“Don’t be despondent, Captain Drummond. We have ample time at our disposal to ensure a similar find tomorrow morning.”
VII
In Which He Spends an Hour or Two on a Roof
I
Drummond paused for a moment at the door of the sitting-room, then with a slight shrug he stepped past Peterson. During the last few days he had grown to look on this particular room as the private den of the principals of the gang. He associated it in his mind with Peterson himself, suave, impassive, ruthless; with the girl Irma, perfectly gowned, lying on the sofa, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and manicuring her already faultless nails; and in a lesser degree, with Henry Lakington’s thin, cruel face, and blue, staring eyes.
But tonight a different scene confronted him. The girl was not there: her accustomed place on the sofa was occupied by an unkempt-looking man with a ragged beard. At the end of the table was a vacant chair, on the right of which sat Lakington regarding him with malevolent fury. Along the table on each side there were half a dozen men, and he glanced at their faces. Some were obviously foreigners; some might have been anything from murderers to Sunday-school teachers. There was one with spectacles and the general appearance of an intimidated rabbit, while his neighbour, helped by a large red scar right across his cheek, and two bloodshot eyes, struck Hugh as being the sort of man with whom one would not share a luncheon basket.
“I know he’d snatch both drumsticks and gnaw them simultaneously,” he reflected, staring at him fascinated; “and then he’d throw the bones in your face.”
Peterson’s voice from just behind his shoulder roused him from his distressing reverie.
“Permit me, gentlemen, to introduce to you Captain Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., the originator of the little entertainment we have just had.”
Hugh bowed gravely.
“My only regret is that it failed to function,” he remarked. “As I told you outside, I’d quite forgotten your menagerie. In fact”—his glance wandered slowly and somewhat pointedly from face to face at the table—“I had no idea it was such a large one.”
“So this is the insolent young swine, is it?” The bloodshot eyes of the man with the scarred face turned on him morosely. “What I cannot understand is why he hasn’t been killed by now.”
Hugh waggled an accusing finger at him.
“I knew you were a nasty man as soon as I saw you. Now look at Henry up at the end of the table; he doesn’t say that sort of thing. And you do hate me, don’t you, Henry? How’s the jaw?”
“Captain Drummond,” said Lakington, ignoring Hugh and addressing the first speaker, “was very nearly killed last night. I thought for some time as to whether I would or not, but I finally decided it would be much too easy a death. So it can be remedied tonight.”
If Hugh felt a momentary twinge of fear at the calm, expressionless tone, and the half-satisfied grunt which greeted the words, no trace of it showed on his face. Already the realisation had come to him that if he got through the night alive he would be more than passing lucky, but he was too much of a fatalist to let that worry him unduly. So he merely stifled a yawn, and again turned to Lakington.
“So it was you, my little one, whose fairy face I saw pressed against the window. Would it be indiscreet to ask how you got the dope into us?”
Lakington looked at him with an expression of grim satisfaction on his face.
“You were gassed, if you want to know. An admirable invention of my friend Kauffner’s nation.”
A guttural chuckle came from one of the men, and Hugh looked at him grimly.
“The scum certainly would not be complete,” he remarked to Peterson, “without a filthy Boche in it.”
The German pushed back his chair with an oath, his face purple with passion.
“A filthy Boche,” he muttered thickly, lurching towards Hugh. “Hold him the arms of, and I will the throat tear out. …”
The intimidated rabbit rose protestingly at this prospect of violence; the scarred sportsman shot out of his chair eagerly, the lust of battle in his bloodshot eyes. The only person save Hugh who made no movement was Peterson, and he, very distinctly, chuckled. Whatever his failings, Peterson had a sense of humour. …
It all happened so quickly. At one moment Hugh was apparently intent upon selecting a cigarette, the next instant the case had fallen to the floor; there was a dull, heavy thud, and the Boche crashed back, overturned a chair, and fell like a log to the floor, his head hitting the wall with a vicious crack. The bloodshot being resumed his seat a little limply; the intimidated bunny gave a stifled gasp and breathed heavily; Hugh resumed his search for a cigarette.
“After which breezy interlude,” remarked Peterson, “let us to business get.”
Hugh paused in the act of striking a match, and for the first time a genuine smile spread over his face.
“There are moments, Peterson,” he murmured, “when you really appeal to me.”
Peterson took the empty chair next to Lakington.
“Sit down,” he said shortly. “I can only hope that I shall appeal to you still more before we kill you.”
Hugh bowed and sat down.
“Consideration,” he murmured, “was always your strong point. May I ask how long I have to live?”
Peterson smiled genially.
“At the very earnest request of Mr. Lakington you are to be spared until tomorrow morning. At least, that is our present intention. Of course, there might be an accident in the night: in a house like this one can never tell. Or”—he carefully cut the end off a cigar—“you might go mad, in which case we shouldn’t bother to kill you. In fact, it would really suit our book better if you did: the disposal of corpses, even in these days of advanced science, presents certain difficulties—not insuperable—but a nuisance. And
