The Return Of Bulldog Drummond

by Sapper

  He poured her out another glass of port.

  “Take it easy, kid,” he said, “and try and forget it. It’s not much longer now.”

  “Nothing would induce me to go down there again, Tom,” she cried.

  “There’s no reason why you should, honey,” he assured her. “And if it was an elemental, or whatever you said, which sends people mad, it might save us a lot of trouble. I did a bit of good work at dinner tonight, after you’d left us.”

  “I never quite got who the man was,” she said, pulling herself together with an effort.

  “A guy from the City who has been doing some fishing near by. He was motoring back to London when he saw us working outside and stopped to look.”

  “And you asked him to dinner on that! You must be plumb crazy.”

  “Easy, honey: easy. Where’s the harm in asking him to dinner? Where’s the harm in asking the whole world to dinner? Ain’t we all straight and above-board in this outfit? There’s nothing we mind anybody seeing.”

  “I’m getting nervy, Tom,” she said. “I wish to God it was all over.”

  “It’s this darned ghost has got you, dearie: don’t you think about it. But listen here, kid: I’m telling you about dinner. This Hetterbury guy suddenly starts talking about Peruvian Eagles. Of course I know nothing about them: buried down here in my work and all that sort of bunk. So he tells me the whole story, and says that nobody in London can make out what Sir Edward is up to. That gives me my cue, and I flatter myself I took it well. Brought you into it: said that you had mentioned to me one day that you thought he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It’s the thin end of the wedge: you mark my words. I told him to be sure he didn’t mention my name as having said so, but it will be all over London to-morrow. What are you staring at, honey?”

  “I thought I saw something move in those bushes out there, Tom,” she cried.

  The man went to the window and stared out. The light had almost gone, and for a moment it seemed to him also as if some dark object flitted through the undergrowth. Then all was still again.

  “Tom – is it absolutely necessary? Must it be done?”

  He swung round angrily: she was still sitting at the table.

  “Of course it must be done,” he said harshly. “You don’t want to spend the next few years of your life in prison, do you? To say nothing of losing every dime we’ve made. You’re crazy – there’s no risk. Haven’t we planned out every detail? Let ’em suspect what they like: they can’t prove anything. There, there, honey,” he went on soothingly, laying his hand on her shoulder, “you’re rattled tonight. This ghost business has upset you. We’ve just got the other big coup to pull off, and then we’ll beat it.”

  “You got the radio from Gardini?”

  “Sure. The boys were getting busy in London today. Now you get off to bed: I’m just going along to see that his nibs is all right.”

  Obediently she left the room, and for a while he sat on smoking. There were times when the amazing success of their plan up to date almost staggered him. Everything had worked literally without a hitch, and the results had exceeded their wildest expectations. And now two more days would see the whole thing through, with another enormous sum of money to their credit.

  He ran over every detail in his mind since the commencement of the plot in Baden, and as a connoisseur he found no flaw save one – the butting in of those three damned young Englishmen on the night they had murdered Marton. And yet even that did not really spoil his appreciation of their scheme, because it had been in the nature of a fluke. The expert card-player whose plan is temporarily endangered by some card, led for no reason at all by a fourth-rate performer, does not feel that his reputation has suffered. And the steps they had at once taken to euchre this man Drummond had proved amply sufficient. In fact, he was sadly disappointed in him after all that Natalie had said. A large bovine type of great strength undoubtedly, but an unworthy opponent for a man of brains.

  He refilled his glass, sipping the wine appreciatively, as became a man who in future would be able to afford a good cellar. Then his thoughts returned to the past few weeks, and this time to the film itself. How amusing it would be later on to go and see it with his inside knowledge of what it had served to cover. To be able to say to himself at the psychological moment, “There under your noses, my dear audience, is one of the master crimes of the century being carried out and you don’t know it.”

  Again he lifted the decanter: it seemed a pity not to finish it. There was no hurry, and the port was undoubtedly good. So good, in fact, that, having discovered another bottle in the sideboard, it was a full hour before he finally rose from the table. And had anyone been present to see his exit from the room he would have had to admit that Mr Hardcastle’s progress to the door did not exactly conform to Euclid’s definition of a straight line.

  Not that he was drunk: it took him only two attempts to find the nobs in the woodwork which operated the secret panel in the hall. But there was no denying that he was in a condition which is variously known as “slightly oiled” or “one over the eight.”

  The passage was narrow, and he took each side impartially as he walked along it, his torch throwing a beam of light in front of him. And at length he came to some steps leading off it, at the top of which he paused for a moment with an evil smile on his face. The wine had brought out all the bully in his nature, and he was proposing to enjoy himself.

  He went down the steps and opened the door at the bottom. Then, swaying slightly, he gave a drunken chuckle as he contemplated the man lying bound and gagged on the bed with his back towards him.

  “Are you awake, Sir Edward?” he said thickly, and a slight movement showed that he was.

  “All right: don’t answer. I don’t care. All the same to me. But I’m going to have a little chat with you. That’s what I came for, you damned old fool.”

  He lit a cigarette and sat down on the only chair.

  “Had a gentleman asking about you this evening. Hetter… Hetter…forgotten his name. Doesn’t matter. Big noise in the City. He couldn’t understand about Peruvian Eagles: nobody in London can understand. Why should you lose so much money? Course I didn’t tell him it was so that we could make it: he might have thought that a little peculiar. So I told him what I thought: that you’d suddenly gone loopy. Nervous breakdown. Sending orders from yachts to sell when you meant to buy! Shocking error of judgment, my boy: quite shocking. And this next one is worse. What the poor old stockbrokers in London will say when they get your instructions over Robitos I shudder to think.”

  No reply came from the man on the bed, and Hardcastle gave an ugly laugh.

  “Still struck dumb, are you? I’ll give you something to make you think, you fool. What d’you suppose is going to be the end of this? You’ve got the plot up to date – haven’t you? – but you don’t know what’s to come. Well, I’ll tell you. When we’ve skinned you over Robitos the yacht will come in to Plymouth again. I shall meet her there, and to my amazement I shall find out that you are not on board. Pretty good that bit, isn’t it? You can think of me registering amazement, with Gardini doing the same thing. He thought, you see, that there was some deep motive behind your orders to him. By the way, have I ever told you what your orders were? You told Gardini to go for a cruise, and to let it be understood if anyone sent a radio that you were with him on board. You also gave him instructions as to what to do about Perus and Robitos, which was devilish considerate of you, my dear fellow. He thought they were a bit rum at the time, but, being a model secretary, he dutifully carried them out. All right so far, isn’t it? But now, though, comes the point – where are you? Where is the great Sir Edward Greatorex? Not on board the yacht: not anywhere. Tremendous hue and cry started by me. And what do you think is the answer? You’ve been suffering from loss of memory, brought on by a nervous breakdown. You’ve been wandering, a
nd one night you unexpectedly turn up here, still in a strange condition. Doctors, specialists, bone-setters, dentists – I’ll get the whole outfit – are wired for: the great Sir Edward has reappeared. And then a terrible thing takes place. Unknown to us, you go out for a walk before going to bed. Suddenly from Grimstone Mire there comes a scream of mortal terror. We rush horrified to the scene: a slight tremor in that treacherous bog is all that remains of the great financier. The doctors, specialists, bone-setters, dentists are all too late. Pretty good, don’t you think?”

  Still no word came from the other, and with a snarl of rage Hardcastle leaned forward.

  “You’re going to die, damn you: do you understand that?”

  And then suddenly he became conscious of something else – something that brought the sweat out on his forehead. A strange, fetid smell was filling the room. He had forgotten about the ghost, and now it came back with a rush to his mind. He tried to turn round and could not: he knew that some appalling thing was in the room just behind him. And at last, with a croak of terror, he looked over his shoulder.

  A monstrous black object was between him and the door, and Hardcastle, screaming with fear, backed against the wall. It slithered nearer him, and he clawed at the brickwork with his fingers in a frantic endeavour to escape. Nearer – still nearer it came, till the stench was overpowering. And then it sprang: seemed completely to envelop him. He was conscious of a vice-like grip round his throat, there came a roaring in his ears: then – oblivion.

  When he came to himself he was lying huddled up on the floor. His torch was beginning to grow dim, but of the ghostly visitor there was no trace, save a faint smell which lingered in the air. On the bed Sir Edward still lay motionless, and once again the same overmastering terror gripped him. Suppose it returned.

  He scrambled to his feet, and seizing the torch, rushed blindly along the passage. Not until he was in the main part of the house would he feel safe, and as he fumbled with the secret door he kept glancing behind him in an agony of fear. At last he stumbled into the hall, and slammed the panel behind him.

  The time was four o’clock: dawn had come. For five hours he had been lying unconscious. He walked shakily to the dining-room, and with a trembling hand poured himself out a glass of neat whisky. He gulped it down, and felt a little better.

  Five hours! But what had it been – that ghastly foul-smelling black horror? He rubbed his neck gingerly: there had been nothing ghostly about the grip round his throat.

  The window was still open, and he stepped through it on to the lawn. Bed was out of the question, and after a while, as he paced up and down in the cool morning air, he began to feel calmer. When all was said and done, save for a stiff neck he was none the worse for his terrible experience.

  Suddenly he paused, staring over the moor. There was a column of dust in the distance, and even as he watched it a motorcar breasted a rise. It was moving fast from the direction of London, and he wondered idly who could be out at such an hour. And then, to his surprise, it swung off the road, and came up the drive towards him. He walked round to the front door, and to his amazement found that Penton and Slingsby were the occupants. Their faces were haggard, and with a queer feeling of foreboding he greeted them.

  “Hullo! boys,” he cried. “What brings you here?”

  “There’s something up,” said Penton. “Something damned queer. Or else Gardini has double-crossed us.”

  “What do you mean?” snarled Hardcastle. “How could he?”

  “The markets are all going crazy: just exactly the opposite to his instructions.”

  “Over Robitos?”

  The other nodded, and walked into the house.

  “Where’s the whisky? we need one.”

  “You haven’t lost?”

  “Every penny we made over Perus, and a wad more besides.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Yesterday. Something started the rot in the afternoon. It’s all up, Tom, as far as the boodle is concerned.”

  “But what can have started it?”

  “Search me,” cried Penton. “Jake and I have been trying to get at it the whole way down. Anyway, we’ve got to clear.”

  “Clear out?” shouted Hardcastle. “Why?”

  “Because we can’t go near meeting our liabilities,” answered the other. “And that means an investigation, which I guess we daren’t risk. The point is – what are we going to do with him?”

  He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder towards the secret passage.

  “Do with him,” said Hardcastle grimly. “There’s only one thing we can do with him, unless we want prison. And that’s what we intended.”

  The other two nodded.

  “There’s no time to be lost,” grunted Penton. “I’ll get him now. We’ll steer him down through the trees. There’s no one about.”

  He left the room, whilst the other two helped themselves again to whisky.

  “I don’t like it,” muttered Slingsby uneasily.

  “What I don’t like,” cried Hardcastle, “is losing the dough. All this damned business for nothing. You must have been crazy, you two. Suffering Pete! what’s that?”

  From the hall had come a bellow of rage, and the next instant Penton burst into the room. He was almost inarticulate, and the veins were standing out on his forehead as he made for Hardcastle.

  “You blasted crook,” he said thickly, “what’s your game?”

  The other stared at him in amazement.

  “What are you getting at?” he cried.

  “Come and look in the hall.”

  The three of them crowded through the door. Lying on the floor was the bound-and-gagged body of a man. But it was not Sir Edward Greatorex: it was the understudy Travers.

  For a while Hardcastle stared at him foolishly.

  “What under the sun does it mean?” he muttered. “Where’s Sir Edward?”

  “Where indeed?” came an amiable voice from the front door, and they all swung round. Drummond, with a cheerful grin on his face, was standing there, with Darrell and Jerningham behind him.

  “Strong liquor at this hour!” he said reprovingly. “Terrible, polluting the dawn like this. And have we had a nice run from London?”

  “Get out, damn you!” snarled Hardcastle, “or I’ll have you gaoled for trespassing.”

  “The English law of trespass is a very intricate one, my dear sir,” answered Drummond. “Dear me,” he continued commiseratingly, “I fear your neck is hurting you. Try some arnica. No! Well, it’s your neck. However, to return to what you were discussing when I arrived – where is Sir Edward?”

  The three men stared at him, with dawning fear in their eyes.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Hardcastle at length.

  “You pain me, Tom: positively pain me. Here am I taking a walk in the coolth of the morning, and your conversation descends to that level. But tell me – why is this poor fellow on the floor all bound up? More film work? Ah, good morning, Comtessa. We’re having an awfully jolly little party.”

  With a wrap over her pyjamas, the Comtessa was coming down the stairs. She gave a start of surprise as she saw Travers on the floor: then, with an air of calmness that did her credit, she turned to Hardcastle:

  “What’s it all mean, Tom?”

  “It means, Comtessa,” said Drummond quietly, “that the game is up. Sir Edward Greatorex arrived in London early yesterday afternoon – a fact which may help Mr Penton and Mr Slingsby to understand the failure of their financial operations.”

  “Have we got you to thank for this?” said Hardcastle thickly.

  “You have, Tom,” answered Drummond affably. “I owed you something for that little episode at the studio, didn’t I? And as far as I am concerned my debt is paid. But I fear you will not
find the same happy state of affairs with regard to Sir Edward, who is just about as wild as I have ever seen a man in my life. Still, I believe our prisons are very comfortable, even if the diet is a little monotonous. Well, I will say au revoir: we shall doubtless meet again at the trial. And, by the way, if you should find a large black cloak, smelling strongly of that stinking bog, lying about anywhere, you may keep it: it has served its purpose. I think we may say that the second ghost was quite as successful as the first.”

  Chapter 11

  “So they’ve got the lot except Irma. I never thought they’d catch her.”

  Hugh Drummond threw down the evening paper and lit a cigarette. It was after dinner the same day, and they were all in the smoking-room at Merridale Hall, with Mr Joseph Hetterbury an interested listener.

  “’Pon my soul,” he continued, “if it hadn’t been for that brutal murder of young Marton I wish they’d got away with it: it was a deuced clever idea – carrying out a real crime under the cover of the same crime on the film.”

  “I’m still very much in the dark,” said Hetterbury.

  Drummond grinned.

  “So was I for a long while, though I ought to have tumbled to it when I spotted Marton’s extraordinary resemblance to Sir Edward, and that young blighter Travers as well. Were they going to take all that trouble merely to provide an understudy for a film, especially before they knew whether Sir Edward could act or not? Now you know the plot of the film roughly, and, from what you’ve told me, Hardcastle gave you some more details. A millionaire is kidnapped, and while he is held prisoner on board a yacht his enemies so manipulate the markets by means of information purporting to come from him that they make a pot of money. Thus the film, and thus what they proposed to do in real life, with only one difference – the yacht. In a film it was easy to have all the yacht’s crew villains as Hardcastle said: in real life it was impossible. Something else would have to be thought of. And don’t forget that the film was going to be taken quite genuinely: the cameramen, the producer, were all absolutely honest. So the problem they had to face was how to make Sir Edward a prisoner under the very noses of a bunch of people who were not in the plot, and then hide him in a place where no one would dream of looking for him.