The Leithen Stories. Buchan John
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 stout 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.’
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 Docken’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 Docken had come, and in five minutes I should be in their motor-car.
There was only one thing to do. I jumped from the stair-head 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 seams at the shoulder, but his face was happy as a child’s.
I caught his arm and spoke in his ear. ‘We’ve got to get out of this at once. How can we square these policemen? There must be no inquiry and nothing in the papers. Do you hear?’
‘That’s all right,’ said Chapman. ‘These bobbies are friends of mine, two good lads from Wensleydale. On my road here I told them to give me a bit of law and follow me, for I thought they might be wanted. They didn’t come too soon to spoil sport, for I’ve been knocking furriners about for ten minutes. You seem to have been putting up a tidy scrap yourself.’
‘Let’s get home first,’ I said, for I was beginning to think of the bigger thing.
I wrote a chit for Macgillivray which I asked one of the constables to take to Scotland Yard. It was to beg that nothing should be done yet in the business of the restaurant, and above all, that nothing should get into the papers. Then I asked the other to see us home. It was a queer request for two able-bodied men to make on a summer evening in the busiest part of London, but I was taking no chances. The Power-House had declared war on me, and I knew it would be war without quarter.
I was in a fever to get out of that place. My momentary lust of battle had gone, and every stone of that building seemed to me a threat. Chapman would have liked to spend a happy hour rummaging through the house, but the gravity of my face persuaded him. The truth is, I was bewildered. I could not understand the reason of this sudden attack. Lumley’s spies must long ago have told him enough to connect me with the Bokhara business. My visits to the Embassy alone were proof enough. But now he must have found something new, something which startled him, or else there had been wild doings in Turkestan.
I won’t forget that walk home in a hurry. It was a fine July twilight. The streets were full of the usual crowd, shop-girls in thin frocks, promenading clerks, and all the flotsam of a London summer. You would have said it was the safest place on earth. But I was glad we had the policeman with us, who at the end of one beat passed us on to his colleague, and I was glad of Chapman. For I am morally certain I would never have got home alone.
The queer thing is that there was no sign of trouble till we got into Oxford Street. Then I became aware that there were people on these pavements who knew all about me. I first noticed it at the mouth of one of those little dark side-alleys which run up into mews and small dingy courts. I found myself being skilfully edged away from Chapman into the shadow, but I noticed it in time and butted my way back to the pavement. I couldn’t make out who the people were who hustled me. They seemed nondescripts of all sorts, but I fancied there were women among them.
This happened twice, and I got wary, but I was nearly caught before we reached Oxford Circus. There was a front of a big shop rebuilding, and the usual wooden barricade with a gate. Just as we passed it there was a special throng on the pavement, and I, being next the wall, got pushed against the gate. Suddenly it gave, and I was pressed inward. I was right inside before I realised my danger, and the gate was closing. There must have been people there, but I could see nothing in the gloom.