The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  He looked at Drummond keenly.

  “From the general tenor of your remarks, Hugh,” he said, “you would seem to have encountered a lady during the day’s toil. Have you?”

  “Yes,” answered Drummond. “I’ll make it as concise as I can, Cabbageface, because Peter and I have a date.”

  Gregson listened without comment, and it might have been noticed that the languid expression had completely disappeared.

  “Doris Venables,” he said, when Drummond had finished. “She is a new one on me, though that means nothing. And you think it may be she who got in touch with the Chief?”

  “It looks possible. She is obviously mixed up in this show, and she’s the only woman we’ve butted into up to date.”

  “In that case,” remarked Gregson thoughtfully, “I doubt if I shall have the pleasure of making the lady’s acquaintance tonight. They must have found her out.”

  “Yes,” said Drummond gravely. “I’m afraid they have. And if that is so, from what I’ve seen of ’em I doubt if you’ll ever make her acquaintance. Could you possibly get on to the Chief tonight?”

  “Possibly: at his private house. I can try.”

  “I wish you would. It won’t take you long to get through at this hour. I’d like to know before we start.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the house where the meeting of the Key Club is in progress. Are you coming?”

  “I’d like to, but I’ll tell you for certain when I’ve phoned the Chief.”

  “I like it less and less, Peter,” said Drummond as Gregson entered the telephone box. “I know she tried the dirty on me this morning, but the more I think of it the more do I believe that Ronald’s right. I believe that girl is fighting a lone hand; I believe that even if she’s not on our side she’s against the others. And they’ve got her—the swine.… Well, Cabbageface?”

  “Got straight through to him,” said Gregson, as he joined them. “He does not know anyone called Doris Venables. The woman who rang him up gave no name. But she mentioned the Key Club and Emil Veight: so I was right there. I’m to use my own discretion as to what I do.”

  “He didn’t happen to say what time she rang him up, I suppose?”

  “After lunch.”

  “So if it was little Doris, she must have done it on her way to the cottage. She went there to confirm the wire by seeing the original: she then proposed to pass it on to you tonight and fixed an hour when she knew this meeting was taking place, and she could slip away undetected. Is this bird Emil Veight well known?”

  “Only to the select few, old boy. High up in the German Secret Service during the War, and since then a cosmopolitan spy.”

  “Cosmopolitan!” Drummond raised his eyebrows.

  “International, if you prefer it,” said Gregson. “If the cash is there he is prepared to work for anybody. A thoroughly dangerous customer, but if any blood-letting has to be done he generally leaves it to other people.”

  “One other point, Cabbageface,” remarked Drummond. “I wonder why she rang you up, and not Scotland Yard. As a rule you blush unseen so far as the outside is concerned.”

  “Only the lady herself can tell us that,” answered Gregson. “And since it is now half-past ten I’m thinking there is not much use waiting for her to do so here. How far is this house you’ve been talking about?”

  “About three miles. Are you coming?”

  “You bet your life I am. I’ll address the gathering if you like.”

  “Look here, Humphrey, we’d love to have you, but I don’t want you to come under false pretences. Holding His Majesty’s commission and all that sort of stuff. It’s not the meeting I want to see: it’s the other activities—if any. We’re going to break into that house, and if we’re caught there’s going to be trouble.”

  “My dear Hugh,” said Gregson with a faint grin, “if one half of what you have told me is correct, I can’t quite see the proud proprietors ringing up the police whatever we do. So let’s get on with it.”

  “Good for you,” answered Drummond. “But I thought I’d better warn you.”

  He crossed the lounge to a map that was hanging on the wall.

  “The house is there,” he said, “so we’ll start in the opposite direction and make a détour. The betting is a fiver to an orange pip that this hotel is being watched, and it may help to put ’em off. Let’s go in your car, Humphrey, as it is outside.”

  The cinemas were emptying as they left the hotel, so that the street was fairly crowded. But they were clear of the town in a few minutes, and Gregson let the car out.

  “I’d like to see the type of bird who attends these meetings,” said Drummond. “I should think Ronald must be having a gorgeous time. Go left here, Humphrey.”

  They got into a network of smaller roads as they circled round Cambridge, and it was Darrell who first noticed that they were being followed.

  “No one who isn’t loopy would come this way for fun,” he remarked. “There’s been a car about two hundred yards behind us ever since we left.”

  Drummond looked up from the map he was studying and turned round.

  “I saw one of those little wasp effects standing near the entrance to the hotel garage,” he said. “If it’s the same you’ll never get away from it, Cabbageface. I vote we stop and see. We’re in plenty of time for the party. Pull up round this corner, old boy, and switch off your lights. Stay in the middle of the road.”

  Gregson did so, and Drummond was out in a flash and into the ditch followed by the other two. The car behind them was just approaching the bend, and he heard a sudden screech of brakes as the driver realised that the headlights he had been following were no longer there. Then it pulled up with a jerk some ten yards from the deserted car.

  “Good evening,” said Drummond placidly. “I trust we are in fine fettle.”

  The two occupants swung round, as a torch shone on them from behind. They could see nobody, only a vague outline leaning over the back of the car. And then suddenly the outline was joined by two more.

  “What the devil is the meaning of this?” spluttered the driver.

  “Motor bandits, my dear boy,” remarked Drummond. “And now tell me all that is in your heart. Why, for instance, have you been following me all over England?”

  “You’re mad, sir,” cried the driver. “Why should I want to follow you?”

  “You’re very pimply, Narcissus,” said Drummond thoughtfully. “And so is your friend. I once cured a man of pimples, but the treatment was too drastic and he died. So if you want to retain your pimples, and I can quite realise you’d be unrecognisable without them, you will answer my question. Why have you been following me?”

  “Go to hell,” said the youth furiously. “I’ve taken the number of your car. My friend and I are undergraduates, and you’ll hear from the police about this. Do you imagine you’ve bought the blasted road? Why can’t we drive where we like?”

  “Not on your bath night, Narcissus. I see you are members of the Key Club.”

  “What’s that to do with you?”

  “Strange, isn’t it, Peter?” remarked Drummond. “They are certainly a peculiar institution. Unfrocked doctors, and half blues for cat’s cradle. Well, my dear boys, you are shortly going to be the victims of an abominable outrage. England will ring with it: questions will be asked in Parliament. But I don’t like your lights behind me at all. And as your car is undoubtedly faster than ours there’s nothing else for it. Do you mind my extracting you from your seats?”

  Two large hands seized the driver and his companion by the coat collar, and drew them out as a cork is drawn from a bottle.

  “Have you any rope in your car, Cabbageface?”

  “I have,” said Gregson in a shaking voice.

  “Good. Then we’ll just tie these two back to back in the middle of the road, and if anyone comes along they can pretend to be perfect strangers. And if no one comes along, Narcissus, you can hold converse with one another through t
he small hours on the infinite blessings of peace and disarmament. Also the stupidity of following another car quite so closely in a flat country. No, no: there’s no good in struggling. Your state of fitness might just enable you to last for a couple of rounds of spillikins, but you mustn’t tax yourselves more until you’ve had your Ovaltine. Finished, Peter?”

  The two youths were almost crying with rage and fury. They were standing back to back each with his right wrist lashed to the other’s left, whilst round their waists ran one strand of rope.

  “Unspeakable cads,” spluttered Narcissus.

  “Not at all,” said Drummond genially. “Personally, I think we’ve let you off very lightly. You mustn’t go following people round the country. And if I may give you a word of advice it is this. Don’t fall down. If you do, not only will the one underneath leave a lot of his face in the road, but you’ll find it practically impossible to get up again. Come on, chaps: we mustn’t delay any more. Good night, my little ones.”

  “You’ll be getting me cashiered, Hugh,” said Gregson, still weak with laughter, as they drove away. “Of all the outrageous assaults I have ever seen perpetrated, that wins in a canter, and the blighters have got my number.”

  “They won’t do anything, old boy,” answered Drummond. “They would never hear the last of it if they did. Anyway I’m the culprit. But have you ever seen such a pair of maggots?”

  “What do you expect from a bunch of crazy pacifists?” cried Gregson. “The Lord knows—I don’t suppose any of us three want another war, but we don’t get hysterical about it. And we know what war is; they don’t.”

  “I take it there can be no doubt that this is another Giuseppi affair,” said Drummond after a while.

  “Not the slightest, I should say, if Veight is mixed up in it.”

  “Do you know of anything particularly secret which we’ve got at the moment?”

  “There are always a lot of confidential things knocking around,” said Gregson. “But I can’t say I know of anything that is a super secret. The Chief might. And tomorrow I, at any rate, must get to him as quickly as possible. Jove! if only one could get a word with Ginger… What was he on the track of?”

  “One thing is pretty clear, Humphrey. Whatever the game is, it isn’t over yet. If they’d already got their information, they wouldn’t still be playing round here. No one would run the risks they have run today without some very powerful incentive.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Gregson. “And that’s what I don’t quite understand. You either get information or you don’t. If you’re going to get it, it presupposes that the individual you are getting it from is willing to sell it. In which case why the Wild West show?”

  “Supposing the individual wasn’t willing to sell it and they want to make him?” suggested Drummond.

  “Keeping him a prisoner, you mean. Possibly. But if anyone in a position to sell big stuff had disappeared we should know about it. And, so far as I know, no one has.”

  “It’s a teaser, Cabbageface. Anyway, we may discover more tonight. There is Hartley Court in front of us, and the party is still going on. Let’s leave the car here and walk.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  A row of cars drawn up in the drive proclaimed that the meeting was a popular one. The front of the house was in darkness save for the hall, and light on the lawn at the back showed that the Key Club was airing its views on that side of the house. Luckily the undergrowth was dense, and the three men had no difficulty in finding a spot from which they could view the proceedings, which in all conscience were harmless enough.

  A large and somewhat pompous-looking individual was holding the floor at the moment. They were too far off to hear what he was saying, but the audience, in which there was quite a sprinkling of women, was obviously becoming restive. And since it was ten minutes past the time for light refreshments the fact was not surprising. At last he sat down and after a little perfunctory applause Meredith got up.

  “Evidently the end of a perfect day,” whispered Drummond. “That is Uncle John. And the little blighter on Ronald’s left is Doctor Belfage, Humphrey.”

  More hearty applause this time and everybody rose to their feet, extending their hands palm upwards in front of them.

  “The Key Club!”

  The words came clearly to the listeners through the still air; then there was a general buzz of conversation as the party broke up into little groups.

  “Here comes Ronald,” said Drummond as Standish appeared at the window. He was talking to Doctor Belfage, and after a while he stepped out on to the lawn, and lit a cigarette. Then he turned round facing the room and they could see a small light moving behind his back. He was signalling with a torch in Morse.

  “Short: long,” muttered Drummond. “Check me, you fellows. R.U.T.H.E.R.E.H.O.O.T. ‘Are you there? hoot.’ Go on, Peter: you’re better than I am at that game.”

  The mournful cry of an owl came from Darrell, and at once the signals started again.

  W.A.I.T.W.I.L.L.J.O.I.N.U.

  “‘Wait will join you,’” said Drummond. “And something more. D.A.N.G.E.R.”

  The signalling stopped, and Standish stepped back into the room. The party was beginning to break up; from the front of the house came the sounds of self-starters.

  “Hope he won’t be too long,” remarked Drummond. “He’ll have to park your car somewhere, Peter: he can’t leave it in the drive.”

  “He’s saying his last tender farewells now,” said Darrell. “Have you blokes noticed that there’s not another solitary light in any room in the house? There must be some servants surely.”

  The last of the guests departed, leaving Doctor Belfage and Meredith alone. That some heated argument was in progress was obvious: the ex-doctor being excited, while Meredith seemed to be trying to pacify him. And then one sentence reached the listeners’ ears.

  “Madness! Why wasn’t I told?”

  It was almost a shout, and Meredith laid a soothing hand on the little man’s arm.

  At last the conversation finished and Meredith came over to the windows and shut them. Then he drew some wooden shutters across, and there came the sound of bolts being pushed home.

  “That’s torn it,” said Drummond. “No getting in by that room.”

  The light still filtered out through the chinks, and Drummond turned to the other two.

  “Wait here,” he muttered. “I’m going to do a bit of keyhole peeping. If Ronald comes give a hoot, Peter.”

  He faded into the darkness like a great cat and a few moments later he was crouching outside the window peering in. Most of the room was outside his range of vision. He could see the table with the drinks and empty glasses, and some of the chairs pushed back in disorder just as their late occupants had left them. And then Doctor Belfage came into view, walking backwards and forwards with a worried look on his face. He was muttering to himself and every now and then he shook his fist in the air angrily. Clearly Meredith had not succeeded in calming him.

  Suddenly the little man halted. He swung round facing in what Drummond knew was the direction of the door, and a shadow fell across the floor. Then came a second shadow which materialised a moment later into a dark swarthy man with high cheek-bones and a hooked nose, who might have been a Spaniard. In his hand he held a small package which he gave to the doctor, who put it in his pocket.

  “Well, Doctor,” came a deep voice, “how do things progress?”

  It was the unseen man who was speaking.

  “As well as can be expected,” answered Belfage. “But I tell you that man is a devil: he has a will of iron.”

  The dark man smiled evilly.

  “Others have had that will before,” he said softly. “It is only a matter of time.”

  “But we have no time,” shrilled the doctor. “This man Drummond, of whom I learn for the first time when I arrive here tonight, may know everything. It was the act of a lunatic not to have warned me. My God! I actually asked him to come here.”
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br />   “And what would it have mattered if he had,” rejoined the deep voice. “True, he might have died of boredom had he attended your ridiculous meeting, but that would have saved a lot of bother. Your nerves do not seem to be all they might, my dear Doctor.”

  “They’re shot to hell,” cried the other. “I had no idea it would take so long. And now, after what happened last night we may be interrupted at any moment.”

  “Calm yourself, Doctor. It was, I admit, unfortunate that our good friend Emil allowed that interfering soldier to give him the slip. It was still more unfortunate that he mistook Drummond for a farm labourer. For all that I don’t think much damage has been done.”

  “How can you possibly tell,” demanded the doctor. “This man Drummond has deliberately fooled us from what Meredith tells me. And what he’s done over one thing, he may very easily do over another.”

  “He is certainly a nuisance,” agreed the unseen man. “But, as I said before, I don’t think we need worry overmuch. Had he discovered anything really vital, he would not still have been in Cambridge.”

  “That’s true,” said the doctor. “I hadn’t thought of that. But I shall be thankful when this is over.”

  He lit a cigarette with a hand that shook a little.

  “I frankly admit,” he continued, “that this latest development has shaken me badly.”

  “One can’t expect plain sailing all the time,” returned the other contemptuously.

  And at that moment there came the hoot of an owl from across the lawn: Standish had arrived.

  “If only we could find out what Drummond knows,” said the doctor.

  “Maybe we shall shortly,” answered the other softly. “But from what I overheard this afternoon I don’t think he knows much.”

  The speaker came into sight: it was the tall man, and Drummond studied him thoughtfully.

  “My God!” he heard a whisper from behind him. “It’s Gregoroff.”

  Drummond turned round: Standish was peering over his shoulder.

  “The most cold-blooded murderer unhung,” muttered Standish. “Russian Secret Service: I ought to have thought of him when you mentioned his height. May the Lord help you, Hugh, if he ever gets you at his mercy.”