “Why—yes, sir. It’s allus the same. The rear coach but one: next the guard’s van.”

  A grim smile flickered round Drummond’s lips as he left the box and went back to the car. And it was still there when he answered Darrell’s question—”What now, Hugh?” with the one word “Weymouth.”

  “This thing is going to be finished one way or the other, Peter,” he said after they had turned the car. “This globe isn’t big enough for Demonico and me. And he and I will have a final settlement tonight. There’s the pond: bung that damned bomb in.”

  The moon had risen, and by its light they watched the infernal contrivance sink: then with their noses turned south they started on the last lap of the hunt. To Leyton it seemed nothing short of madness to seek the man out in his own yacht, surrounded by his own people, but he realised the futility of saying so to Drummond. If Darrell and he did not go, Drummond would go alone, and that was unthinkable. But when four hours later they drove along the deserted front, and saw the yacht riding at anchor a quarter of a mile out, he sincerely wished that the last sentence had not been added to the cipher message.

  Moored alongside the jetty was a motorboat, and as the car drove up a man stepped out of the shadow of a shed.

  “Are you for the yacht?” he said.

  “We are,” answered Drummond.

  “Where are the others?”

  “They will be some time yet,” said Drummond calmly. “We will go off now. That saves a lot of bother,” he whispered to Darrell as they followed the man down the steps of the boat.

  They got in, and then for the first time the man took a good look at them.

  “Good God!” he muttered. “Who are you?”

  “A point of academic interest, laddie,” said Drummond pleasantly, catching him by the collar. “Cold, I fear, for bathing, especially in these chill northern waters, but you won’t have to swim far.”

  He flung him into the sea and turned to Darrell.

  “Start her up, Peter, and let’s hope the blighter can swim.”

  They shot out from the landing-stage and made for the yacht. Her decks were deserted, but lights were shining in a big saloon aft, towards which they made their way. And reaching the entrance they paused: seated at the table was a middle-aged, grey-haired woman who stared at them with fear in her eyes.

  “So, madam,” said Drummond at length, “we meet again. Mrs Matthews, I think, was the name under which you registered at the Falconbridge Arms, and your other alias I understand is Mrs Merridick.”

  The woman had recovered herself.

  “Presumably you have some idea what you are talking about, sir,” she answered coldly, “but I have none. Nor do I wish to have. What is the meaning of this monstrous piece of impertinence?”

  “Shall we cut all that out,” said D
rummond languidly. “Let us even pass over your kindly attention to my friend Standish and myself with that bomb. The hour is late, and I am weary. Where is that swine Demonico?”

  “This is intolerable,” she cried, rising to her feet. “Demonico! Who on earth is Demonico? I have never heard of the man in my life.”

  “You lie, madam,” said Drummond quietly. “You are in with him, as you were with Pendleton and Corinne Moxton. And I intend to pay my score with him tonight. If he isn’t on board now he will be soon. For there are some crimes which are so utterly beyond the pale that they cannot be judged or punished by ordinary standards. And wrecking that train at Ardington was one of them.”

  “I can only assume that you are insane,” she remarked. “But whether you are or not I find your presence here insufferable.”

  “Fortunately, we were able to frustrate the attempt on the Northern Flier tonight,” continued Drummond, “though that does not mitigate the monstrous criminality which caused that attempt to be made.”

  And then he paused suddenly and his eyes dilated.

  “My God! Peter,” he shouted, “look at her hands.”

  For a moment there was silence: then two shots rang out together, while Darrell and Leyton looked on dazedly. They saw Drummond stagger and then recover himself: they saw Mrs Merridick collapse and pitch forward on her face.

  “The hands, Peter,” repeated Drummond. “There couldn’t be two people with those nails and those rings in the world.”

  He bent down and seized the dead woman’s hair: then he gave a tug. And as the wig came away a gleaming, hairless head shone white in the electric light.

  “Demonico himself,” said Drummond, and suddenly leant against the table.

  “What’s up, old man?” cried Darrell anxiously.

  “He got me through the shoulder,” answered Drummond with a grin. “But I guess it was cheap at the price.”

  * * * *

  So ended the hunt, in a manner very different to its conclusion had Ronald Standish not had that brief interlude of consciousness. And possibly the only other point worth recording is Drummond’s remark to him three weeks later as they sat doing a mutual convalescence at Bournemouth.

  “This excitement is driving me mad, old boy. Peter is sick with love, and the wench aids and abets him. Bill Leyton has now told me five times how he got a birdie at the fourth. And the hour being what it is, we cannot obtain ale. Let’s hire two bath chairs and have a race.”

  BULLDOG DRUMMOND AT BAY (1935) [Part 1]

  CHAPTER I

  The mist was low-lying. Above it the tops of the telegraph poles stuck out into the starlit night, marking the line of the road which wound over the desolate fen country. A few isolated houses stood like scattered islands in a sea of white cloud—houses in which the lights had long been extinguished, for it was nearing midnight, and the marsh folk do not sit up late.

  One house only proved the exception. In size and shape it was just as the others—a typical fenman’s cottage. But from one side of it a diffused white glow shone faintly towards the line of telegraph posts. Above the mist the top room showed black and clear-cut. No light came from that window: the illumination came from the sitting-room below.

  In it was seated a very large young man. Between his knees he held a gun, whilst on the table in front of him lay the usual cleaning materials, flanked on the left by a large hunk of bread and cheese, and on the right by a tankard of ale. Behind him, on the hearth-rug, a spaniel lay curled up asleep. In front of him, and close to the door which communicated with the kitchen, a bulldog in a basket snored majestically: also in front of him, and close to the door which led into the diminutive hall, a wire-haired terrier hunted ecstatically in his dreams.

  The blind was up: the window, regardless of the mist which drifted sluggishly in, was open top and bottom. On the table a lamp was burning, and by its light the contents of the room stood revealed. And when those contents were compared with the living occupant the result was somewhat incongruous.

  Over the mantelpiece hung several illuminated texts. They were of a depressing character, which a tasteful colour scheme of yellow beads round red letters was powerless to mitigate. Even a wedding group of the early ’sixties, which filled the place of honour in the centre, seemed unable to give that snap to the wall which the proud owner had doubtless intended. And the rest of the room was in keeping. A horsehair sofa covered with a red counterpane in which were sewn large, round pieces of coloured glass, adorned one wall: a table, complete with cloth to match the counterpane, and a stuffed weasel under a glass dome, adorned another. And in the window, on a small three-legged stool, reposed a Bible of colossal dimensions.

  To the expert the solution was obvious on the spot. This was the parlour; that mysterious, unused room which is found in every similar house; that room, which, when the door is suddenly opened on the unwary visitor, exudes a strange and musty smell strongly reminiscent of a not too recent death behind the wainscot: that room which is utterly wasted on the altar of lower class respectability.

  On the night when the mist was drifting just ceiling high the room was proving false to its traditions. Gone was the stale smell of ancient bones: even “Prepare to meet thy God” hung at a more rakish angle. The first was due to the open window: the second to the fact that a disreputable cap was slung on one end of the text. But the effect was all to the good. And since the large young man who at the moment was engaged in filling his pipe was presumably responsible for both acts of vandalism, it might be well to turn from the room to its occupant.

  His clothes were quite incredibly ancient. Grey flannel trousers: a sweater that had once been white, and an old shooting-coat padded with leather over the shoulders comprised the outer layer. Underneath, grey socks and brown brogues, with a shirt that was open at the neck completed the picture, whilst a collar, made of the same material as the shirt, had been flung carelessly into the coal-scuttle with a tie inside it.

  After a while he rose and stretched himself, and it was not until he stood up that it was possible to realise how very large he was. He stood at least six feet in height, and being broad in proportion he seemed almost to fill the room. Only the spaniel noticed his movement and opened one liquid brown eye—an eye which followed him as he sauntered over to the window and peered out. Then he returned to the table and, picking up his empty tankard, he made his way past the snorer to the kitchen. A final pint was indicated before turning in.

  It was while he was drawing it that the terrier gave a sudden, sharp, staccato bark, and the large young man returned to the parlour to find that the kennels were awake. The spaniel was sitting up contemplating the window; the bulldog, though still breathing hard, had emerged from his basket, whilst the terrier was following up his one bark with a steady stream of bad language under his breath.

  “What is it, fellers?” said the large young man genially. “Does some varlet approach our domain?”

  Holding his beer in his hand he again went to the window.

  “Shut up, Jock, you ass!” he cried. “How can I hear anything if you’re making that damn fool noise?”

  The terrier made a valiant effort which was partially successful; and then the strain proved too great. And this time his master heard it too. From somewhere, not very far away, there came a muffled shout, and Jock proclaimed the fact in no uncertain voice—no just reason, he reflected, for being temporarily winded with a shooting-boot.

  The large young man stood motionless, listening intently. The sound was not repeated, but it seemed to him that it had not been so much a cry for help as a call from one man to another indicating that he had found something. But who could be looking for anything at midnight in the fens, with a ground mist lying thick?

  The shout had come, so far as he could judge, from the road which passed his own front gate ten yards away. And he was on the point of strolling down the little garden path to investigate further, when a development occurred which was so completely unexpected that for a f
ew moments he could only stare foolishly round the room; whilst even Jock, by this time recovered, forgot to bark. There came a crash of breaking glass, followed by a further crash of still more breaking glass, and the stuffed weasel subsided with a thud on to the carpet.

  The large young man had been getting his cap when it happened, otherwise the stone which he now perceived was the cause of the outrage would have spared the weasel and taken him in the pit of the stomach. For the first crash of breaking glass had been the window, which, having been open top and bottom, now had both upper and lower panes smashed. Thence the missile, missing the lamp by a few inches, had smitten the glass dome of the weasel hip and thigh, and ricochetting off the wall had finished up by the bulldog’s basket.

  “Hi!” shouted the large young man, when he had recovered himself, “what the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  His momentary amazement had given way to anger: someone had deliberately thrown a stone through the window from the road, and it did not strike him as being in the slightest degree funny. Some tramp presumably, or a belated drunk: in any case, whoever it turned out to be, he was going to be thanked in suitable terms in the near future. Indubitably the large young man was not amused.

  “Heel! The lot of you.”

  He strode down the garden path, and flinging open the little gate stepped into the road.

  “Where’s the lousy swine who bunged that brick through my window?” he called out.

  There was no answer, and for a moment or two he stood undecided, with the dogs at his heels. He could hear no sound save the cry of a distant night bird, and gradually the difficulty of the position came home to him. The mist, if anything, was thicker; he could see the light from the room he had just left like a dull yellow square in the surrounding whiteness. But the trouble was he had no means of telling which way the stone-thrower had gone after he had done the deed. The fog had swallowed him up completely.

  Again he listened intently, and, as he stood there motionless, subconsciously he became aware of the strange silence of the three dogs. He glanced down at them: in the dim light he could see their heads close together over something in the road. He spoke to them and they looked up at him. Between them, in the dust, was a dark patch.