Array Sapper - The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile Sapper

"And further," continued Sir Bryan, "will you relieve my curiosity and tell me what sent Charles Latter mad?"

"I did," said Drummond grimly, "as I told that ass McIver over a cocktail at the Regency. He was plotting to blow up three thousand men's employment, Tum-tum, with gun-cotton. It was at his instigation that four men were killed in Manchester as the result of another outrage. So I lashed him to his bed, and underneath him I put what he thought was a slab of gun-cotton with fuse attached. It wasn't gun-cotton: it was wood. And he went mad." He paused for a moment, and then continued. "Now, one for you. Why did you let Carl Peterson escape? I nearly killed him that night, after I'd bayoneted the Russian."

"How did you know he had escaped?" demanded Sir Bryan.

Hugh felt in his pocket and produced a note.

"Read it," he said, passing it across the desk.

"It was a pity you forgot that there might be another key to the padlock, Captain Drummond," it ran. "And Giuseppi is an old friend of mine. I quite enjoyed our single."

Sir Bryan returned the note without a word, and Drummond replaced it in his pocket.

"That's twice," he said quietly, and suddenly the Director of Criminal Investigation, than whom no shrewder judge of men lived, saw and understood the real Drummond below the surface of inanity—the real Drummond, cool, resourceful, and inflexible of will—the real Drummond who was capable of organising and carrying through anything and everything once he had set his mind to it.

"That's twice," he repeated, still in the same quiet tone. "Next time—I win."

"But no more Black Gang, Hugh," said the other warningly.

Drummond waved a huge hand. "I have spoken, Tum-tum. A rose by any other name, perhaps—but no more Black Gang." He rose and grinned at his friend. "It's deuced good of you, old man, and all that..."

The eyes of the two men met.

"If it was found out, I should be looking for another job," remarked Sir Bryan dryly. "And perhaps I should not get the two thousand pounds which I understand the widow of the late lamented Ginger Martin has received anonymously."

"Shut up," said Drummond awkwardly.

"Delighted, old man," returned the other. "But the police in that district are demanding a rise of pay. She has been drunk and disorderly five times in the last week."

To those strong-minded individuals who habitually read the entrancing chit-chat of Mrs. Tattle in The Daily Observer , there appeared the following morning a delightful description of the last big fancy-dress ball of the season held at the Albert Hall the preceding night. Much of it may be passed over as unworthy of perpetuation, but the concluding paragraph had its points of interest.

"Half-way through the evening," she wrote in her breezy way, "just as I was consuming an ice in one hand with the Duchess of Sussex, and nibbling the last of the asparagus in the other with the Princess of Montevideo, tastefully disguised as an umbrella-stand, we were treated to the thrill of the evening. It seemed as if suddenly there sprang up all round the room a mass of mysterious figures clothed from head to foot in black. The dear Princess grew quite hysterical, and began to wonder if it was a 'hold up' as she so graphically described it. In fact, for safety, she secreted the glass- headed parasol—the only remaining heirloom of the Royal House—and which formed a prominent part of her costume, behind a neighbouring palm. Whispers of the mysterious Black Gang were heard on all sides, but we were soon reassured. Belovedst, they all carried champagne bottles! Wasn't it too, too thrilling!! And after a while they all formed up in a row, and at a word from the leader—a huge man, my dears, puffectly 'uge—they discharged the corks in a volley at one of the boxes, which sheltered no less than two celebrities—Sir Bryan Johnstone, the chief of all the policemen, and Sir John Haverton, the Home Secretary. It is rumoured that one of the corks became embedded in Sir John's right eye—but rumour is a lying jade, is not she? Anyway loud sounds of revelry and mirth were heard proceeding from the box, and going a little later to powder my nose I distinctly saw Sir John being taught the intricacies of the fox-trot by the huge man in the passage. Presumably the cork had by then been removed from his eye, but one never knows, does one? Anything can happen at an Albert Hall ball, especially at the end of the season."

THE END

Table of Content

FOREWORD

I. — RAYMOND BLAIR—DRUNKARD

II. — THE KILLING OF BARON STOCKMAR

III. — A GAME OF BLUFF

IV. — COLETTE

V. — THE FIGHT AT BULL MINE CREEK

VI. — PETE CORNISH'S REVENGE

VII. — THE MADMAN AT CORN REEF LIGHTHOUSE

VIII. — THE SEVEN MISSIONARIES

IX. — THE ROTTENNESS OF LADY HOUNSLOW

X. — THE POOL OF THE SACRED CROCODILE

XI. — AN EXPERIMENT IN ELECTRICITY

XII. — MOLLY'S AUNT AT ANGMERING

Table of Content

THE first time I heard Jim Maitland's name mentioned was in the bar of a P.&O. We were two days out of Colombo, going East, and when I confessed my complete ignorance of the man a sort of stupefied silence settled on the company.

"You don't know Jim?" murmured an Assam tea-planter. "I thought everyone knew Jim."

"Anyway, if you stay in these parts long you soon will," put in someone else. "And once known—never forgotten."

They fell into reminiscences of old times, and I was well content to listen. Ever and anon Maitland's name was mentioned, and gradually my curiosity was aroused. And when one by one they went off to turn in, leaving me alone with the tea-planter, I asked him point-blank for further details.

He smiled thoughtfully, and took a sip of his whisky-and-soda.

"Ever been in a brawl, Leyton, with ten men up against you, and only the couch keeping a fellow with a knife in the background from sticking it into your ribs? Well, that's Jim's heaven, though he'd prefer it to be twenty. Ever seen a man shoot the pip out of the ace of diamonds at ten paces? Jim cuts it out by shooting round it at twenty. He's long and thin, and he wears an eyeglass, and rumour has it that once some man laughed at that eyeglass." The tea-planter grinned. "Take my advice and don't—if you meet him. It's not safe. He's got his own peculiar code of morals, and they wouldn't wash with an Anglican bishop. He never forgives and he never forgets—but he'd sell the shirt off his back to help a pal. Who he is and what he is I can't tell you; whether it's his right name even I don't know. And I've never asked; Jim doesn't encourage curiosity."

"Yes—but what's he do ?" I asked as he finished.

"Do?" echoed the tea-planter. "Why, man, he lives. He lives: he doesn't vegetate like nine out of ten of us have to."

With a short laugh he rose and finished his drink.

"Well—I'm turning in. That's what he does, Leyton—he lives."

The door closed behind him and for a while I sat on thinking. "He lives: he doesn't vegetate." The words were running in my head, the man to whom they had been applied was only a name to me. Nine out of ten! Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have been nearer the mark.

And since the doings of the one may be of passing interest to the ninety and nine, I have ventured to put on record these random recollections. For Fate decreed that I was to meet Jim Maitland, and eat with him, and drink with him, and fight with him. Fate decreed that the man who was only a name to me should become my greatest friend.

But for those who may read I have one word of warning. By the very nature of things, when a man is a wanderer on the face of the earth, the people he meets are here today and gone tomorrow. Maybe paths may touch again: more likely it is that they do not. The bunch with whom one drank at Shanghai and found good fellows one and all, disappear and are no more seen—just lives that crossed for an instant never to touch again. And so it must be in these pages. Across them will flit men and women—only to disappear as suddenly as they came. Today, as I write, they may be alive; they may be dead—I know not. MacAndrew, the Scotch trader at Tampico: Count von Tarnim of the Prussian Guard: Colette of the dancing hall in Valparaiso— where are they? How has life dealt with them? Has Captain James Kelly got his poultry farm in Dorset? No: by Jove! a U-boat got him in the war, and he went down with his flag flying having pot-shots with a rifle at the submarine commander who had shown himself on the conning-tower too soon. And does Jock Macgregor still wander in strange seas cursing the Government for his inadequate pay? As I said before, I know not. Which is why those who may read will not know either.