It was I who caught Mrs. Drummond as she pitched forward in a dead faint, and I held her whilst her husband went Berserk. It was my first acquaintance with his amazing strength. He hurled heavy pieces of furniture about as if they were out of a doll’s house. The two beds flew apart with a crash and the foul brute he was after sidled under a wardrobe. And then the wardrobe moved like Kipling’s piano, save that there was only one man behind and not several.
But at last he had it, and with a grunt of rage he hit it with the poker between the beady staring eyes. He hit it again and again and then he turned round and stared at us.
“If ever I lay hands on the man who sent these brutes,” he said quietly, “I will do the same to him.”
He took his wife from me and picked her up in his arms.
“Let’s go out of here before she comes to,” he went on. “Poor kid; poor little kid!”
He carried her downstairs, and a few minutes later she opened her eyes. Stark horror still shone in them, and for a while she sobbed hysterically. But at length she grew calmer, and disjointedly, with many pauses, she told us what had happened.
She’d come in from a dance, and seen the two boxes lying on the hall table. She’d taken hers upstairs, thinking it was a present from her husband. And she’d opened it at her dressing-table. And then she’d seen this awful monster staring at her. Her maid had gone to bed, and suddenly it had scrambled out of the box and flopped off the table on to the floor at her feet.
“I tried to scream, Hugh, and I couldn’t. I think I was half mesmerised. I just rushed blindly away, and I went to the wrong corner. Instead of going to the door, I went to the other. And it followed me. And when I stopped it stopped.”
She began to shudder uncontrollably; then she pulled herself together again.
“It just squatted there on the floor and its eyes seemed to grow bigger and bigger. And once I found myself bending right forward towards it, as if I was forced against my will. I think if it had touched me I should have gone mad. Who sent it, Hugh: who was the brute who sent it?”
“If ever I find that out,” said Drummond grimly, “he will curse the day that he was born. But just now, darling, I want you to take some sleep dope and go to bed.”
“I couldn’t,” she cried. “I couldn’t sleep with a double dose.”
“Right ho!” he answered. “Then stop down here and talk to us. By the way, you don’t know Mr. Stockton, do you? He’s really quite good-looking when you see his real face.”
“I’m afraid, Mrs. Drummond,” I said apologetically, “that I am indirectly responsible for those two brutes being sent to you tonight.”
“Two,” she cried. “Your parcel had one too?”
“Yes, my dear, it did,” said Drummond. “Only I took the precaution of drowning mine before inspecting it.”
“Look here, Hugh,” cried his wife, “I know you’re on the warpath again. Well, I tell you straight I can stand most things—you’ve already given me three goes of Peterson—but I can’t stand spiders. If I get any more of them I shall sue for divorce.”
Her husband grinned and she turned to me pathetically.
“You wouldn’t believe what he’s like, Mr. Stockton, once he gets going.”
“I can hazard a pretty shrewd guess,” I returned. “We haven’t exactly been at a Sunday School treat this evening.”
“Life is real and life is earnest,” chanted her husband. “And Stockton’s becoming one of the boys, my pet. We’ve had a really first-class show tonight. I’ve got the winner of the Derby, if it hadn’t been scratched a little tactlessly by old Uncle Bob. And MacIver—you remember that shining light of Scotland Yard—has chased us all over London, and is very angry in consequence. And—oh! well, lots of other things. What’s that you’re grasping in your hand, Toby?”
“Another note, old boy. He’s a literary gent, is our spider friend.”
“Where did you find it?”
“In the box on Phyllis’s dressing-table. And I don’t think it will amuse you.”
It did not.
“A little nervy? Lost your temper? Well, well! They were quite harmless, both of them, though I admit Mary’s claim to beauty must not be judged by ordinary standards. But let that be enough. I don’t want meddlers. Next time I shall remove you without mercy. So cease being stupid.”
“An amazingly poor judge of human nature,” said Drummond softly. “Quite amazingly so. I wonder which of the two it was. I trust with all my heart that it was not our friend of Hatchett’s and Ashworth Gardens. I should hate to think we would never meet again.”
“But why won’t you?” said his wife hopefully.
“Well, we had a little game tonight, darling,” answered Drummond. “And he has taken his own excellent advice. He has ceased being stupid.”
IV
In Which Hugh Drummond Discovers a New Aunt
And at this point I feel that I owe my readers an apology. In fact, Hugh Drummond, who has just read the last chapter, insists on it.
“What an appalling song and dance about nothing at all,” is the tenor of his criticism. “My dear fellow, concentrate on the big thing.”
Well, I admit that in comparison with what was to come it was nothing at all. And yet I don’t know. After all, the first shell that bursts near one affects the individual more than a bombardment later on. And the events I have described constituted my first shell, so that on that score alone I crave indulgence.
But there is another reason too which, in my opinion, renders it impossible to concentrate only on the big thing. Had these words been penned at
