I couldn’t help it: I burst out laughing.
“Frankly, it would never have dawned on me to go to Peckham tonight,” I said. “Incidentally if it hadn’t been for you I shouldn’t have known anything about Peckham, for I should never have had the nerve to pull that little blighter into Toby’s rooms even if I’d realised he was watching the house—which I shouldn’t have. What I meant was that it seemed very good of you to worry over a thing like this—seeing that you don’t even know Gaunt.”
An expression of profound relief had replaced the amazement.
“By Jove! old man,” he remarked, “you gave me a nasty fright then. What on earth does it matter if I know Gaunt or not? Opportunities of this sort are far too rare to stand on ceremony. What I was afraid of was that you might want to keep it all for yourself. And I can assure you that lots of amusing little shows I’ve had in the past have started much less promisingly than this. You get Toby to tell you about ’em while I go and rout out some togs for tonight.”
“What an amazing bloke he is,” I said as the door closed behind him. And Toby Sinclair smiled thoughtfully.
“In the words of the American philosopher, you have delivered yourself of a perfectly true mouthful. And now, if you take my advice, you’ll get some sleep. For with Hugh on the warpath, and if we have any luck, you won’t get much tonight.”
He curled himself up in a chair, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. But try as I would I could not follow his example. There was a sense of unreality about the whole thing: events seemed to be moving with that queer, jumbled incoherence that belongs to a dream. Robin’s despairing cry: the policeman crashing to the floor like a bullock in a slaughterhouse: the dead Australian who had fought so fiercely. And against whom? Who was it who had come into that room the night before? What was happening there even as Robin got through to me on the phone?
And suddenly I seemed to see it all. The door was opening slowly, and Robin was staring at it. For a moment or two we watched it, and then I could bear the suspense no longer. I hurled myself forward, to find myself in the grip of a huge black-bearded man with a yellow handkerchief knotted round his throat.
“You swine,” I shouted, and then I looked round stupidly.
For the room had changed, and the noise of a passing taxi came from Brook Street.
“Three hours of the best,” said the big man genially, and a nasty-looking little Jew clerk behind him laughed. “It’s half-past seven, and time you altered your appearance.”
“Good Lord!” I muttered with an attempt at a grin. “I’m awfully sorry: I must have been dreaming.”
“It was a deuced agile dream,” answered Drummond. “My right sock suspender is embedded about half-an-inch in my legs. Toby saw you coming and dodged.”
He turned to the little Jew, who was lighting a cigarette.
“Make some cocktails, old man, while I rig up Stockton.”
“Great Scott!” I said. “I’d never have known either of you.”
“You won’t know yourself in twenty minutes,” answered Drummond. “You’re going to be a mechanic with Communistic tendencies, and my third revolver.”
III
In Which Some Excellent Advice Is Followed
The Three Cows at Peckham proved an unprepossessing spot. It was a quarter to nine when we entered the public bar, and the place was crowded. The atmosphere reeked of tobacco-smoke and humanity, and in one corner stood one of those diabolical machines in which, for the price of one penny, a large metal disc rotates and delivers itself of an appalling noise.
Involuntarily I hesitated for a moment; then seeing that Drummond had elbowed his way to the bar and that Toby was standing behind him, I reluctantly followed. I really had half a mind to chuck up the whole thing: after all the police were already on the matter. What on earth was the use of this amateur dressing-up business?
“Three of four-’alf, please, Miss,” said Drummond, planking down a shilling on the counter. “Blest if you ain’t got much thinner since I was last ’ere.”
“Come off it,” returned the sixteen-stone maiden tersely. “You ain’t a blinking telegraph pole yourself. Three whiskies and splash, and a Guinness. All right! All right! I’ve only got two hands, ain’t I?”
She turned away, and I stared round the place with an increasing feeling of disgust. Racing touts, loafers, riffraff of all descriptions filled the room, and the hoarse hum of conversation, punctuated by the ceaseless popping of corks for the drinkers of Bass, half deafened one. But of either of our friends of the morning there was no sign.
I took a sip out of the glass in front of me. Drummond was engaged with a horsy-looking gentleman spotting winners for next day; on my other side Toby Sinclair, in the intervals of dispassionately picking his teeth, was chaffing the sixteen-stoner’s elderly companion. And I wondered if I appeared as completely at ease in my surroundings and as little noticeable as they did. A cigarette might help, I reflected, and I lit one. And a moment or two later Drummond turned round.
“ ’Ear that,” he remarked in a confidential whisper. “Strite from the stables. Why the devil don’t you smoke a Corona Corona, you fool! Put out that Turk. And try and look a bit less like a countryman seeing London for the first time. Absolutely strite from the stables. Stargazer—for the two-thirty. ’E can’t lose.”
“Like to back yer fancy, Mister?” The horsy-looking gent leaned forward with a wink.
“What’s that? I mean—er …” I broke off, completely bewildered. Mechanically I put out my cigarette. For Drummond’s
