Джон Пристли - The Doomsday Men

In this pleasantly excited state of mind, then, Jimmy hurried along to his room, and, not bothering to close the door behind him, he rummaged in his bag, which he had not unpacked yet, for the Scotch. He took the lead foil wrapping off the top of the bottle, to make sure that he would not need a corkscrew. Then he looked up, remembering the two glasses he had promised to take along, to discover that he was facing the barrel of a large revolver. The man who held it, now standing with his back to the door, was the very man, a youngish fellow with queer light eyes and almost bleached hair, who had answered the Brotherhood password and taken him out to the car.

“Get back and raise your hands, mister,” came the command.

Jimmy did as he was told, breaking out into a sweat. This was going to be tough.

“I can tell you exactly what our orders are, mister,” continued the unpleasant bleached young man. “We’re to take you along. But if you won’t come along, if you give any trouble, then we’re to make good an’ sure you don’t do any more interferin’.”

Jimmy knew only too well that this was the truth. These people were capable of killing him there and then, and to hell with the consequences. Whatever it was they were planning, it obviously made them both relentless and reckless.

“All right,” he muttered, with a mouth that was drier than ever. “I haven’t got a gun. Better put that one down.”

“No, sir . We let you off too easy last time,” said the other, now coming forward. He moved until he was near the telephone, but kept Jimmy steadily covered.

“I don’t know what you think you can do,” said Jimmy uneasily. “But this happens to be an hotel, don’t forget.”

“Sure! I hadn’t forgotten.” And the young man, without taking his eyes or his large revolver off Jimmy, reached down with his left hand and took up the receiver. Jimmy stared in amazement. What did the fellow think he could do? But the fellow seemed to know. “I want to speak to Doctor Johnson,” he remarked, coolly, down the telephone. “That’s right. Oh-doc-I’ve got him. Yes-twenty-two. Sure I can hold him. Okay.”

The young man put down the telephone, still watching Jimmy, then slowly backed towards the door.

“You might give me some idea what you’re doing,” said Jimmy. “Where does the doctor come in? Are you sick-or am I?”

“I reckon you are, mister,” was the reply, delivered without the ghost of a smile.

Jimmy felt more puzzled than alarmed. So long as he kept quiet and gave them no trouble, as the young man admitted, they had no intention of using that gun on him, which, anyhow, would be a very desperate move on their part, here in the hotel. On the other hand, how could they “take him along”? Was there some back way out that they knew about? And what was this doctor business? While Jimmy asked himself these questions, the young man kept silent, but very watchful, obviously not intending that Jimmy should escape a second time that night.

A knock and a voice outside. The young man had the door open and shut again before Jimmy could even think of making a move. But now Dr. Johnson, complete with a black bag, was in the room. And there could be no possible doubt as to who it was. Brother Kaydick had now taken charge.

Brother Kaydick muttered something Jimmy could not catch to his assistant, then stood looking hard at Jimmy and rubbing his long chin. At least, Jimmy felt that Brother Kaydick was looking hard in his direction, but, so powerful was that squint of Brother Kaydick’s that he might have also been looking at the bottle of whisky on the table. This silence seemed to Jimmy unmannerly.

“Good evening, Brother Kaydick,” he remarked. “When did you turn into Dr. Johnson? And what have you got in that bag?”

“Quiet!” commanded Brother Kaydick harshly. He muttered again to the bleached young man, then, to Jimmy’s surprise, stalked into the bathroom, taking the bag with him.

“Keep your hands up,” said the owner of the revolver, sharply.

“You don’t mind me being in this room, do you?” Jimmy enquired. He was tired of this, and so were his arms, which now ached to be anywhere but up in the air. “I couldn’t rent you fellows another room here, could I? I’d like the use of this myself. I don’t want to be unreasonable-”

But Brother Kaydick had reappeared. “Turn round.”

“Why should I?” But he did. He also heard Brother Kaydick and his assistant coming closer, and smelt something sickly, something that might easily have a place in Dr. Johnson’s black bag. Then he found his arms seized and pulled down behind him; a sickly-smelling cloth enveloped his nose and mouth; he was suffocating, and he struggled hard to free himself; they were choking him, the devils; but now, though he was still struggling, he was half-floating about too, and there seemed to be rockets whizzing and exploding all over the room. And, oddly enough, the last thing he remembered was the appearance from nowhere of a sudden fountain of Scotch whisky. . . .

He was back in China, in the native quarter of Shanghai perhaps, and they were celebrating some festival, and never had he heard so much beating of gongs, so many fire-crackers; and though he kept telling them to stop, they only grinned at him, and brought out bigger gongs and more strings of firecrackers; and then there was a procession, with everybody making the most devilish racket, and at the end of the procession was an enormous gilded car, with dragons carved all over it, and seated high in this car, dressed like a mandarin in full regalia, was Brother Kaydick; and though Jimmy tried to hide himself in the crowd, it was no use, because always the Chinese in front of him mysteriously melted away, leaving him open to the view of the figure in the car; and though he ran and ran, that was no use either, because the car was always just coming round the corner; and at last Brother Kaydick saw him and cried in a terrible voice, “There’s the man,” pointing a long talon of a finger, and a big Chink soldier, with a club, rushed at him and hit him-bang!-on the head. . . .

He could still feel the bang on the head. His head seemed to be enormous and every bit of it ached like the devil. He was cold too, stiff and cold. Slowly he opened his eyes, but made no sense out of what they saw, so closed them again. This happened several times. Then he really began to take notice. It was hard work at first, with such a head on him, but he persevered. He was lying among some packing cases in the corner of a small dim room that had unpainted deal plank walls. He was cold because he had had no covering over him, and was not even wearing his coat. Bright sunlight was coming in, through a few cracks in the walls and between the edge of a small window and the rough curtaining tacked over it. He thought about all this for a long time. Cold and stiff though he was, somehow he did not want to move yet. There were sounds outside, but he did not feel like bothering about them. The thing to do was to keep quiet, just to think a little, not too much, and try to forget that his head was far too big and apparently split open in several places. He felt as if he was just recovering from a three days’ crazy binge-and-blind, yet he knew that he had been up to nothing like that. This would have to be carefully worked out before he began to move. What exactly had he been doing? He began to work it out, very cautiously. He wasn’t still in China; that had been a dream. Honolulu? No, he left Honolulu for Los Angeles.

His half-opened eyes were pained to behold an ever-widening bar of brilliant light, so they closed again. Might that be a door opening? He lay quite still. Then a voice remarked: “No, he’s still out.” It was a voice he had heard before and had disliked. There came the sound of the door closing, then being locked.