The Return Of Bulldog Drummond (24 page)

“Principally what Tredgold has overheard,” said the other. “He’s a foxy little blighter, with ears a yard long, and he keeps ’em open. And up to date it has really been more the cumulative effect of a lot of small things than anything specific. But this morning, just as he was going into the office, he heard Penton say to Hardcastle, ‘The stuff is all there: we shan’t have time for more.’ And he was convinced by the way they both shut up on seeing him that they were not talking film business.”

“Right oh!” cried Drummond. “I’ll have a dart at it. Though what the deuce one does when one finds oneself completely surrounded by cocaine is at the moment a little beyond me.”

“Get in touch with the police,” said the girl.

“My dear soul, what a ghastly conclusion to the performance! Things going to the bow-wows, Algy, when the old firm have to rope in the minions of the law. However, I’d like to do that bunch down, I must say: that murder was a bit too cold-blooded to be funny.”

He turned to the waitress.

“Sweet maiden, bring mugs of port, I pray thee. Because I take it, Algy, that you will shortly have to be getting back?”

“That’s so, old boy. Do you know the way to the studio?”

“I do,” said Drummond, with a faint smile.

“Well, we thought that nine o’clock would be a good sort of hour for you to get there. There’s a track that leads up to it from behind, and there’s a turning about a quarter of a mile away where you can leave your car. Hullo! here’s Tredgold himself: I told him I was dining here.”

“Good evening, Miss Mainwaring,” said Tredgold, coming up to the table. “Is it all right, Mr Wentworth? Is your friend on?”

“Absolutely. Let me introduce you to Captain Drummond. Hugh – this is Mr Tredgold, who I’ve been telling you about.”

“Draw up and put your nose inside a beaker of port,” cried Drummond. “Anything new from the seat of war?”

“Quite a lot, Captain Drummond,” said the other knowingly. “And it’s most favourable. Penton and Slingsby left in a car for London about half an hour ago, which means that only Hardcastle will be there when they start work. Which further means that you’re bound to have a free run. If the three of them had been there they might not all have remained with Sir Edward, but with only one of them it’s a cinch Hardcastle won’t leave his side till he goes back to London.”

“And when is that likely to be?”

“Let me think,” said Tredgold. “The drugging scene is being taken at nine-fifteen; the lorry one, which Sir Edward will be watching, comes after it. I should think you can rely on being undisturbed from nine-thirty to ten.”

“That should give me plenty of time,” said Drummond.

“More than enough,” cried the other. “But they’re cunning, don’t forget. Just look and see what there is to be seen, but don’t disturb anything. They may spot it, and if they did they’d have the stuff away in an instant. And we want tomorrow: we don’t propose to ring up Scotland Yard tonight. And pretty fools we should look if the police arrived and found nothing at all.”

“Admirable advice,” murmured Drummond. “Well, you people had better push off: I’ll come on later.”

Gloomily he ordered himself some more port. What a ghastly fiasco the whole thing had turned out! He felt bored stiff, and though he tried to assure himself that he was acting as a worthy and God-fearing citizen in unmasking such villainy, his boredom only increased. There was no sport in it. No humour of any sort whatever. He was simply doing a common or garden spying job for a nasty-looking specimen of humanity who wanted the notoriety without incurring the risk.

At last he rose: the sooner he got down to it, the sooner he could get back to London. And having paid his bill, he drove off towards the studio. It was nearly dusk, and as he passed by it on the main road he could just see that activity outside was beginning. Cameras were being wheeled into position, lights put into their proper places; and he wondered cynically if they were missing Henry Johnson.

He reached the turning and parked his car; then, pulling out his cigarette case, he sat and waited. It was a little early yet to approach the studio, even though everyone was at the other end. Some parties of villagers attracted by the novelty went past him towards the fun, but nobody took any notice of the big man moodily smoking by the side of the track.

At last he decided it was safe to start, though he would have to wait till the sightseers were out of the way before entering. And the spot he was making for was a small clump of bushes where he could remain under cover till the road was clear. From his hiding-place he could see them acting in the distance, and Haxton’s voice came distinctly through the air. Standing by one of the flares was Sir Edward Greatorex, talking to Hardcastle and Gardini; in the centre of the beam Algy and Jack Montrevor were waiting to run through their scene.

Suddenly he saw Sir Edward’s two companions both turn to him solicitously, and the next moment Gardini hurried away to return with an overcoat. Evidently the great man was feeling chilly, and it instantly occurred to Drummond that it might precipitate his return to London, in which case Hardcastle would be free. And so, though he would have preferred to give it another ten minutes, he decided to act at once. With a quick glance round, he left his cover, and skirting cautiously out of sight of the acting, he reached the door.

The bolt slipped back smoothly, and he stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him. The darkness was intense, but he could feel the rough walls on each side of him as he cautiously moved forward along the passage. He did not want to use his torch until he was further into the building for fear of the gleam being seen from the outside, and so his progress was slow. Every now and then he paused and listened, but he could hear nothing save an occasional faint shout from outside. And after a while even that ceased.

The passage was sloping downwards, and at length he decided it was safe to have some light. He flashed his torch on cautiously: in front of him a flight of steps led down to a very solid-looking door – a door which, somewhat to his surprise, proved to be unlocked. He found himself in a fair-sized room. The walls were of stone, and high up in one of them was a small barred window encrusted in dirt. A few old sacks lay about the floor: otherwise it was empty. And opposite him was another door similar to the one he had come in by, which also, on inspection, proved to be open. A further flight of steps led down to yet a third door, beyond which was a much smaller room. And as the light of his torch travelled round it, he realised with a sudden thrill that his quest was over. Neatly arranged around the walls were scores of small brown-paper parcels, and he was on the point of picking up one of them to examine it, when from behind him there came a metallic click. He swung round, gun in hand: the door had shut.

For a moment he stared at it in bewilderment; then his mouth set grimly. For there was no handle on this side of it – only a keyhole. And he had no key. The door was evidently fitted with an automatic shutting device, and he was trapped.

He became conscious of a faint ticking noise coming from somewhere – a clock, presumably, which meant the room was used fairly constantly. But that did not alter the predicament he found himself in. Sooner or later he was bound to be discovered unless he could find some method of escape.

He flashed his torch around the walls: there was no trace of any window. He was in a central strong room well below ground level – caught as securely as a rat in a trap. And so, having satisfied himself by an inspection of the door that there was no fear of suffocation, he lit a cigarette and proceeded to size up the situation.

Algy was the first hope. He would almost certainly go to the place where the car had been left, and, finding it there, he would know that Drummond was still in the building. But he would not be able to get in, as he had no key to the outside door. All he could do would be to hang about outside.

The next possibility was Hardcastle. Was he likely to come? If so, it was easy money: Hardcastle wouldn’t have an earthly. If the other two were with him it would be different: Penton was a singularly powerful individual. And he couldn’t hope to lay out the three of them. So clearly his best chance lay in Hardcastle coming alone.

He went to the door and listened intently, but everything was silent except for the monotonous ticking of the clock. And he was idly flashing his torch round in an endeavour to locate it when a sudden rasping noise started in one corner, and the next instant, to his utter amazement, he heard Irma speaking.

“Good evening,
mon ami
.”

Completely dumbfounded, he turned his torch in the direction of the voice, and the mystery was solved. Partially hidden behind some of the packages was a gramophone which had just been turned on.

“I am more than sorry,” continued the voice, “that I was not there personally to receive you. And before I go any further I will say at once that I quite realise you may now smash the record and terminate the entertainment. I hope you won’t, for two reasons. First, I took a lot of trouble over making it; second, there is a very important message for you that comes right at the end. In that hope, therefore, I will proceed.

“I don’t think, Hugh, that you’ve been very clever this time. In fact, dear friend, I am terribly disappointed in you. That you should walk straight into one of the most palpable traps imaginable is a sign of deplorably weakening intellect. Did you really believe that anyone in their senses would take on that unmitigated buffoon Longworth to do anything except scare crows? But happening to be behind the scenes when he arrived that day, I realised he might be of assistance to me. And so I told Penton to engage him.

“That little man Tredgold is a good actor, isn’t he? Quite good enough, anyway, to deceive poor Algy. And I must say he has played his part very well. A few mysterious references to dope, and your idiot friend rose like a fish. And so did you didn’t you, Hugh?

“However, to proceed. You will have guessed by now that your present unpleasant predicament is very largely due to a system of electrical wiring. Your progress along the passage was marked by lights in the office upstairs. As you came to each door in turn a bulb went out: as you shut the door it went on again. And so your arrival in the room where you now find yourself was timed by us to a second. It would have been a pity to turn on the electric gramophone too soon.

“And now, because a record does not go on for ever, I must come to the point. Can you guess why I have taken the trouble to do all this? I think you can, Drummond, damn you! For years now I have had at the bottom of my mind one idea only. At times I have been occupied with other things, but ever and always has that main object of my life been with me – revenge on you. And now it is coming. Like the fly, you have walked straight into my parlour, and this time there is no escape. I could weep that I shall not be there actually to see it, but I am in the building, Drummond, alone with my imagination. And shortly I shall visualise you sweating with fear as you claw vainly for a way out.

“Did you hear that ticking noise when you first came in? What did you think it was, you fool – a clock? Guess again, Drummond, guess again. Go and look in the right-hand corner opposite the door. The only hour that that clock will ever mark is the second that sends you to eternity. It’s a bomb, Drummond, and what are you going to do with it? Throw it out of the window? There is no window? Throw it through the door? You cannot open the door. You’re alone with it, locked up, in that room.

“The others don’t know that I’ve put it there, Drummond: they only think that you’ve been lured into your prison as a punishment for your unwarranted interference. They might have been frightened of the consequences of murdering you, but I’m not. As you hear these words I am sitting in an ecstasy of anticipation knowing that the aim of my life is about to be accomplished. I don’t care if the building is blown sky high; I don’t care if the things around you are scattered to the four winds of Heaven; I don’t care who is killed so long as you die screaming for mercy. I may be mad, Drummond: perhaps I am. But that isn’t going to help you much, is it? You’ve got ten minutes to live, and during those ten minutes you can ask yourself who has won in the long run, you or I.”

The voice ceased, though the scraping of the machine still continued, and Hugh Drummond, putting his hand to his forehead, found that it was wet with perspiration. And then abruptly the gramophone itself stopped: the only sound was the monotonous ticking in the right-hand corner opposite the door.

He switched his torch in that direction, and cursed himself savagely when he found the beam was shaking. There it was – a harmless-looking brown box, and for a while he stared at it, his mind a blank. What was he going to do? Was there anything to do?

He was under no delusions, though the whole thing seemed like some monstrous nightmare. He knew, none better, that she was capable of anything where he was concerned, that to kill him she would willingly run the risk of being tried for murder herself.

With a tremendous effort he pulled himself together: he was not going under without some sort of fight. Feverishly he tore off his coat and trousers, and wrapped them as tightly as he could round the bomb: working like a maniac, he piled packages of dope against it to try and minimise the force of the explosion. Then, seizing more packages, he hurled them in a heap near the opposite corner with the idea of taking what cover he could behind them. And then, with nothing further to do to occupy his mind, the full horror of the situation came over him.

He glanced at his wrist-watch: two minutes of life left. God! what a fool he had been. He ought to have spotted that it was a trap all along. And yet as he looked back he could think of nothing definite which should have given it away. Tredgold – curse the little swine! – was a good actor: when he laid his hands on him next time…

His jaw set grimly: he’d forgotten. There wasn’t going to be a next time. It was the end. In the bottom of his heart he knew that his feeble precautions were utterly useless: he knew that he had a minute left to live. And for a few seconds his nerve broke, and he raved like a madman. Then, with iron control, he got himself in hand again. Even if he was going out alone – like a rat in a trap, with no one to see – he’d go out decently.