He shifted from one foot to another with his eyes on the ceiling. He was obviously in difficulties. Then he tried another glass of champagne.
“I dursn’t, guv’nor. I dursn’t let you go. Them I work for would cut my throat as soon as look at me. Besides, it ain’t no good. If I was to go off and leave you there’d be plenty more in this ’ouse as would do the job. You’re up against it, guv’nor. But take a sensible view and come with me. They don’t mean you no real ’arm. I’ll take my Bible oath on it. Only to keep you quiet for a bit, for you’ve run across one of their games. They won’t do you no ’urt if you speak ’em fair. Be a sport and take it smiling-like—”
“You’re afraid of them,” I said.
“Yuss. I’m afraid. Black afraid. So would you be if you knew the gents. I’d rather take on the whole Rat Lane crowd—you know them as I mean—on a Saturday night, when they’re out for business, than go back to my gents and say as ’ow I had shirked the job.”
He shivered. “Good Lord, they’d freeze the ’eart out of a bull-pup.”
“You’re afraid,” I said slowly. “So you’re going to give me up to the men you’re afraid of to do as they like with me. I never expected it of you, Bill. I thought you were the kind of lad who would send any gang to the devil before you’d go back on a pal.”
“Don’t say that,” he said almost plaintively. “You don’t ’alf know the ’ole I’m in.” His eye seemed to be wandering, and he yawned deeply.
Just then a great noise began below. I heard a voice speaking, a loud peremptory voice. Then my name was shouted: “Leithen! Leithen! Are you there?”
There could be no mistaking that broad Yorkshire tongue. By some miracle Chapman had followed me and was raising Cain downstairs.
My heart leaped with the sudden revulsion. “I’m here,” I yelled. “Upstairs. Come up and let me out!”
Then I turned with a smile of triumph to Bill.
“My friends have come,” I said. “You’re too late for the job. Get back and tell your masters that.”
He was swaying on his feet, and he suddenly lurched towards me. “You come along. By God, you think you’ve done me. I’ll let you see.”
His voice was growing thick and he stopped short. “What the ’ell’s wrong with me?” he gasped. “I’m goin’ all queer. I …”
He was like a man far gone in liquor, but three glasses of champagne would never have touched a head like Bill’s. I saw what was up with him. He was not drunk, but drugged.
“They’ve doped the wine,” I cried. “They put it there for me to drink it and go to sleep.”
There is always something which is the last straw to any man. You may insult and outrage him and he will bear it patiently, but touch the quick in his temper and he will turn. Apparently for Bill drugging was the unforgivable sin. His eye lost for a moment its confusion. He squared his shoulders and roared like a bull.
“Doped, by God,” he cried. “Who done it?”
“The men who shut me in this room. Burst that door and you will find them.”
He turned a blazing face on the locked door and hurled his huge weight on it. It cracked and bent but the lock and hinges held. I could see that sleep was overwhelming him and that his limbs were stiffening, but his anger was still strong enough for another effort. Again he drew himself together like a big cat and flung himself on the woodwork. The hinges tore from the jambs and the whole outfit fell forward into the passage in a cloud of splinters and dust and broken plaster.
It was Mr. Docker’s final effort. He lay on the top of the wreckage he had made, like Samson among the ruins of Gaza, a senseless and slumbering hulk.
I picked up the unopened bottle of champagne—it was the only weapon available—and stepped over his body. I was beginning to enjoy myself amazingly.
As I expected, there was a man in the corridor, a little fellow in waiter’s clothes, with a tweed jacket instead of a dress coat. If he had a pistol I knew I was done, but I gambled upon the disinclination of the management for the sound of shooting.
He had a knife, but he never had a chance to use it. My champagne bottle descended on his head and he dropped like a log.
There were men coming upstairs—not Chapman, for I still heard his hoarse shouts in the dining-room. If they once got up they could force me back through that hideous room by the door through which Docker had come, and in five minutes I should be in their motorcar.
There was only one thing to do. I jumped from the stairhead right down among them. I think there were three, and my descent toppled them over. We rolled in a wild, whirling mass and cascaded into the dining-room, where my head bumped violently on the parquet.
I expected a bit of a grapple, but none came. My wits were pretty woolly, but I managed to scramble to my feet. The heels of my enemies were disappearing up the staircase. Chapman was pawing my ribs to discover if there were any bones broken. There was not another soul in the room except two policemen who were pushing their way in from the street.
Chapman was flushed and breathing heavily: his coat had a big split down the
