Knock Out

by Sapper

  “I think Scotland Yard should be told all we know,” said Darrell decidedly. “I quite see that they can’t act on Daphne’s unsupported statement, and we haven’t a vestige of proof beyond that that Pendleton and that woman ever went near Ardington or knew anything about it. And since they’re both dead we can never find out. But in view of the fact that we know some crime is premeditated early this week, we should be grossly to blame if we didn’t pass on to the police that vital piece of information which, as you say, Hugh, links up the two things.”

  “Right,” said Drummond. “I’ll go down myself at once. Wait here till I get back.”

  He returned an hour later.

  “It’s electrified ’em all right,” he remarked. “As we surmised, they can’t take any action, though Daly and Legrange from now on are marked men. But the trouble is that though they’ve been combing the country since our information of a week ago for Demonico he has completely disappeared. Another thing I gathered was this: they do not think that Legrange, at any rate, would lend himself to such an abominable crime as the Ardington one. Of Daly they’re not quite so sure, but it is Demonico they believe is responsible.”

  “So they accepted Daphne’s evidence,” said Darrell.

  “Absolutely: they saw the vital importance of the fact that she mentioned Ardington to you and the time, before it happened. By the way, Miss Frensham, they may want to hear it direct from you: if so, they’ll let you know.”

  “I can go at any time they want,” said the girl.

  “And in the meantime they seem to think there is nothing more to be done. To cross-examine Legrange or Daly would be useless: even with your evidence, my dear, there is nothing to connect either of them with the accident. They were all members of the same syndicate – true – but that’s not an offence. So, for the present, the order of the day is wait and see, and all one can hope is that we shan’t see some other ghastly crime like Ardington. Are you looking for me, boy?”

  A page came up to the table.

  “Captain Drummond, sir?”

  “That’s me,” said Drummond.

  “Wanted on the telephone, sir: either you or Mr Darrell. Gentleman name of Mr Leyton.”

  Drummond jumped to his feet, his eyes gleaming.

  “By Jove! Peter, it might be news of Standish.”

  He returned a few minutes later, not quite so jubilant.

  “He recovered consciousness for a few moments about an hour ago, and seemed to recognise Leyton. He didn’t say anything, but he gave a faint smile. Leyton spoke to him, but he didn’t answer, though he seemed to try to. And now he’s relapsed again. But apparently the doctor thinks he may come to properly at any time now, and Leyton suggests we should go down there at once in case he does.”

  “I’m with you, old boy,” said Darrell.

  “Even if he still can’t speak he might be able to decode that message,” cried Drummond. “I think we ought to push off immediately, Peter. Will you be all right, my dear?”

  “My good man, you don’t imagine I’m going to be out of this hunt, do you? I’m coming too. I won’t be in the way, I promise.”

  The two men grinned.

  “Emphatically one of us, Peter,” said Drummond. “Come along, bless you.”

  Midnight found them at the hospital, where Bill Leyton met them.

  “No luck so far,” he said, “though the doctor says that his condition now is more nearly natural sleep than it was. But he holds out no hopes for the near future.”

  They waited all that night, taking it in turns to sit by the bedside. They waited all the next day, walking feverishly about the room whilst Standish lay there, his eyes closed, breathing easily and quietly.

  “Under no circumstances must any attempt be made to awaken him.”

  Those were the doctor’s strict orders, and Drummond, gnawing his fingers, stood by the window watching the daylight gradually fade. In the room Darrell and Leyton were pretending to play piquet, but any devotee of that magnificent game might well have failed to recognise it. And then quite suddenly the girl who was watching Standish spoke.

  “Peter, he’s awake.”

  In an instant the three men were by the bed. That Standish knew them was obvious: he looked at each of them in turn and grinned feebly.

  “How are you feeling, old man?” said Drummond.

  But though the sick man’s lips moved no sound came from them.

  “Can you hear what we say, Ronald?” asked Leyton.

  The other gave a barely perceptible nod.

  “Listen, Standish,” said Drummond quietly. “I wouldn’t worry you, old son, but it’s urgent. If I got you a pencil and paper do you think you could decode a message in that cipher?”

  Gradually, like a very old man, Standish moved his right arm as if to try it: then he nodded. It took him some time to get the pencil in his hand, but at last he succeeded and with the block in front of him he began to write.

  “Here’s the message,” said Drummond, but Standish shook his head, and the three men crowded round him. It was hardly possible to read what he had written, but at last they managed to.

  “What is the day of the week?”

  “Tuesday,” cried Drummond, and Standish nodded again, and once more began to write. And they saw that with infinite difficulty he was writing out the alphabet.

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  They waited breathlessly: he had begun to write another line of letters underneath it.

  YADSEUTBCFGHIJKLMNOPQRVWXZ

  “By Jove!” cried Drummond suddenly. “I see. The day of the week backwards comes at the beginning, and if there are two A’s in it like Saturday you leave out the first. Now the message, old man: here it is.”

  He put it on the bed beside Standish, who again began to write, putting the correct letter under the code one:

  AOYSLKEJ

  BSADPOEN

  Standish paused, staring at it, and sick with anxiety the others watched him. He had got it wrong somehow: the translation was gibberish.

  “My God!” said Drummond heavily, “they must have altered the code.”

  And still worse was to come. Suddenly the pencil slipped from Standish’s fingers, and he fell back on the pillow: he was unconscious once more.

  For a while no one spoke: to have got so near, and then to fail was a bit of cruel luck.

  “The devils must have altered the code,” repeated Drummond. “What an infernal piece of bad joss.”

  He picked up the piece of paper and studied it.

  “You see, the old lad had got the other one: found it out from that clue we discovered in Sanderson’s desk. What’s stung you, my dear?”

  For the girl, her eyes shining with excitement, had gripped his arm.

  “Captain Drummond,” she cried, “it’s Tuesday today, but that came out of yesterday’s paper. Let’s try Monday.”

  “You fizzer,” shouted Drummond.

  Feverishly he seized a pencil and wrote out the new code.

  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

  YADNOMBCEFGHIJKLPQRSTUVWXZ

  “Now then – where’s the message?”

  He laid it in front of him and started to translate.

  AOYSLKEJSSCQOOIEHORJKQSC

  AHOSDCVKQSCXJEJOLISTORNY

  XDKYDCQOYQATSKJOXYDCSHX

  EJBKMMVOXIKTSC

  BEATPOINTTHREEMILESNORTH

  BLETCHWORTHYNINEPMTUES

  DAYCOACHREARBUTONEYACHT

  LYINGOFFWEYMOUTH

  “‘Be at point three miles north Bletchworthy nine p.m. Tuesday. Coach rear but one. Yacht lying off Weymouth,’” he read out slowly. “That’s tonight.”

  “Coach rear but one,” said Leyton. “Merciful Heavens, you fellows, it can’t be another t
rain outrage, can it?”

  “That,” remarked Drummond grimly, “is what we now propose to find out. Come on, both of you, we’ll have to drive like hell. Get hold of Standish’s torch, and his gun. Also that compressed-air rifle. That was a brainstorm of yours, Daphne, but this time, my dear, you cannot come. Sorry, but it’s out of the question.”

  “Easy for a moment, old boy,” said Darrell. “We ought to ring up the station-master at Bletchworthy.”

  “That’s true,” said Drummond. “But it means delay, Peter. Daphne can do it – can’t you, my dear? Ring up the station-master at Bletchworthy and tell him to have the line three miles north of the station patrolled at once. Tell him there is a possibility of an attempt to derail some train – I don’t know which – tonight round about nine o’clock.”

  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 hisown 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 wa
ters, 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 tohave. What is the meaning of this monstrous piece of impertinence?”

  “Shall we cut all that out,” said Drummond 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.”