by Sapper
Hugh took the cablegram and glanced at it. It was short and to the point:
Captain Hugh Drummond, of Half Moon Street, London, is your man.
He glanced up at the American, who drained his cocktail with the air of a man who is satisfied with life.
‘Captain Hugh Drummond, of Half Moon Street, London, is my man,’ he chuckled. ‘Well, Captain what about it now. Will you tell me why you’ve come to Paris? I guess it’s something to do with the business I’m on.’
For a few moments Hugh did not reply, and the American seemed in no hurry for an answer. Some early arrivals for dinner sauntered through the lounge, and Drummond watched them idly as they passed. The American detective certainly seemed all right, but… Casually, his glance rested on a man sitting just opposite, reading the paper. He took in the short, dark beard – the immaculate, though slightly foreign evening clothes; evidently a wealthy Frenchman giving a dinner party in the restaurant, by the way the head waiter was hovering around. And then suddenly his eyes narrowed, and he sat motionless.
‘Are you interested in the psychology of gambling, Mr Green?’ he remarked, turning to the somewhat astonished American. ‘Some people cannot control their eyes or their mouth if the stakes are big; others cannot control their hands. For instance, the gentleman opposite. Does anything strike you particularly with regard to him?’
The detective glanced across the lounge.
‘He seems to like hitting his knee with his left hand,’ he said, after a short inspection.
‘Precisely,’ murmured Hugh. ‘That is why I came to Paris.’
CHAPTER 9
In Which He Has a Near Shave
‘Captain, you have me guessing.’ The American bit the end off another cigar, and leaned back in his chair. ‘You say that swell Frenchman with the waiters hovering about like fleas round a dog’s tail is the reason you came to Paris. Is he kind of friendly with Hiram C Potts?’
Drummond laughed.
‘The first time I met Mr Potts,’ he remarked, ‘that swell Frenchman was just preparing to put a thumbscrew on his second thumb.’
‘Second?’ The detective looked up quickly.
‘The first had been treated earlier in the evening,’ answered Drummond quietly. ‘It was then that I removed your millionaire pal.’
The other lit his cigar deliberately.
‘Say, Captain,’ he murmured, ‘you ain’t pulling my leg by any chance, are you?’
‘I am not,’ said Drummond shortly. ‘I was told, before I met him, that the gentleman over there was one of the boys… He is, most distinctly. In fact, though up to date such matters have not been much in my line, I should put him down as a sort of super-criminal. I wonder what name he is passing under here?’
The American ceased pulling at his cigar.
‘Do they vary?’
‘In England he is clean-shaven, possesses a daughter, and answers to Carl Peterson. As he is at present I should never have known him, but for that little trick of his.’
‘Possesses a daughter!’ For the first time the detective displayed traces of excitement. ‘Holy Smoke! It can’t be him!’
‘Who?’ demanded Drummond.
But the other did not answer. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching three men who had just joined the subject of their talk, and on his face was a dawning amazement. He waited till the whole party had gone into the restaurant, then, throwing aside his caution, he turned excitedly to Drummond.
‘Are you certain,’ he cried, ‘that that’s the man who has been monkeying with Potts?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Hugh. ‘He recognised me; whether he thinks I recognised him or not, I don’t know.’
‘Then what,’ remarked the detective, ‘is he doing here dining with Hocking, our cotton trust man; with Steinemann, the German coal man; and with that other guy whose face is familiar, but whose name I can’t place? Two of ’em at any rate, Captain, have got more millions than we’re ever likely to have thousands.’
Hugh stared at the American.
‘Last night,’ he said slowly, ‘he was forgathering with a crowd of the most atrocious ragged-trousered revolutionaries it’s ever been my luck to run up against.’
‘We’re in it, Captain, right in the middle of it,’ cried the detective, slapping his leg. ‘I’ll eat my hat if that Frenchman isn’t Franklyn – or Libstein – or Baron Darott – or any other of the blamed names he calls himself. He’s the biggest proposition we’ve ever been up against on this little old earth, and he’s done us every time. He never commits himself, and if he does, he always covers his tracks. He’s a genius; he’s the goods. Gee!’ he whistled gently under his breath. ‘If we could only lay him by the heels.’
For a while he stared in front of him, lost in his dream of pleasant anticipation; then, with a short laugh, he pulled himself together.
‘Quite a few people have thought the same, Captain,’ he remarked, ‘and there he is – still drinking highballs. You say he was with a crowd of revolutionaries last night. What do you mean exactly?’
‘Bolshevists, anarchists, members of the Do-no-work-and-have-all-the-money Brigade,’ answered Hugh. ‘But excuse me a moment. Waiter.’
A man who had been hovering round came up promptly.
‘Four of ’em, Ted,’ said Hugh in a rapid undertone. ‘Frenchman with a beard, a Yank, and two Boches. Do your best.’
‘Right-o, old bean!’ returned the waiter, ‘but don’t hope for too much.’
He disappeared unobtrusively into the restaurant, and Hugh turned with a laugh to the American, who was staring at him in amazement.
‘Who the devil is that guy?’ asked the detective at length.
‘Ted Jerningham – son of Sir Patrick Jerningham, Bart., and Lady Jerningham, of Jerningham Hall, Rutland, England,’ answered Hugh, still grinning. ‘We may be crude in our methods, Mr Green, but you must admit we do our best. Incidentally, if you want to know, your friend Mr Potts is at present tucked between the sheets at that very house. He went there by aeroplane this morning.’ He waved a hand towards Jerry. ‘He was the pilot.’
‘Travelled like a bird, and sucked up a plate of meat juice at the end,’ announced that worthy, removing his eyes with difficulty from a recently arrived fairy opposite. ‘Who says that’s nothing, Hugh: the filly across the road there, with that bangle affair round her knee?’
‘I must apologise for him, Mr Green,’ remarked Hugh. ‘He has only recently left school, and knows no better.’
But the American was shaking his head a little dazedly.
‘Crude!’ he murmured, ‘crude! If you and your pals, Captain, are ever out of a job, the New York police is yours for the asking.’ He smoked for a few moments in silence, and then, with a quick hunch of his shoulders, he turned to Drummond. ‘I guess there’ll be time to throw bouquets after,’ he remarked. ‘We’ve got to get busy on what your friend Peterson’s little worry is; we’ve then got to stop it – some old how. Now, does nothing sort of strike you?’ He looked keenly at the soldier. ‘Revolutionaries, Bolshevists, paid agitators last night: international financiers this evening. Why, the broad outline of the plan is as plain as the nose on your face; and it’s just the sort of game that man would love…’ The detective stared thoughtfully at the end of his cigar, and a look of comprehension began to dawn on Hugh’s face.
‘Great Scott! Mr Green,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to get you. What was defeating me was, why two men like Peterson and Lakington should be mixed up with last night’s crowd.’
‘Lakington! Who’s Lakington?’ asked the other quickly.
‘Number Two in the combine,’ answered Hugh, ‘and a nasty man.’
‘Well, we’ll leave him out for the moment,’ said the American. ‘Doesn’t it strike you that there are quite a number of people in this world who would benefit if England became a sort of second Russia? That such a thing would be worth money – big money? That such a thing would be worth paying through the nose for? It wou
ld have to be done properly; your small strike here, your small strike there, ain’t no manner of use. One gigantic syndicalist strike all over your country – that’s what Peterson’s playing for, I’ll stake my bottom dollar. How he’s doing it is another matter. But he’s in with the big financiers: and he’s using the tub-thumping Bolshies as tools. Gad! It’s a big scheme’ – he puffed twice at his cigar – ‘a durned big scheme. Your little old country, Captain, is, saving one, the finest on God’s earth; but she’s in a funny mood. She’s sick, like most of us are; maybe she’s a little sicker than a good many people think. But I reckon Peterson’s cure won’t do any manner of good, excepting to himself and those blamed capitalists who are putting up the dollars.’
‘Then where the devil does Potts come in?’ said Hugh, who had listened intently to every word the American had said. ‘And the Duchess of Lampshire’s pearls?’
‘Pearls!’ began the American, when the restaurant door opened suddenly and Ted Jerningham emerged. He seemed to be in a hurry, and Hugh half rose in his chair. Then he sat back again, as with miraculous rapidity a crowd of infuriated head waiters and other great ones appeared from nowhere and surrounded Jerningham.
Undoubtedly this was not the way for a waiter to leave the hotel – even if he had just been discovered as an imposter and sacked on the spot. And undoubtedly if he had been a waiter, this large body of scandalised beings would have removed him expeditiously through some secret buttery hatch, and dropped him on the pavement out of a back entrance.
But not being a waiter, he continued to advance, while his entourage, torn between rage at his effrontery and horror at the thought of a scene, followed in his wake.
Just opposite Hugh he halted, and in a clear voice addressed no one in particular: ‘You’re spotted. Look out. Ledger at Godalming.’
Then, engulfed once more in the crowd, he continued his majestic progress, and finally disappeared a little abruptly from view.
‘Cryptic,’ murmured the American, ‘but some lad. Gee! He had that bunch guessing.’
‘The ledger at Godalming,’ said Hugh thoughtfully. ‘I watched Peterson, through the skylight last night, getting gay with that ledger. I’m thinking we’ll have to look inside it, Mr Green.’
He glanced up as one of the chucking-out party came back, and asked what had happened.
‘Mon Dieu, m’sieur,’ cried the waiter despairingly. ‘’E vas an imposter, n’est-ce-pas – un scélerat; ’e upset ze fish all over ze shirtfront of Monsieur le Comte.’
‘Was that the gentleman with the short beard, dining with three others?’ asked Drummond gravely.
‘Mais oui, m’sieur. He dine here always if ’e is in Paris – does le Comte de Guy. Oh! Mon Dieu! C’est terrible!’
Wringing his hands, the waiter went back into the restaurant, and Hugh shook silently.
‘Dear old Ted,’ he murmured, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘I knew he’d keep his end up.’ Then he stood up. ‘What about a little dinner at Maxim’s? I’m thinking we’ve found out all we’re likely to find, until we can get to that ledger. And thanks to your knowing those birds, Mr Green, our trip to Paris has been of considerable value.’
The American nodded.
‘I guess I’m on,’ he remarked slowly; ‘but, if you take my advice, Captain, you’ll look nippy tonight. I wouldn’t linger around corners admiring the mud. Things kind o’ happen at corners.’
II
But on that particular evening the detective proved wrong. They reached Maxim’s without mishap, they enjoyed an excellent dinner, during which the American showed himself to be a born conversationalist as well as a shrewd man of the world. And over the coffee and liqueurs Hugh gave him a brief outline of what had taken place since he first got mixed up in the affair. The American listened in silence, though amazement shone on his face as the story proceeded. The episode of the disappearing body especially seemed to tickle his fancy, but even over that he made no remark. Only when Hugh had finished, and early arrivals for supper were beginning to fill the restaurant, did he sum up the matter as he saw it.
‘A tough proposition, Captain – damned tough. Potts is our biggest shipping man, but where he comes on the picture at that moment has me beat. As for the old girl’s jewels, they don’t seem to fit in at all. All we can do is to put our noses inside that ledger, and see the book of the words. It’ll sure help some.’
And as Hugh switched off the electric light in his bedroom, having first seen that his torch was ready to hand in case of emergency, he was thinking of the detective’s words. Getting hold of the ledger was not going to be easy – far from it; but the excitement of the chase had fairly obsessed him by now. He lay in bed, turning over in his mind every possible and impossible scheme by which he could get into the secret centre room at The Elms. He knew the safe the ledger was kept in: but safes are awkward propositions for the ordinary mortal to tackle. Anyway, it wasn’t a thing which could be done in a minute’s visit; he would have to manage at least a quarter or half an hour’s undisturbed search, the thought of which, with his knowledge of the habits of the household, almost made him laugh out loud. And, at that moment, a fly pinged past his head…
He felt singularly wide awake, and, after a while, he gave up attempting to go to sleep. The new development which had come to light that evening was uppermost in his thoughts; and, as he lay there, covered only with a sheet, for the night was hot, the whole vile scheme unfolded itself before his imagination. The American was right in his main idea – of that he had no doubt; and in his mind’s eye he saw the great crowds of idle, foolish men led by a few hot-headed visionaries and paid blackguards to their so-called Utopia. Starvation, misery, ruin, utter and complete, lurked in his mental picture; spectres disguised as great ideals, but grinning sardonically under their masks. And once again he seemed to hear the toc-toc of machine guns, as he had heard them night after night during the years gone by. But this time they were mounted on the pavement of the towns of England, and the swish of the bullets, which had swept like swarms of cockchafers over No Man’s Land, now whistled down the streets between rows of squalid houses… And once again a fly pinged past his head.
With a gesture of annoyance he waved his arm. It was hot – insufferably hot, and he was beginning to regret that he had followed the earnest advice of the American to sleep with his windows shut and bolted. What on earth could Peterson do to him in a room at the Ritz? But he had promised the detective, and there it was – curtains drawn, window bolted, door locked. Moreover, and he smiled grimly to himself as he remembered it, he had even gone so far as to emulate the hysterical maiden lady of fiction and peer under the bed…
The next moment the smile ceased abruptly, and he lay rigid, with every nerve alert. Something had moved in the room…
It had only been a tiny movement, more like the sudden creak of a piece of furniture than anything else – but it was not quite like it. A gentle, slithering sound had preceded the creak; the sound such as a man would make who, with infinite precaution against making a noise, was moving in a dark room; a stealthy, uncanny noise. Hugh peered into the blackness tensely. After the first moment of surprise his brain was quite cool. He had looked under the bed, he had hung his coat in the cupboard, and save for those two obvious places there was no cover for a cat. And yet, with a sort of sixth sense that four years of war had given him, he knew that noise had been made by some human agency. Human! The thought of the cobra at The Elms flashed into his mind, and his mouth set more grimly. What if Peterson had introduced some of his abominable menagerie into the room?… Then, once more, the thing like a fly sounded loud in his ear. And was it his imagination, or had he heard a faint sibilant hiss just before?
Suddenly it struck him that he was at a terrible disadvantage. The thing, whatever it was, knew, at any rate approximately, his position: he had not the slightest notion where it was. And a blind man boxing a man who could see, would have felt just about as safe. With Hugh, such a conclusion meant ins
tant action. It might be dangerous on the floor: it most certainly was far more so in bed. He felt for his torch, and then, with one convulsive bound, he was standing by the door, with his hand on the electric-light switch.
Then he paused and listened intently. Not a sound could he hear; the thing, whatever it was, had become motionless at his sudden movement. For an appreciable time he stood there, his eyes searching the darkness – but even he could see nothing, and he cursed the American comprehensively under his breath. He would have given anything for even the faintest grey light, so that he could have some idea of what it was and where it was. Now he felt utterly helpless, while every moment he imagined some slimy, crawling brute touching his bare feet – creeping up him…
He pulled himself together sharply. Light was essential and at once. But, if he switched on, there would be a moment when the thing would see him before he could see the thing – and such moments are not helpful. There only remained his torch; and on the Ancre, on one occasion, he had saved his life by judicious use. The man behind one of those useful implements is in blackness far more impenetrable than the blackest night, for the man in front is dazzled. He can only shoot at the torch: therefore, hold it to one side and in front of you…
The light flashed out, darting round the room. Ping! Something hit the sleeve of his pyjamas, but still he could see nothing. The bed, with the clothes thrown back; the washstand; the chair with his trousers and shirt – everything was as it had been when he turned in. And then he heard a second sound – distinct and clear. It came from high up, near the ceiling, and the beam caught the big cupboard and travelled up. It reached the top, and rested there, fixed and steady. Framed in the middle of it, peering over the edge, was a little hairless, brown face, holding what looked like a tube in its mouth. Hugh had one glimpse of a dark, skinny hand putting something in the tube, and then he switched off the torch and ducked, just as another fly pinged over his head and hit the wall behind.
