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

The two men picked him up and, having carried the body to the bath, they dropped it into the fuming liquid. Then, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, they peeled off their long gloves and stood watching. For a minute or so nothing happened, and then gradually the body commenced to disappear. A faint, sickly smell came through the open window, and Hugh wiped the sweat off his forehead. It was too horrible, the hideous deliberation of it all. And whatever vile tortures the wretched man had inflicted on others in Russia, yet it was through him that his dead body lay there in the bath, disappearing slowly and relentlessly....

Lakington lit a cigarette and strolled over to the fireplace.

"Another five minutes should be enough," he remarked. "Damn that cursed soldier!"

Peterson laughed gently, and resumed the study of his ledger.

"To lose one's temper with a man, my dear Henry, is a sign of inferiority. But it certainly is a nuisance that Ivolsky is dead. He could talk more unmitigated drivel to the minute than all the rest of 'em put together.... I really don't know who to put in the Midland area."

He leaned back in his chair and blew out a cloud of smoke. The light shone on the calm, impassive face; and with a feeling of wonder that was never far absent from his mind when he was with Peterson, Hugh noted the high, clever forehead, the firmly moulded nose and chin, the sensitive, humorous mouth. The man lying back in the chair watching the blue smoke curling up from his cigar might have been a great lawyer or an eminent divine; some well-known statesman, perhaps, or a Napoleon of finance. There was power in every line of his figure, in every movement of his hands. He might have reached to the top of any profession he had cared to follow.... Just as he had reached to the top in his present one.... Some kink in the brain, some little cog wrong in the wonderful mechanism, and a great man had become a great criminal. Hugh looked at the bath: the liquid was almost clear.

"You know my feelings on the subject," remarked Lakington, taking a red velvet box out of a drawer in the desk. He opened it lovingly, and Hugh saw the flash of diamonds. Lakington let the stones run through his hands, glittering with a thousand flames, while Peterson watched him contemptuously.

"Baubles," he said, scornfully. "Pretty baubles. What will you get for them?"

"Ten, perhaps fifteen thousand," returned the other. "But it's not the money I care about; it's the delight in having them, and the skill required to get them."

Peterson shrugged his shoulders.

"Skill which would give you hundreds of thousands if you turned it into proper channels."

Lakington replaced the stones, and threw the end of his cigarette into the grate.

"Possibly, Carl, quite possibly. But it boils down to this, my friend, that you like the big canvas with broad effects, I like the miniature and the well-drawn etching."

"Which makes us a very happy combination," said Peterson, rising and walking over to the bath. "The pearls, don't forget, are your job. The big thing"—he turned to the other, and a trace of excitement came into his voice—"the big thing is mine." Then with his hands in his pockets he stood staring at the brown liquid. "Our friend is nearly cooked, I think."

"Another two or three minutes," said Lakington, joining him. "I must confess I pride myself on the discovery of that mixture. Its only drawback is that it makes murder too easy...."

The sound of the door opening made both men swing round instantly; then Peterson stepped forward with a smile.

"Back, my dear. I hardly expected you so soon."

Irma came a little way into the room, and stopped with a sniff of disgust.

"What a horrible smell!" she remarked. "What on earth have you been doing?"

"Disposing of a corpse," said Lakington. "It's nearly finished."

The girl threw off her opera cloak, and coming forward, peered over the edge of the bath.

"It's not my ugly soldier?" she cried.

"Unfortunately not," returned Lakington grimly; and Peterson laughed.

"Henry is most annoyed, Irma. The irrepressible Drummond has scored again."

In a few words he told the girl what had happened, and she clapped her hands together delightedly.

"Assuredly I shall have to marry that man," she cried. "He is quite the least boring individual I have met in this atrocious country." She sat down and lit a cigarette. "I saw Walter to-night."

"Where?" demanded Peterson quickly. "I thought he was in Paris."

"He was this morning. He came over especially to see you. They want you there for a meeting, at the Ritz."

Peterson frowned.

"It's most inconvenient," he remarked with a shade of annoyance in his voice. "Did he say why?"

"Amongst other things I think they're uneasy about the American," she answered. "My dear man, you can easily slip over for a day."

"Of course I can," said Peterson irritably; "but that doesn't alter the fact that it's inconvenient. Things will be shortly coming to a head here, and I want to be on the spot. However——" He started to walk up and down the room, frowning thoughtfully.

"Your fish is hooked, mon ami ," continued the girl to Lakington. "He has already proposed three times; and he has introduced me to a dreadful-looking woman of extreme virtue, who has adopted me as her niece for the great occasion."

"What great occasion?" asked Lakington, looking up from the bath.

"Why, his coming of age," cried the girl. "I am to go to Laidley Towers as an honoured guest of the Duchess of Lampshire." She threw back her head and laughed. "What do you think of that, my friend? The old lady will be wearing pearls and all complete, in honour of the great day, and I shall be one of the admiring house party."

"How do you know she'll have them in the house?" said Lakington.

"Because dear Freddie has told me so," answered the girl. "I don't think you're very bright to-night, Henry. When the young Pooh-ba comes of age, naturally his devoted maternal parent will sport her glad rags. Incidentally the tenants are going to present him with a loving cup, or a baby giraffe or something. You might like to annex that too." She blew two smoke rings and then laughed.

"Freddie is really rather a dear at times. I don't think I've ever met anyone who is so nearly an idiot without being one. Still," she repeated thoughtfully, "he's rather a dear."

Lakington turned a handle underneath the bath, and the liquid, now clear and still, commenced to sink rapidly. Fascinated, Hugh watched the process; in two minutes the bath was empty—a human body had completely disappeared without leaving a trace. It seemed to him as if he must have been dreaming, as if the events of the whole night had been part of some strange jumbled nightmare. And then, having pinched himself to make sure he was awake, he once more glued his eyes to the open space of the window.

Lakington was swabbing out the bath with some liquid on the end of a mop; Peterson, his chin sunk on his chest, was still pacing slowly up and down; the girl, her neck and shoulders gleaming white in the electric light, was lighting a second cigarette from the stump of the first. After a while Lakington finished his cleaning operations and put on his coat.

"What," he asked curiously, "does he think you are?"

"A charming young girl," answered Irma demurely, "whose father lost his life in the war, and who at present ekes out a precarious existence in a government office. At least, that's what he told Lady Frumpley—she's the woman of unassailable virtue. She was profoundly sentimental and scents a romance, in addition to being a snob and scenting a future duke, to say nothing of a future duchess. By the mercy of Allah she's on a committee with his mother for distributing brown-paper underclothes to destitute Belgians, and so Freddie wangled an invite for her. Voilà tout ."