The Return Of Bulldog Drummond (28 page)

“Of the two suggestions the first is the more likely,” said the other. “In fact, it does supply a possible explanation for what has occurred, and one that I shall mention when I get back to London.”

Hardcastle held up a warning hand.

“I beg of you to be discreet in what you say,” he cried. “I would not like it to come to Sir Edward’s ears that I had been spreading statements of that sort about him.”

“My dear sir,” protested the other, “you may rely on my discretion. Your name will not come into it at all. But everyone is asking the same question, and it is certainly a feasible answer. By the way, how much longer is he remaining at sea?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Not very much longer, presumably, because the yacht will have to refuel. My honey! what is the matter?”

He swung round in his chair as the door burst open and the Comtessa came running in. She was in a state of great agitation, though she endeavoured to control herself on seeing Hetterbury, who had risen to his feet.

“The ghost, Tom,” she cried, forgetting her role completely. “I’ve just seen the ghost.”

“Come, come,” laughed Hardcastle, though he gave her a warning frown. “We’ve all seen it, my love, and she’s quite harmless. Come and drink a glass of port with your old Dad, and forget about it.”

“I seem to remember reading something about a ghost in that dreadful murder case you had here,” said Hetterbury.

“There was a little about it in the papers,” answered Hardcastle. “Three young fools came over here ghost-hunting the very night it took place, though, to do them justice, we all saw it afterwards.”

“What form did it take?”

“An elderly woman of the caretaker class. We saw her as clearly as I see you now, standing at the top of the stairs; then she vanished through the door of my daughter’s bedroom.”

“How terrible for you, Comtessa! What did you do?”

“I’m sorry to say I was stupid enough to faint,” she answered. “She was so close to me, and then she put out her hand and touched me. It was awful.”

“And you have just seen her again in your bedroom?”

“It was in the passage this time,” she said. “It’s stupid of me, I know, but I dread anything of that sort.”

“Very natural,” remarked Hetterbury sympathetically. “Well, Mr Hardcastle, I am sure the Comtessa would like to be quiet, so I will take my departure. Perhaps you could ring for my car.”

“Certainly,” said his host, with an alacrity that apparently his guest failed to notice. “I think it would be as well for my girl to rest.”

Hetterbury bowed over the Comtessa’s hand.

“I trust your visitor will not trouble you again tonight,” he murmured, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Being a lady, it should confine its attention to our sex. And I must thank you for a most enjoyable afternoon.”

He followed Hardcastle into the hall, and a few moments later his car drove off.

“For the love of Mike, what stung you, kid?” cried Hardcastle, coming back into the room. “What’s all this bologney about a ghost? The only one we’ve ever had in the house was yourself, and darned well you did it.”

“I haven’t told you about it, Tom,” she said: “in fact, until tonight I’d forgotten about it. You remember that I went up in the train with that man Drummond and his two friends. Well, it was the one called Jerningham who owns Merridale Hall who told me on the way up to London. This house
is
haunted.”

“Bologney,” repeated Hardcastle incredulously. “We worked a ramp then, but there’s nothing to it.”

“You listen to me, Tom Hardcastle,” she said angrily, “and quit talking out of your turn. Haven’t I told you I’d forgotten all about it till tonight? I’d gone down to see that he had got something to eat – incidentally he’s getting weaker and weaker, and unless we watch it he’ll die on us before we’re ready. Anyway, he was moaning and groaning as usual, when suddenly I noticed a most peculiar smell, just the same as you get sometimes from that foul bog outside. I looked around, trying to locate it, when just beyond the range of the candle I saw something move. It didn’t walk: it didn’t seem to do anything except just give a sort of heave. Then it vanished without a sound.”

“But what was it?” cried the man.

“A great black, shapeless sort of mass,” she said, with a violent shudder. “And it stank.”

“There, there, my dear,” he said soothingly. “It was a trick of the light.”

“I tell you it wasn’t,” she stormed. “It’s an elemental – that’s what that man Jerningham said. It’s called the Horror of Glensham House, and people who see it either go mad or die.”

“Well, honey, you haven’t done either,” he said quietly, though his eyes were fixed on her searchingly. She was in an acute state of nerves; obviously the shock had been very great. Now that Hetterbury had gone and there was no longer any necessity for her to control herself, her quivering lips and shaking fingers told their own tale.

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, and 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.