by Sapper
His servant coughed deprecatingly.
‘She has, sir. But, Lor’ bless you, she don’t bear no malice.’
‘Then she’s one up on me, Denny, for I bear lots of it towards that gang of swine.’ Thoughtfully he stood in front of the millionaire, trying in vain to catch some gleam of sense in the vacant eyes. ‘Look at that poor devil; isn’t that enough by itself to make you want to kill the whole crowd?’ He turned on his heel abruptly, and opened the door. ‘Try and get him to eat if you can.’
‘What luck?’ Jerningham looked up as he came back into the other room.
‘Dam’ all, as they say in the vernacular. Have you blighters finished the beer?’
‘Probably,’ remarked Peter Darrell. ‘What’s the programme now?’
Hugh examined the head of his glass with a professional eye before replying.
‘Two things,’ he murmured at length, ‘fairly leap to the eye. The first is to get Potts away to a place of safety; the second is to get over to Paris.’
‘Well, let’s get gay over the first, as a kick-off,’ said Jerningham, rising. ‘There’s a car outside the door; there is England at our disposal. We’ll take him away; you pad the hoof to Victoria and catch the boat train.’
‘It sounds too easy,’ remarked Hugh. ‘Have a look out of the window, Ted, and you’ll see a man frightfully busy doing nothing not far from the door. You will also see a racing car just across the street. Put a wet compress on your head, and connect the two.’
A gloomy silence settled on the assembly, to be broken by Jerry Seymour suddenly waking up with a start.
‘I’ve got the Stomach-ache,’ he announced proudly.
His listeners gazed at him unmoved.
‘You shouldn’t eat so fast,’ remarked Algy severely. ‘And you certainly oughtn’t to drink that beer.’
To avert the disaster he immediately consumed it himself, but Jerry was too engrossed with his brainstorm to notice.
‘I’ve got the Stomach-ache,’ he repeated, ‘and she ought to be ready by now. In fact I know she is. My last crash wasn’t a bad one. What about it?’
‘You mean?…’ said Hugh, staring at him.
‘I mean,’ answered Jerry, ‘that I’ll go off to the aerodrome now, and get her ready. Bring Potts along in half an hour, and I’ll take him to the Governor’s place in Norfolk. Then I’ll take you over to Paris.’
‘Great! – simply great!’ With a report like a gun Hugh hit the speaker on the back, inadvertently knocking him down. Then an idea struck him. ‘Not your place, Jerry; they’ll draw that at once. Take him to Ted’s; Lady Jerningham won’t mind, will she, old boy?’
‘The mater mind?’ Ted laughed. ‘Good Lord, no; she gave up minding anything years ago.’
‘Right!’ said Hugh. ‘Off you go, Jerry. By the way, how many will she hold?’
‘Two beside me,’ spluttered the proud proprietor of the Stomach-ache. ‘And I wish you’d reserve your endearments for people of your own size, you great, fat, hulking monstrosity.’
He reached the door with a moment to spare, and Hugh came back laughing.
‘Verily – an upheaval in the grey matter,’ he cried, carefully refilling his glass. ‘Now, boy, what about Paris?’
‘Is it necessary to go at all?’ asked Peter.
‘It wouldn’t have been if the Yank had been sane,’ answered Drummond. ‘As it is, I guess I’ve got to. There’s something going on, young fellahs, which is big; and I can’t help thinking one might get some useful information from the meeting at the Ritz tonight. Why is Peterson hand-in-glove with a wild-eyed, ragged-trousered crowd of revolutionaries? Can you tell me that? If so, I won’t go.’
‘The great point is whether you’ll find out, even if you do,’ returned Peter. ‘The man’s not going to stand in the hall and shout it through a megaphone.’
‘Which is where Ted comes in,’ said Hugh affably. ‘Does not the Stomach-ache hold two?’
‘My dear man,’ cried Jerningham, ‘I’m dining with a perfectly priceless she tonight!’
‘Oh, no, you’re not, my lad. You’re going to do some amateur acting in Paris. Disguised as a waiter, or a chambermaid, or a coffee machine or something – you will discover secrets.’
‘But good heavens, Hugh!’ Jerningham waved both hands in feeble protest.
‘Don’t worry me,’ cried Drummond, ‘don’t worry me; it’s only a vague outline, and you’ll look great as a bath sponge. There’s the telephone… Hallo!’ He picked off the receiver. ‘Speaking. Is that you, Toby? Oh! the Rolls has gone, has it? With Peterson inside. Good! So-long, old dear.’
He turned to the others.
‘There you are, you see. He’s left for Paris. That settles it.’
‘Conclusively,’ murmured Algy mildly. ‘Any man who leaves a house in a motor car always goes to Paris.’
‘Dry up!’ roared Hugh. ‘Was your late military education so utterly lacking that you have forgotten the elementary precept of putting yourself in the enemy’s place? If I was Peterson, and I wanted to go to Paris, do you suppose that fifty people knowing about it would prevent me? You’re a fool, Algy – and leave me some more beer.’
Resignedly Algy sat down, and after a pause for breath, Drummond continued.
‘Now listen – all of you. Ted – off you go, and raise a complete waiter’s outfit, dicky and all complete. Peter – you come with me to the aerodrome, and afterwards look up Mullings, at 13, Green Street, Hoxton, and tell him to get in touch with at least fifty demobilised soldiers who are on for a scrap. Algy – you hold the fort here, and don’t get drunk on my ale. Peter will join you, when he’s finished with Mullings, and he’s not to get drunk either. Are you all on?’
‘On,’ muttered Darrell weakly. ‘My head is playing an anthem.’
‘It’ll play an oratorio before we’re through with this job, old son,’ laughed Hugh. ‘Let’s get gay with Potts.’
Ten minutes later he was at the wheel of his car with Darrell and the millionaire behind. Algy, protesting vigorously at being, as he said, left out of it, was endeavouring to console himself by making out how much money he would have won if he’d followed his infallible system of making money on the turf; Jerningham was wandering along Piccadilly anxiously wondering at what shop he could possibly ask for a dicky, and preserve his hitherto blameless reputation. But Hugh seemed in no great hurry to start. A whimsical smile was on his face, as out of the corner of his eye he watched the man who had been busy doing nothing feverishly trying to crank his car, which, after the manner of the brutes, had seized that moment to jib.
‘Get away, man – get away,’ cried Peter. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Hugh laughed.
‘Peter,’ he remarked, ‘the refinements of this game are lost on you.’
Still smiling, he got out and walked up to the perspiring driver.
‘A warm day,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t hurry; we’ll wait for you.’ Then, while the man, utterly taken aback, stared at him speechlessly, he strolled back to his own car.
‘Hugh – you’re mad, quite mad,’ said Peter resignedly, as with a spluttering roar the other car started, but Hugh still smiled. On the way to the aerodrome, he stopped twice after a block in the traffic to make quite sure that the pursuer should have no chance of losing him, and, by the time they were clear of the traffic and spinning towards their destination, the gentleman in the car behind fully agreed with Darrell.
At first he had expected some trick, being a person of tortuous brain; but as time went on, and nothing unexpected happened, he became reassured. His orders were to follow the millionaire, and inform headquarters where he was taken to. And assuredly at the moment it seemed easy money. In fact, he even went so far as to hum gently to himself, after he had put a hand in his pocket to make sure his automatic revolver was still there.
Then, quite suddenly, the humming stopped and he frowned. The car in front had swung off the road, and turned through the entrance of a small a
erodrome. It was a complication which had not entered his mind, and with a curse he pulled up his car just short of the gates. What the devil was he to do now? Most assuredly he could not pursue an aeroplane in a motor – even a racer. Blindly, without thinking, he did the first thing that came into his head. He left his car standing where it was, and followed the others into the aerodrome on foot. Perhaps he could find out something from one of the mechanics; someone might be able to tell him where the plane was going.
There she was with the car beside her, and already the millionaire was being strapped into his seat. Drummond was talking to the pilot, and the sleuth, full of eagerness, accosted a passing mechanic.
‘Can you tell me where that aeroplane is going to?’ he asked ingratiatingly.
It was perhaps unfortunate that the said mechanic had just had a large spanner dropped on his toe, and his answer was not helpful. It was an education in one way, and at any other time the pursuer would have treated it with the respect it deserved. But, as it was, it was not of great value, which made it the more unfortunate that Peter Darrell should have chosen that moment to look round. And all he saw was the mechanic talking earnestly to the sleuth… Whereupon he talked earnestly to Drummond…
In thinking it over after, that unhappy man, whose job had seemed so easy, found it difficult to say exactly what happened. All of a sudden he found himself surrounded by people – all very affable and most conversational. It took him quite five minutes to get back to his car, and by that time the plane was a speck in the west. Drummond was standing by the gates when he got there, with a look of profound surprise on his face.
‘One I have seen often,’ remarked the soldier; ‘two sometimes; three rarely; four never. Fancy four punctures – all at the same time! Dear, dear! I positively insist on giving you a lift.’
He felt himself irresistibly propelled towards Drummond’s car, with only time for a fleeting glimpse at his own four flat tyres, and almost before he realised it they were away. After a few minutes, when he had recovered from his surprise, his hand went instinctively to his pocket, to find the revolver had gone. And it was then that the man he had thought mad laughed gently.
‘Didn’t know I was once a pickpocket, did you?’ he remarked affably. ‘A handy little gun, too. Is it all right, Peter?’
‘All safe,’ came a voice from behind.
‘Then dot him one.’
The sleuth had a fleeting vision of stars of all colours which danced before his eyes, coupled with a stunning blow on the back of the head. Vaguely he realised the car was pulling up – then blackness. It was not till four hours later that a passing labourer, having pulled him out from a not over-dry ditch, laid him out to cool. And, incidentally, with his further sphere of usefulness we are not concerned…
IV
‘My dear fellow, I told you we’d get here somehow.’ Hugh Drummond stretched his legs luxuriously. ‘The fact that it was necessary to crash your blinking bus in a stray field in order to avoid their footling passport regulations is absolutely immaterial. The only damage is a dent in Ted’s dicky, but all the best waiters have that. They smear it with soup to show their energy… My God! Here’s another of them.’
A Frenchman was advancing towards them down the stately vestibule of the Ritz waving protesting hands. He addressed himself in a voluble crescendo to Drummond, who rose and bowed deeply. His knowledge of French was microscopic, but such trifles were made to be overcome.
‘Mais oui, Monsieur mon Colonel,’ he remarked affably, when the gendarme paused for lack of breath, ‘vous comprenez que nôtre machine avait crashé dans un field des turnipes. Nous avons lost nôtre direction. Nous sommes hittés dans l’estomacs… Comme ci, comme ça… Vous comprenez, n’est-ce-pas, mon Colonel?’ He turned fiercely on Jerry, ‘Shut up, you damn fool; don’t laugh!’
‘Mais, messieurs, vous n’avez pas des passeports.’ The little man, torn between gratification at his rapid promotion and horror at such an appalling breach of regulations, shot up and down like an agitated semaphore. ‘Vous comprenez; c’est defendu d’arriver en Paris sans des passeports?’
‘Parfaitement, mon Colonel,’ continued Hugh, unmoved. ‘Mais vous comprenez que nous avons crashé dans un field des turnipes – non; des rognons… What the hell are you laughing at, Jerry?’
‘Oignons, old boy,’ spluttered the latter. ‘Rognons are kidneys.’
‘What the dickens does that matter?’ demanded Hugh. ‘Vous comprenez, mon Colonel, n’est-ce-pas? Vive la France! En-bas les Boches! Nous avons crashé.’
The gendarme shrugged his shoulders with a hopeless gesture, and seemed on the point of bursting into tears. Of course this large Englishman was mad; why otherwise should he spit in the kidneys? And that is what he continued to state was his form of amusement. Truly an insane race, and yet he had fought in the brigade next to them near Montauban in July ’16 – and he had liked them – those mad Tommies. Moreover, this large, imperturbable man, with the charming smile, showed a proper appreciation of his merits – an appreciation not shared up to the present, regrettable to state, by his own superiors. Colonel – parbleu; eh bien! Pourquoi non?…
At last he produced a notebook; he felt unable to cope further with the situation himself.
‘Vôtre nom, M’sieur, s’il vous plait?’
‘Undoubtedly, mon Colonel,’ remarked Hugh vaguely. ‘Nous crashons dans–’
‘Ah! Mais oui, mais oui, M’sieur.’ The little man danced in his agitation. ‘Vous m’avez déjâ dit que vous avez craché dans les rognons, mais je désire vôtre nom.’
‘He wants your name, old dear,’ murmured Jerry, weakly.
‘Oh, does he?’ Hugh beamed on the gendarme. ‘You priceless little bird! My name is Captain Hugh Drummond.’
And as he spoke, a man sitting close by, who had been an amused onlooker of the whole scene, stiffened suddenly in his chair, and stared hard at Hugh. It was only for a second, and then he was once more merely the politely interested spectator. But Hugh had seen that quick look, though he gave no sign; and when at last the Frenchman departed, apparently satisfied, he leaned over and spoke to Jerry.
‘See that man with the suit of reach-me-downs and the cigar,’ he remarked. ‘He’s in this game; I’m just wondering on which side.’
He was not left long in doubt, for barely had the swing doors closed behind the gendarme, when the man in question rose and came over to him.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, in a pronounced nasal twang, ‘but I heard you say you were Captain Hugh Drummond. I guess you’re one of the men I’ve come across the water to see. My card.’
Hugh glanced at the pasteboard languidly.
‘Mr Jerome K Green,’ he murmured. ‘What a jolly sort of name.’
‘See here, Captain,’ went on the other, suddenly displaying a badge hidden under his coat. ‘That’ll put you wise.’
‘Far from it, Mr Green. What’s it the prize for – throwing cards into a hat?’
The American laughed.
‘I guess I’ve sort of taken to you,’ he remarked. ‘You’re real fresh. That badge is the badge of the police force of the United States of America; and that same force is humming some at the moment.’ He sat down beside Hugh, and bent forward confidentially. ‘There’s a prominent citizen of New York City been mislaid, Captain; and, from information we’ve got, we reckon you know quite a lot about his whereabouts.’
Hugh pulled out his cigarette case.
‘Turkish this side – Virginian that. Ah! But I see you’re smoking.’ With great deliberation he selected one himself, and lit it. ‘You were saying, Mr Green?’
The detective stared at him thoughtfully; at the moment he was not quite certain how to tackle this large and self-possessed young man.
‘Might I ask why you’re over here?’ he asked at length, deciding to feel his way.
‘The air is free to everyone, Mr Green. As long as you get your share to breathe, you can ask anything you like.’
; The American laughed again.
‘I guess I’ll put my cards down,’ he said, with sudden decision. ‘What about Hiram C Potts?’
‘What, indeed?’ remarked Hugh. ‘Sounds like a riddle, don’t it?’
‘You’ve heard of him, Captain?’
‘Few people have not.’
‘Yes – but you’ve met him recently,’ said the detective, leaning forward. ‘You know where he is, and’ – he tapped Hugh on the knee impressively – ‘I want him. I want Hiram C Potts like a man wants a drink in a dry state. I want to take him back in cottonwool to his wife and daughters. That’s why I’m over this side, Captain, just for that one purpose.’
‘There seems to me to be a considerable number of people wandering around who share your opinion about Mr Potts,’ drawled Hugh. ‘He must be a popular sort of cove.’
‘Popular ain’t the word for it, Captain,’ said the other. ‘Have you got him now?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes,’ answered Hugh, beckoning to a passing waiter. ‘Three Martinis.’
‘Where is he?’ snapped the detective eagerly.
Hugh laughed.
‘Being wrapped up in cottonwool by somebody else’s wife and daughters. You were a little too quick, Mr Green; you may be all you say – on the other hand, you may not. And these days I trust no one.’
The American nodded his head in approval.
‘Quite right,’ he remarked. ‘My motto – and yet I’m going to trust you. Weeks ago we heard things on the other side, through certain channels, as to a show which was on the rails over here. It was a bit vague, and there were big men in it; but at the time it was no concern of ours. You run your own worries, Captain, over this side.’
Hugh nodded.
‘Go on,’ he said curtly.
‘Then Hiram Potts got mixed up in it; exactly how, we weren’t wise to. But it was enough to bring me over here. Two days ago I got this cable.’ He produced a bundle of papers, and handed one to Drummond. ‘It’s in cipher, as you see; I’ve put the translation underneath.’
