For a while the man looked at it; then with a sudden cry of fear he shrank away. “No, no,” he muttered, “not again.”
Hugh hurriedly replaced the paper. “Bad break on my part, old bean; you evidently remember rather too well. It’s quite all right,” he continued reassuringly; “no one will hurt you.” Then after a pause—“Is your name Hiram C. Potts?”
The man nodded his head doubtfully and muttered “Hiram Potts” once or twice, as if the words sounded familiar.
“Do you remember driving in a motorcar last night?” persisted Hugh.
But what little flash of remembrance had pierced the drug-clouded brain seemed to have passed; the man only stared dazedly at the speaker. Drummond tried him with a few more questions, but it was no use, and after a while he got up and moved towards the door.
“Don’t you worry, old son,” he said with a smile. “We’ll have you jumping about like a two-year-old in a couple of days.”
Then he paused: the man was evidently trying to say something. “What is it you want?” Hugh leant over the bed.
“Danger, danger.” Faintly the words came, and then, with a sigh, he lay back exhausted.
With a grim smile Drummond watched the motionless figure.
“I’m afraid,” he said half aloud, “that you’re rather like your medical attendant. Your only contribution to the sphere of pure knowledge is something I know already.”
He went out and quietly closed the door. And as he re-entered his sitting-room he found his servant standing motionless behind one of the curtains watching the street below.
“There’s a man, sir,” he remarked without turning round, “watching the house.”
For a moment Hugh stood still, frowning. Then he gave a short laugh. “The devil there is!” he remarked. “The game has begun in earnest, my worthy warrior, with the first nine points to us. For possession, even of a semi-dazed lunatic, is nine points of the law, is it not, James?”
His servant retreated cautiously from the curtain and came back into the room. “Of the law—yes, sir,” he repeated enigmatically. “It is time, sir, for your morning glass of beer.”
II
At twelve o’clock precisely the bell rang, announcing a visitor, and Drummond looked up from the columns of the Sportsman as his servant came into the room.
“Yes, James,” he remarked. “I think we are at home. I want you to remain within call, and under no circumstances let our sick visitor out of your sight for more than a minute. In fact, I think you’d better sit in his room.”
He resumed his study of the paper, and James, with a curt “Very good, sir,” left the room. Almost at once he returned, and flinging open the door announced Mr. Peterson.
Drummond looked up quickly and rose with a smile.
“Good morning,” he cried. “This is a very pleasant surprise, Mr. Peterson.” He waved his visitor to a chair. “Hope you’ve had no more trouble with your car.”
Mr. Peterson drew off his gloves, smiling amiably. “None at all, thank you, Captain Drummond. The chauffeur appears to have mastered the defect.”
“It was your eye on him that did it. Wonderful thing—the human optic, as I said to your friend, Mr.—Mr. Laking. I hope that he’s quite well and taking nourishment.”
“Soft food only,” said the other genially. “Mr. Lakington had a most unpleasant accident last night—most unpleasant.”
Hugh’s face expressed his sympathy. “How very unfortunate!” he murmured. “I trust nothing serious.”
“I fear his lower jaw was fractured in two places.” Peterson helped himself to a cigarette from the box beside him. “The man who hit him must have been a boxer.”
“Mixed up in a brawl, was he?” said Drummond, shaking his head. “I should never have thought, from what little I’ve seen of Mr. Lakington, that he went in for painting the town red. I’d have put him down as a most abstemious man—but one never can tell, can one? I once knew a fellah who used to get fighting drunk on three whiskies, and to look at him you’d have put him down as a Methodist parson. Wonderful the amount of cheap fun that chap got out of life.”
Peterson flicked the ash from his cigarette into the grate. “Shall we come to the point, Captain Drummond?” he remarked affably.
Hugh looked bewildered. “The point, Mr. Peterson? Er—by all manner of means.”
Peterson smiled even more affably. “I felt certain that you were a young man of discernment,” he remarked, “and I wouldn’t like to keep you from your paper a minute longer than necessary.”
“Not a bit,” cried Hugh. “My time is yours—though I’d very much like to know your real opinion of The Juggernaut for the Chester Cup. It seems to me that he cannot afford to give Sumatra seven pounds on their form up to date.”
“Are you interested in gambling?” asked Peterson politely.
“A mild flutter, Mr. Peterson, every now and then,” returned Drummond. “Strictly limited stakes.”
“If you confine yourself to that you will come to no harm,” said Peterson. “It is when the stakes become unlimited that the danger of a crash becomes unlimited too.”
“That is what my mother always told me,” remarked Hugh. “She even went farther, dear good woman that she was. ‘Never bet except on a certainty, my boy,’ was her constant advice, ‘and then put your shirt on!’ I can hear her saying it now, Mr. Peterson, with the golden rays of the setting sun lighting up her sweet face.”
Suddenly Peterson leant forward in his chair. “Young man,” he remarked, “we’ve got to understand one another. Last night you butted in on my plans, and I do not like people who do that. By an act which, I must admit, appealed to me greatly, you removed something I require—something, moreover, which I intend to have. Breaking the electric bulb with a revolver-shot shows resource and initiative. The blow which smashed Henry Lakington’s jaw in two places shows strength. All qualities which I admire, Captain Drummond—admire greatly. I should dislike
