Female of the Species

by Sapper

  “He’s right, Ted; perfectly right,” said Darrell unwillingly. “I wish he wasn’t; but he is.”

  “So I shall rig up Toby and Dixon tomorrow, and they will go to some pub in Amesbury.”

  “What’s your own game, Hugh?” said Algy.

  “That, old boy, you will know in due course. For the time being I think it’s best that none of you should know. It’s going to be touch and go – this show – and I’d sooner have an absolutely free hand. And, finally, don’t forget the old Froth Blower’s dirge. Twice for danger.”

  “Froth Blower’s?” I asked. “Is that the thing I’ve heard you singing?”

  “Laddie,” laughed Drummond, “you can’t be real. When peace comes your education shall be taken in hand. Now is all clear?”

  “Absolutely,” said Darrell.

  “Then a long night in, chaps. We’ll want all we can get in the sleep line. And one other thing. If you want to get me, drop a line to John Bright at the Post Office, Amesbury.”

  They went casually with a nod and a grin – did the other three; demonstrativeness was not a characteristic of this crowd. But when they’d gone, Drummond sat for some time staring in front of him with his beer untasted on the table at his side. And at last he rose with a grunt.

  “Come on; bed. I hope to Heaven they’ll be all right in London.”

  He showed me to my room, where a pair of his pyjamas had been laid out.

  “Hope they won’t be too small,” he said with a grin. Then he paused by the door. “Deuced good of you and all that, Dixon, to mix yourself up in this show. Though, ’pon my soul, I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

  And, astounding though it may seem, I can recall no remark made to me in my life that has occasioned me greater pleasure. Whether it had anything to do with it, I don’t know, but certain it is that no sooner had my head touched the pillow than I was asleep. And the next thing I knew was his servant shaking me by the shoulder the next morning.

  “Nine o’clock, sir,” he said. “And the Captain would like you to come along to the music-room as soon as you’ve had your bath.”

  The music-room appeared to be so-called because there was no trace of any musical instrument in it. It resembled nothing so much as an old-clothes shop. Suits of all sorts and descriptions littered the floor; wigs, false hair and the usual make-up appliances were on the table.

  Drummond was standing in the middle with two complete strangers by him. One of them was obviously of the hairdresser type; the other was an elderly man of scholastic appearance.

  “Morning, Dixon,” said Drummond. “Now, Albert, there you are. What are we to do with him? A minimum on his face, because he’s not used to it.”

  The hairdresser man eyed me critically.

  “I thought a moustache,” went on Drummond. “And glasses. For Mr Seymour. Don’t forget Dixon – Fred Seymour.”

  “Can’t we dispense with the moustache?” I said. “It’s certain to fall off at the wrong moment.”

  “Not as I shall fix it, sir,” said the hairdresser in a pained voice. “Will you kindly take a seat here?”

  “Who is the old bloke?” I whispered to Drummond as I passed him.

  “My dear fellow,” he cried, “excuse me. I quite forgot. This is a very old friend of mine – Professor Stanton – Mr Dixon. He’s come to give Toby some advice on butterflies.”

  “A fascinating hobby, Mr Dixon,” remarked the Professor, and I stared at him in amazement. Surely I knew that voice.

  “Great Scott,” I muttered. “It’s you, Sinclair.”

  They all laughed.

  “What an amazing disguise,” I cried. “But for your voice I’d never have known you.”

  “And under the ministrations of the excellent Albert the result will be the same in your case,” remarked Drummond. “The whole essence of disguise, Dixon, is to make it as simple as possible, and therefore as unnoticeable.”

  He was watching Albert’s efforts as he spoke.

  “Most people are extraordinarily unobservant,” he went on. “If you wear different clothes from usual, alter your walk a little, and put on a pair of dark spectacles, you’ll pass nine people out of ten that you know in the street without being recognised. Whereas if you wear a large red nose and fungus all over your face, you may not be recognised, but you’ll certainly be noticed. And once you’re noticed the danger begins. Albert, I think a respectable bank clerk of about thirty-five is what we want.”

  He began rummaging in the pile of clothes.

  “We’ll give you a rather badly cut suit of plus fours, and a cap. Horn-rimmed spectacles, Albert. Now let’s have a look at him.”

  The three of them stared at me critically.

  “Get into these clothes,” said Drummond. “I can’t be sure till you’re out of that dressing-gown.”

  I contemplated the garments with distaste.

  “I suppose there are people who wear things like that,” I remarked, “or nobody would make them.”

  “It’s a misfit,” he said. “I bought a dozen of ’em once, and that’s about the last. Don’t mind if your stockings come down a bit; it helps the effect. Yes, Albert: that will do.”

  “I think so, sir,” said Albert complacently, and at that moment I saw myself in the glass.

  The shock was ghastly, but at the same time I was forced to admit that the result was amazing. I do not look at my face more often than necessary as a general rule, it shakes me too badly to see it. But the reflection that confronted me as I stood there was that of a complete stranger. Moreover, it was true to type. I had seen hundreds of similar examples at the seaside during August, or on char-à-banc trips.

  “Then that’s finished,” said Drummond. “Now the only pub, as far as I can make out, is the Amesbury Castle. I think you’d better arrive separately, and you can strike up an acquaintance afterwards.”

  He smiled suddenly and held out his hand.

  “Thank you, Dixon; I’ll take charge of that.”

  “Charge of what?” I said blankly.

  “Blokes dressed like you, old boy, do not use expensive gold and platinum cigarette-cases with Asprey written all over ’em. We’ll put that in my safe, and here is a tasty little thing in leather. Nor, laddie, do most bank clerks smoke Balkan Sobranis, I suggest the perfectly good yellow packet…”

  “I loathe Virginian cigarettes,” I groaned.

  “Well,” he conceded, “you may smoke cheap Turkish if you like. But a Balkan Sobrani would shout aloud to heaven. Anything more, Toby?”

  “Nothing, I think, Hugh. We aren’t to know you, are we?”

  Drummond smiled.

  “You won’t know me, Toby,” he said quietly. “All you’ve got to do is to keep your mouths shut, and your eyes open – and if you want me, John Bright at the Post Office finds me. If I want you I’ll let you know.”

  He grinned again.

  “So long, boys. Leave the house by the back door separately, and for Heaven’s sake, Dixon, try not to appear self-conscious. Be a city clerk: don’t only look it.”

  Which was a policy of excellence, but not quite so easy as it sounded. As I walked along Berkeley Street, I felt that everybody was looking at me. And when I ran straight into a woman I knew opposite the Ritz, I instinctively lifted my cap. She stared at me in blank surprise, and I dodged down Arlington Street to recover. Ass that I was – giving myself away at the very first moment. But after a while confidence began to return. I realised that though Joe Dixon would have caused a mild sensation garbed as I was – Fred Seymour caused none at all. And I further realised that if I as Joe Dixon had met me as Fred Seymour, I should have paid no attention to me. Fred Seymour was just one of a numerous type – no more conspicuous than any other individual of that type. The truth of Drummond’s remark about the red nose was obvious. I was just an inconspicuous unit amongst thousands of others.

  And so, as I say, gradually my confidence returned. I walked normally, and to test myself I determined to
pass the commissionaire outside my club. I looked him straight in the face: he returned the look without a sign of recognition. And he on an average must see me five hundred times a year.

  A sudden thought struck me: I had no baggage. For a while I debated between the rival merits of a rucksack and a hand-bag, deciding finally on the former. Then I bought a couple of shirts and some socks, and thus equipped, I made my way to Paddington. The last phase of the game, though I little knew it, had begun.

  Chapter 11

  In which I go to Friar’s Heel by day

  Up to this point the telling of my story has been easy, even if the manner of the telling has been crude and poor. But from now on it becomes more difficult. Things happened quickly, and we were all of us scattered in a way we had not been before. In fact, for the greater part of the time, the only member of the bunch who I was able to talk to was Toby Sinclair. But I will do my best to make clear the happenings that led up to that last astounding denouement, which even now seems like some fantastic nightmare to me. And if some of those happenings are boring, I can only crave pardon, and assure my readers that it is necessary to write of them, for the proper understanding of what is to follow.

  I arrived then, at the Amesbury Castle in time for a late lunch. It was a typical hotel of the English country town, relying more, I should imagine, on lunches and dinners to pay its way, than on people taking a bed. The food was of that grim nature which one associates with hotels of the type – plain and tough. An aged waiter, with most of yesterday’s ration on his shirt front, presided over the dining-room, and looked at me in a pained way as I came in.

  “Very late, sir,” he remarked.

  “And I am very hungry,” I answered cheerfully.

  He polished a menu card morosely on his trousers.

  “Mutton hoff,” he said. “Beef, ’am, tongue – and pertaters. Been a run on the mutton today,” he added confidentially.

  I gazed at the flies making a run on the beef and decided on ham and tongue.

  “Many people staying here?” I asked.

  “Full up for lunch,” he said. “And the hotel be fairly full, too. A bunch of people came last night. Lumme! ’ere’s another.”

  I glanced at the door to see Toby Sinclair coming in.

  “Splendid,” he cried, in a high voice that nearly made me laugh. “Food, waiter, for the inner man, and then to resume my search. Tell me, have you seen a Bragmatobia fuliginosa?”

  The waiter recoiled a step.

  “A’ow much?” he demanded. “There’s beef, ’am, tongue and pertaters.”

  “And only this morning,” went on Toby, “I am convinced I perceived a Psecadia pusiella. Members, my dear sir,” he said to me, “of the great family of lepidoptera. In other words butterflies.”

  “Beef, ’am or tongue,” said the waiter resignedly. “The mutton’s hoff.”

  “Ham, waiter, with a fragment of chutney. You are, sir,” he turned again to me, “on a walking tour perhaps?”

  “That is my idea,” I said. “But I propose to make this hotel my headquarters.”

  “You may possibly care to come out with me once or twice. My name is Stanton – Professor Stanton.”

  “Mine is Seymour,” I told him.

  “Well, Mr Seymour–” He broke off suddenly. “Waiter, I asked for ham and chutney, not the mummified sole of a shoe covered with glue.”

  “The tongue is worse,” said the waiter drearily. “And that there chutney has been here two years to my certain knowledge.”

  “As far as I am concerned it will remain for another two years. Give me some bread and cheese. Dixon,” he said to me urgently, as the waiter left the room, “there’s a man in the lounge outside I want you to have a look at. I only got a glimpse of him that night at the Mere, but I believe it’s the bloke who was with the woman. Anyway he’s got his hand bandaged up. No, Mr Seymour, a life-time is all too short for my entrancing hobby. Bless me! waiter, I think this cheese must have been here for two years also. Get me a pint of ale, will you. Yes, sir – a life-time is too short. Nevertheless I hope to capture the Cyligramma fluctuosa before I die. Are you doing anything this afternoon?”

  “I thought of going over to Stonehenge,” I remarked.

  He nodded.

  “We’ll go over to Stonehenge. I wonder if one can hire a car.”

  And at that moment a man passed through the lounge. He looked in at the door, gave us both a casual glance and then disappeared.

  “It is certainly our friend of the Mere,” I said. “I’d know him anywhere. Now what the devil is he doing here?”

  “Why shouldn’t he be here?” said Toby. “This is the centre of activity at the moment.”

  “It may be,” I agreed. “But don’t forget that Darrell and Co. know him just as well as we do, and they might come at any moment, as far as the enemy knows.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “Still, their intelligence work is probably good. We’ve got to watch him, Dixon. Waiter,” he called out, “is it possible to hire a motorcar? Mr Seymour and I were thinking of visiting Stonehenge.”

  “There be a Ford down at the garage,” answered the waiter. “You might be able to get ’old of that if no one else ain’t already. Be you staying ’ere or do you want the bill?”

  “Staying,” said Toby. “Room 23. Well, Mr Seymour, shall we go and see about this Ford? I have an idea that I might perhaps see a Cerostoma asperella if my luck is in. Ah! pardon, sir – pardon.”

  He had bumped into a man just outside the door – the man we had both recognised.

  “I trust I have not hurt your hand at all,” he went on earnestly. “So clumsy of me.”

  The man muttered something and sheered off, whilst I followed Sinclair into the street.

  “The gentleman was suspiciously close to the door, Dixon,” he said quietly.

  “Still, I don’t think he suspected us,” I answered.

  “Not as us, perhaps. But I think the whole bunch of them suspect everybody. When you boil down to it, they’re tackling a pretty dangerous proposition. If the police did get hold of them, abduction and attempted murder form a nasty charge.”

  “That is the very point that has occurred once or twice to me,” I said. “One can understand the lady risking it: she has the best of motives – revenge. But I’m blowed if I see where these other fellows come in. There’s no question of revenge with them. So what the devil are they doing it for?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Money. I’m told that in Chicago you can hire a gunman for a dollar. And I haven’t the very smallest doubt that you can do the same in England, if you know where to look. We heard that bloke at the Mere mention two hundred pounds. And there are scores of swine who would murder their mothers for that. Good Lord!”

  His voice changed suddenly to that of the Professor.

  “And so, my dear Seymour, if we can get this car I will try and show you some of those beauties of nature which I feel sure are as yet quite unsuspected by you.”

  A man brushed past, favouring us both with a penetrating stare.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, when he was out of earshot.

  “Just for a moment I thought the dead had come to life,” said Sinclair. “You saw that man who passed us?”

  “That thin-lipped blighter who stared? Yes: I saw him. Is he one of them?”

  “I haven’t a notion,” he remarked. “Look here, I’m just going to drop a line to Hugh, and I’ll tell you the rest when we get in the car. Here’s the garage.”

  The Ford turned out to be available, and I got in and waited for Sinclair, who was scribbling a note in the office.

  “We’ll post it in some pillar-box as we go out,” he said as he joined me. “Better than leaving it at the main Post Office. Stonehenge, please, driver.”

  “What did you say?” I asked, when we’d started.

  “I told him about the man at the pub,” he answered. “And also about that other bloke. Of course there may b
e nothing in it, but the likeness is really so astounding to a man we once had dealings with, and who was one of the leaders of this very gang, that for a moment I thought it was him.”

  “Is there any reason why it shouldn’t be?”

  “Every reason. He died most substantially three or four years ago. Hugh killed him.”

  He grinned suddenly.

  “Of course this is all Greek to you, so I’ll tell you about it. When we first bumped into Carl Peterson – now defunct, and the lady you saw at the Mere, it was at the instigation of Mrs Drummond – before she was Mrs Drummond. It’s altogether too long a story to tell you the whole thing; but in a nutshell, they were engaged in a foul criminal plot. Assisting them was one of the biggest swine it has ever been my misfortune to run into – a man called Henry Lakington. He was a mixture of chemist, doctor, thief, murderer and utter blackguard. But clever – damned clever. He wasn’t as big a man as Peterson, because he hadn’t got the vision – but he was a far more ineffable swab. Peterson, at any rate, at times had the saving sense of humour: this man had none. And in the course of our little contest Drummond fought him and killed him. It was one or the other, and that’s a bit dangerous for the other, if the one is Hugh. Now that man who passed us is the living spit of Henry Lakington; he might be – and for all I know is – his twin brother. And the coincidence struck me as so peculiar that I thought I’d mention it to Hugh. Of course, there’s probably nothing in it.”

  “You are convinced,” I said, “that this man Lakington was killed.”

  “Absolutely certain of it,” he answered. “On that point there’s not a shadow of doubt. But if there’s anything in the theory that certain types of mentality have certain types of faces, that man would steal the bird seed from a pet canary’s beak. Hullo! here we are.”

  It was years since I had been to Stonehenge, and emphatically the impressiveness of the ruin had not been increased by the military buildings that had sprung up around it. Equally emphatically the difficulty of playing any monkey tricks there, either by day or night, had considerably increased.

  At the time we arrived several empty char-à-bancs were standing on the road, and crowds of trippers were wandering round the huge stones escorted by guides. And having paid our modest entrance fee we joined a group.