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

"Oh! but splendid," cried the girl a little breathlessly. "And where was the American?"

"Next door—safe with a very dear old friend of mine, Peter Darrell. You must meet Peter some day—you'll like him." He looked at her thoughtfully. "No," he added, "on second thoughts, I'm not at all sure that I shall let you meet Peter. You might like him too much; and he's a dirty dog."

"Don't be ridiculous," she cried with a faint blush. "Tell me, where is the American now?"

"Many miles out of London," answered Hugh. "I think we'll leave it at that. The less you know, Miss Benton, at the moment—the better."

"Have you found out anything?" she demanded eagerly.

Hugh shook his head.

"Not a thing. Except that your neighbours are as pretty a bunch of scoundrels as I ever want to meet."

"But you'll let me know if you do." She laid a hand beseechingly on his arm. "You know what's at stake for me, don't you? Father, and—oh! but you know."

"I know," he answered gravely. "I know, old thing. I promise I'll let you know anything I find out. And in the meantime I want you to keep an eye fixed on what goes on next door, and let me know anything of importance by letter to the Junior Sports Club." He lit a cigarette thoughtfully. "I have an idea that they feel so absolutely confident in their own power, that they are going to make the fatal mistake of underrating their opponents. We shall see." He turned to her with a twinkle in his eye. "Anyway, our Mr. Lakington will see that you don't come to any harm."

"The brute!" she cried, very low. "How I hate him!" Then with a sudden change of tone, she looked up at Drummond. "I don't know whether it's worth mentioning," she said slowly, "but yesterday afternoon four men came at different times to The Elms. They were the sort of type one sees tub-thumping in Hyde Park, all except one, who looked like a respectable working-man."

Hugh shook his head.

"Don't seem to help much, does it? Still, one never knows. Let me know anything like that in future at the Club."

"Good morning, Miss Benton." Peterson's voice behind them made Drummond swing round with a smothered curse. "Our inestimable friend Captain Drummond brought such a nice young fellow to see me last night, and then left him lying about the house this morning."

Hugh bit his lip with annoyance; until that moment he had clean forgotten that Mullings was still in The Elms.

"I have sent him along to your car," continued Peterson suavely, "which I trust was the correct procedure. Or did you want to give him to me as a pet?"

"From a rapid survey, Mr. Peterson, I should think you have quite enough already," said Hugh. "I trust you paid him the money you owe him."

"I will allot it to him in my will," remarked Peterson. "If you do the same in yours, doubtless he will get it from one of us sooner or later. In the meantime, Miss Benton, is your father up?"

The girl frowned.

"No—not yet."

"Then I will go and see him in bed. For the present, au revoir." He walked towards the house, and they watched him go in silence. It was as he opened the drawing-room window that Hugh called after him:

"Do you like the horse Elliman's or the ordinary brand?" he asked. "I'll send you a bottle for that stiff neck of yours."

Very deliberately Peterson turned round.

"Don't trouble, thank you, Captain Drummond. I have my own remedies, which are far more efficacious."

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"Did you have a good night, Mullings?" remarked Hugh as he got into his car.

The man grinned sheepishly.

"I dunno what the game was, sir, but I ain't for many more of them. They're about the ugliest crowd of blackguards in that there 'ouse that I ever wants to see again."

"How many did you see altogether?" asked Drummond.

"I saw six actual like, sir; but I 'eard others talking."

The car slowed up before the post office and Hugh got out. There were one or two things he proposed to do in London before going to Goring, and it struck him that a wire to Peter Darrell might allay that gentleman's uneasiness if he was late in getting down. So new was he to the tortuous ways of crime, that the foolishness of the proceeding never entered his head: up to date in his life, if he had wished to send a wire he had sent one. And so it may be deemed a sheer fluke on his part, that a man dawdling by the counter aroused his suspicions. He was a perfectly ordinary man, chatting casually with the girl on the other side; but it chanced that, just as Hugh was holding the post office pencil up, and gazing at its so-called point with an air of resigned anguish, the perfectly ordinary man ceased chatting and looked at him. Hugh caught his eye for a fleeting second; then the conversation continued. And as he turned to pull out the pad of forms, it struck him that the man had looked away just a trifle too quickly....

A grin spread slowly over his face, and after a moment's hesitation he proceeded to compose a short wire. He wrote it in block letters for additional clearness; he also pressed his hardest as befitted a blunt pencil. Then with the form in his hand he advanced to the counter.

"How long will it take to deliver in London?" he asked the girl....

The girl was not helpful. It depended, he gathered, on a variety of circumstances, of which not the least was the perfectly ordinary man who talked so charmingly. She did not say so, in so many words, but Hugh respected her none the less for her maidenly reticence.

"I don't think I'll bother then," he said, thrusting the wire into his pocket. "Good morning...."

He walked to the door, and shortly afterwards his car rolled down the street. He would have liked to remain and see the finish of his little jest, but, as is so often the case, imagination is better than reality. Certain it is that he chuckled consumedly the whole way up to London, whereas the actual finish was tame.

With what the girl considered peculiar abruptness, the perfectly ordinary man concluded his conversation with her, and decided that he too would send a wire. And then, after a long and thoughtful pause at the writing-bench, she distinctly heard an unmistakable "Damn." Then he walked out, and she saw him no more.

Moreover, it is to be regretted that the perfectly ordinary man told a lie a little later in the day, when giving his report to someone whose neck apparently inconvenienced him greatly. But then a lie is frequently more tactful than the truth, and to have announced that the sole result of his morning's labours had been to decipher a wire addressed to The Elms, which contained the cryptic remark, "Stung again, stiff neck, stung again," would not have been tactful. So he lied, as has been stated, thereby showing his wisdom....

But though Drummond chuckled to himself as the car rushed through the fresh morning air, once or twice a gleam that was not altogether amusement shone in his eyes. For four years he had played one game where no mistakes were allowed; the little incident of the post office had helped to bring to his mind the certainty that he had now embarked on another where the conditions were much the same. That he had scored up to date was luck rather than good management, and he was far too shrewd not to realise it. Now he was marked, and luck with a marked man cannot be tempted too far.

Alone and practically unguarded he had challenged a gang of international criminals: a gang not only utterly unscrupulous but controlled by a mastermind. Of its power as yet he had no clear idea; of its size and immediate object he had even less. Perhaps it was as well. Had he realised even dimly the immensity of the issues he was up against, had he had but an inkling of the magnitude of the plot conceived in the sinister brain of his host of the previous evening, then, cheery optimist though he was, even Hugh Drummond might have wavered. But he had no such inkling, and so the gleam in his eyes was but transitory, the chuckle that succeeded it more whole-hearted than before. Was it not sport in a land flowing with strikes and profiteers; sport such as his soul loved?