The Bulldog Drummond Megapack

by H. C. McNeile

  He half dragged, half carried her across the hall to a heavy door studded with nails which was fastened with two bolts.

  “The old dungeons, my dear. Perhaps you have heard of Bonivard in Chillon Castle. We have a modern edition for you here.”

  He drew back the bolts, and the girl gave a little cry as he opened the door. Stone stairs led down into the darkness, and a wave of dank, mildewed air came up from below and hit her in the face.

  “After you,” said Veight with elaborate politeness, and slowly, a step at a time, she went down. Water dripped on her head from the ceiling; the walls were wringing wet when her hands touched them. At first she could see nothing; but at length the place began to take outline in the dim light that filtered through a tiny window high up. A big buttress stuck out from the wall on one side, and from behind it came a rustling of straw as if an animal was moving about.

  Suddenly she screamed; something had run over her bare foot.

  “Only a rat, Miss Venables,” said Veight. “There are several, and they are big ones. Who was it who was hiding in the bushes?”

  “I tell you I don’t know,” she cried wildly. “O God, what’s that?”

  A strange moaning noise was coming from the other side of the buttress, and Veight led her forward.

  “Our Bonivard,” he murmured.

  Lying on the ground was a man who gave a cry of fear when he saw them. She could just see his face, his twitching lips, his terrified eyes, and his hands plucking aimlessly at the air. And then a chain rattled; he was tied up to a ring in the wall.

  “The gentleman after whom you used to ask so glibly,” said Veight. “When would he give way? Do you remember?”

  “What have you done to him?” she asked through dry lips.

  “They’re murdering me,” came a choking voice. “I’m going mad.”

  “No, no, my dear Waldron. Not murder. The very instant you decide to speak, all this will stop.”

  “You inhuman devil,” cried the girl, and Veight laughed.

  “The funny thing, Miss Venables, is that it isn’t me at all. The saintly owner of the house is responsible for this. And he, I assure you, is an Englishman.”

  “That drug; what is that ghastly drug?” moaned the prisoner.

  “Haven’t they told you?” asked Veight. “It is not a nice one, Waldron, and its result in time will be to send you mad. It is, Miss Venables, a Mexican drug called Marijuana. You see before you the result. It instils such fear into the mind of the taker that he ceases to be a man. He is mad with terror over nothing at all; his brain refuses to function; his will power goes. And finally he finishes up in a suicide’s grave or a lunatic asylum.”

  His eyes were boring into her.

  “Mr. Waldron would like a companion here: another soldier. Who was it who was hiding in the bushes?”

  “I tell you I don’t know,” she cried. “I swear I don’t.”

  “Still obstinate. I think I had better send for Captain Lovelace.”

  “No, no,” she moaned. “I beg of you don’t. I’m telling you the truth, Herr Veight.”

  “What is all this?” A deep voice came from behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  “You have not yet been introduced to your host, have you, Miss Venables?” said Veight. “This is Mr. Hoskins, who is responsible for this.”

  “You vile brute,” said the girl. “Why are you torturing him?”

  “You to say that!” Hoskins’s voice shook with rage. “You who belong to our order! Are you not aware that this vile man you see before you has invented a new and deadly form of gas for use in war. Until he tells me his formula he remains where he is.”

  He turned on Waldron.

  “Speak, you wretch, speak. What is your gas? Tell me, that all the world may know.”

  And somewhere, someone laughed. It came from above their heads, and Veight swung round tensely.

  “Who was that?” he muttered. “Who was that who laughed?”

  “Aye! Who was that who laughed?” cried Hoskins. “There are men, Herr Veight, in this very house who mock at our ideals; who would, if they could, use this man’s foul secret for their own ends. I have heard them talking, but they do not know me. Now, you devil man, will you speak? Or shall I send for another injection?”

  “Send and be damned,” said Waldron weakly. “You wretched traitor to your country.”

  “Country! What is country? It is country that produces war. Go, Veight, and get the doctor. Tell him this man will still not speak.”

  “All right.” Veight’s voice came from the direction of the staircase. “Keep the girl there till I come back.”

  Sick and faint with horror of the thing, she was leaning against the buttress. In front of her the wild-eyed old owner of the house was muttering to himself fanatically; a few feet away Waldron stirred restlessly on his straw. And at that moment a hand touched her shoulder. A scream stillborn died on her lips, for a voice was whispering in her ear out of the darkness behind her.

  “A friend, Doris. Tell Waldron to pretend to give the formula away, and gain time.”

  Then silence, and her brain working overtime. Who was it who had spoken, and how came he there? What she had said to Veight was the literal truth with regard to the man outside. She had awakened in a strange room with the light pouring in at the window, and had naturally gone to look out; no one could have been more genuinely surprised than she had been at his accusation. But now she knew there were men on the watch; knew that someone had actually got into the house—someone who knew her name.

  She pulled herself together: she must act, and act quickly. At any moment Veight might return: somehow she must get the message through to Waldron before then. And suddenly she saw the way. With a little cry she tottered forward and collapsed on the straw as if half fainting. Would the old man suspect?

  Close beside her Waldron tossed and turned, but her eyes were fixed on Hoskins. And to her unspeakable relief he seemed quite oblivious of her at all. He was still pacing up and down talking under his breath, and after a while he walked half-way across the room towards the stairs as if impatient at the delay. She seized the opportunity.

  “Listen,” she whispered urgently. “Can you understand me, Mr. Waldron?”

  His movements ceased; he lay very still.

  “Who are you?” he muttered.

  “A friend,” she said in a low voice. “Help is coming. Pretend to give away your secret. Do you understand? Pretend. Say you will. Gain time.”

  He made no answer; all she could see was the faint outline of his white, twitching face close to her. And then came the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and she rose quickly to her feet again. Had she succeeded? Had she got the message through into that drug-bemused brain?

  Fearfully she peered over her shoulder into the blackness. Of the man who had spoken to her she could see no sign, but she knew he must be there, hiding somewhere.

  “I can’t go on any more.”

  Came Waldron’s voice, weak and quavering, and a thrill of triumph ran through her. He had understood: he was going to do as she had told him.

  “That accursed drug is torture; it’s sending me mad.”

  He babbled on incoherently for a little while, while Veight and Belfage stood beside Hoskins watching him. And then Gregoroff joined them.

  “Are you going to tell us your secret?” said Veight quietly.

  “Secret! The secret of my gas. God! I must have sleep. My brain is going.”

  Again he rambled on, and Veight said something in a low tone to Gregoroff, whilst the girl watched breathlessly.

  “Listen, Waldron,” said Veight, stepping forward on to the straw, “you shall have all the sleep you want once you have told us your formula.”

  “I can’t think,” muttered the other. “I tell you, I can’t think. I must have sleep before I can remember it.”

  Once more Veight and Gregoroff whispered together, and it was Hoskins who spoke next.

  “If w
e let you sleep will you tell us afterwards?”

  “Yes. I will tell you afterwards. But now I must sleep. It is days since I have slept.” His voice rose to a scream. “Keep the rats away. For God’s sake—keep them away! And the horror in the corner. It is waking up.”

  Doris Venables felt her scalp beginning to tingle: something big was stirring on the far side of the dungeon.

  “I am sorry you don’t like the doctor’s pets,” said Veight. “That is only a baboon, but he can be very nasty if he slips his collar. Speak now. You can remember, Waldron.”

  But the only answer was a vague babbling, from which the one word sleep continually emerged.

  “It is better perhaps to let him sleep,” came the soft voice of Cortez who had joined the group. “Marijuana acts this way sometimes. But if when he wakes he does not then speak, he shall sleep for good. How say you, Señor Hoskins?”

  “I will speak when I wake,” said Waldron brokenly. “Only take me from this awful place.”

  “Give him a shot, Doctor,” cried Veight. “We must chance it. And now, young woman, we must decide about you.”

  The girl shrank back. Subconsciously she watched Belfage bending over the man on the ground with a hypodermic syringe in his hand; hazily she wondered if the unknown man would again come to her out of the darkness. And then suddenly she realised that something had happened to distract their attention from her.

  Meredith had appeared, and he was talking excitedly to Veight and Gregoroff. His voice was low, and she could not hear what he said, but it was evidently news of importance.

  “Good.” She heard Veight’s curt voice. “We will see this man at once. There is no time to be lost. Belfage—attend to the girl. And if you mess things up again, I’ll smash you into pulp, you drunken brute.”

  She saw the doctor lurching towards her, and gave a little cry of terror. Surely the unknown would help her; surely… A hand was clapped over her mouth; she felt the prick of a needle in her arm.

  “Carry her upstairs, Gregoroff. We must get down to this at once.”

  She felt herself being picked up by the huge Russian; realised she was passing through the hall where a strange man was standing. Then wave after wave of sleep and oblivion.

  “She’ll do,” said Veight, who had followed her upstairs. “Now mind you don’t say the wrong thing, Gregoroff.”

  The two men went down into the hall, where Meredith was talking to the stranger, while Hoskins with a puzzled look on his face stood by listening.

  “It is ferry important that you should come as soon as may be convenient,” the stranger was saying in the soft voice of the Highlander. “The plans are finished, but for how long Mr. Graham iss intending to remain I cannot tell you.”

  “What plans?” cried Hoskins. “I don’t understand.”

  “The plans of the Graham Caldwell aeroplane,” explained the stranger in some surprise. “Surely you haf heard of it.”

  “It’s this way, Mr. Hoskins,” put in Veight. “We had been intending to keep this as a surprise for you, but this man—by the way, what’s your name?”

  “MacDonald. Angus MacDonald.”

  “But now that MacDonald has come—”

  “You will pardon me—Mr. MacDonald,” said the Highlander.

  Veight bowed ironically.

  “Now that Mister MacDonald has come we can keep it as a surprise no longer. Up in the heart of the Highlands, Mr. Hoskins, a man named Graham Caldwell has been experimenting with an aeroplane of his own invention. It is now perfected, and as an instrument of war it constitutes the most deadly advance in flying the world has yet seen.”

  “That iss so,” agreed the Highlander.

  “It was our intention to give you the plans of this machine as an unexpected present.” He winked surreptitiously at Meredith. “Now, I fear, they will be like the birthday present of more mature years that one chooses for oneself.”

  “How are you going to get them?” asked Hoskins.

  “That will be ferry simple,” said MacDonald. “My cousin, who iss a member of the Key Club, will be there on the spot to help you.”

  “What is the name of your cousin?” asked Meredith.

  “The ferry same as myself.”

  “But the man we have been corresponding with is called MacPherson.”

  “Mister MacPherson is there as well. He too iss a cousin.”

  “So there are two members of the Key Club there,” said Veight.

  “That iss so.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I am continuing my journey to London, where I am a student in the University. I haf been on my holiday in the Highlands.”

  “How did you know of this house?” cried Meredith suspiciously.

  “My cousins told me. I do not know how they knew. And now if you will allow me I will be getting along. I am not a member of the Key Club myself, but I am in sympathy with its wonderful ideals. I wish you all success, gentlemen; it iss a ferry great honour to haf been even such a humble help in such a worthy cause.”

  He bowed, and a few moments later the roar of a motor bicycle outside announced his departure.

  “How the devil did they know of this house?” repeated Meredith. “That sot Belfage, I suppose.”

  “Don’t let’s worry our heads over that,” cried Veight. “Once those plans are in the hands of the British Government we’re done. That is to say, Mr. Hoskins,” he corrected himself hastily, “it is going to be very much harder to get hold of them. So there’s not a moment to be lost.”

  “You are right,” cried Hoskins. “What is your idea?”

  “I suggest that Meredith, Gregoroff and I—”

  “Cortez is coming too,” remarked Meredith quietly, his eyes fixed on Veight.

  “As you please,” said Veight. “I suggest then that the four of us should go at once by car to the north of Scotland and obtain the plans by force if necessary. You and Belfage, Mr. Hoskins, will remain here and obtain from Waldron his secret when he wakes.”

  “Good,” said Hoskins. “I agree. I will go and talk to the doctor now.”

  “And what do you really propose, Mr. Veight?” sneered Meredith as the old man went upstairs.

  “Just what I said—with one exception. Those plans are going to be of twice the value to us if we can keep Graham Caldwell’s mouth shut while we sell them.”

  “How do you suggest doing that?” said Meredith softly.

  “By bringing him and his mechanic here.”

  “Here!”

  “Yes—here. Doped, in a caravan.”

  Meredith stared at him, and then whistled under his breath.

  “By God! that’s an idea,” he said. “In a caravan.”

  “When we’ve got ’em here we can foist off any yarn on the old fool. He’ll look after them, leaving us free to sell in the best market. We’ll stop in York or some big place on the way through and hire the machine.”

  “I’m on,” cried Meredith. “And I’ll vouch for Cortez. When do we start?”

  “At once,” said Veight.

  “I’ll get him. But don’t forget one thing, Veight: no funny stuff.”

  “How the hell can there be any funny stuff, you damned fool? We’re all in it together, aren’t we? I’m not asking you to walk, am I? You’re yellow, Meredith: plain yellow. Go and get Cortez. If we drive in turn we should be there by dark tonight even with the caravan. We’ll have to fix the aeroplane for ourselves when we come back,” he said to Gregoroff, as Meredith disappeared scowling. “And if ever I get that scum where he ought to be,” he added softly, “may the Lord have mercy on his soul.”

  CHAPTER XIII

  For mile after mile the road stretches like a white ribbon over the high ground that lies between Lairg and Altnaharra. It is a narrow road with passing places every few hundred yards, and save for the inn at Crask no house exists. Occasionally a fisherman going north to Tongue passes in his car and is gone; once a day the mail van performs its allotted ta
sk.

  On each side of the road the ground is flat and green. Tiny streams intersect it, making big patches of bog. But parts of it are hard and even: suitable for the landing of an aeroplane. And it was on such a spot that there stood two buildings and a tent. The buildings were obviously improvised. One was a small tin shanty and it was erected close to the tent. The other was much larger and had been placed some two hundred yards away. Beside the tent a dilapidated motorcar was standing, and a rough track leading to the road a quarter of a mile away showed how it had got there. On the front seat an Aberdeen drowsed peacefully, save for a periodical search for an elusive flea. But except for the dog there was no sign of life in the little encampment.

  In the short northern night though it was well after ten it was still light enough to read. But the man who lay motionless on the small hill that rose half-way between the tent and the road was otherwise occupied. His eye was glued to a telescope, and the telescope was focused on the place, five miles away, where the road going south to Lairg dipped over the horizon and disappeared.

  After a while he shifted his position to ease his stiffness, and glancing round he frowned. Black clouds were gathering over Ben Kilbreck, and rain would not improve his vigil. Not only would it increase his discomfort, but it would decrease the visibility during the half-hour of light that still remained.

  For two hours nothing had passed. Save for the harsh call of a grouse, and the faint murmur of the coffee-brown stream that gurgled softly over the stones by the bridge under the road, no sound had broken the stillness. But the man, being a Highlander born and bred, was used to such conditions. He was in his element, though it would have made a townsman fidget.

  Suddenly he gave a little grunt of satisfaction: coming over the rise was a motor-car towing a caravan. His watch was over, and shutting the telescope with a snap he rose to his feet. Then, with a final glance at the tent and huts, he walked slowly down to the bridge on the road.

  It would be at least ten minutes before the car could get there, and he lit a cigarette, his features showing clearly in the light of the match. And to a student of physiognomy his face was an interesting one. His eyes were very blue, with the network of tiny wrinkles round them which mark an open-air life. But their expression betokened the thinker, and the firm mouth and chin denoted the man of purpose as well. No dreamer, this, even if he was an idealist.