The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
bellowed to his amazed staff. "Send for a keeper, and a straight-jacket."
He turned round, for a sudden silence had settled on the room behind. Drummond was standing motionless gripping both the Professor's arms, with a look of amazement slowly dawning on his face. Surely he couldn't be mistaken, and yet—unless Peterson had suffered from some wasting disease—what on earth had happened to the man? The arms he felt under the coat-sleeve were thin as match-sticks, whereas Peterson as he remembered of old was almost as strong as he was.
He stared at Professor Scheidstrun's face. Yes—surely that nose was too good to be true. He pulled it thoughtfully and methodically—first this way then that—while the unhappy victim screamed with agony, and the junior clerk upset the ink in his excitement at the untoward spectacle.
It was real right enough—that nose. At least nothing had come off so far, and a little dazedly Drummond backed away, still staring at him. Surely he hadn't made a mistake: the gesture—that movement of the left hand had been quite unmistakable. And the next instant a terrific blow on the right ear turned his attention to other things.
He swung round to find a monumental woman regarding him with the light of battle in her eyes.
"How dare you," she boomed, "the nose of my Heinrich pull?" With great agility Drummond dodged a heavy second to the jaw, and it was now his turn to flee for safety. And it took a bit of doing.
The lady was out for blood, as a heavy volume on the intricacies of Real Estate which missed Drummond's head by half an inch and broke a flower-vase clearly proved.
"He seize my wig; he try to pull off my nose," wailed the Professor, as Mr Tootem, junior, attracted by the din, rushed in. "And if I the coward catch," bellowed his spouse, picking up a companion volume on Probate and Divorce, "I will not try—I will succeed with this."
"Three to one on the filly," murmured young Tootem gracelessly, as with a heavy crash Probate and Divorce shot through the window.
But mercifully for all concerned, especially the reputation of Tootem, Price & Tootem, it proved to be the lady's dying gasp.
Completely exhausted she sank into a chair, and Drummond cautiously emerged from behind a table. He was feeling a little faint himself; the need for alcohol was pressing. One thing even to his whirling brain was beyond dispute. Impossible though it was that Peterson should have shrunk, it was even more impossible that Irma should have swollen. By no conceivable art of disguise could that beautiful and graceful girl have turned herself into the human monstrosity who was now regarding him balefully from her chair.
Her arms were twice the size of his own, and unless Irma had developed elephantiasis the thing simply could not be. Of course she might have covered herself with india-rubber and blown herself out in some way; he didn't put anything beyond Peterson. But the thought of pricking her with a pin to make sure was beyond even his nerve. It was too early in the day to ask any woman to burst with a slow whistling noise. And if she was real... He trembled violently at the mere thought of what would happen.
No; incredible though it was, he had made a ghastly mistake. Moreover, the next move was clearly with him. "I'm afraid I've made a bloomer," he murmured, mopping his forehead. "What about a small spot all round, and—er—I'll try to explain."
It cannot be said that he found the process of explaining an easy one. The lady in particular, having got her second wind, seemed only too ready to cut the cackle and get down to it again; and, as Drummond had to admit even to himself, the explanation sounded a bit lame. To assault unmercifully an elderly German savant in a lawyer's office merely because he was drumming with his left hand on his knee was, as Mr Tootem junior put it, a shade over the odds.
And his excuse for so doing—his description of the inconceivable villainies of Carl Peterson in the past—was received coldly.
In fact Hugh Drummond proceeded to spend an extremely unpleasant twenty minutes, which might have been considerably prolonged but for Mr Tootem senior remembering that the umpires were just about coming out at Lord's.
He rose from his chair pontifically.
"I think we must assume," he remarked, "that this misguided young man was actuated by worthy motives, even though his actions left much to be desired. His keenness to safeguard the valuable notes of my late lamented client no doubt inspired his amazing outburst. And since he has apologised so profusely to you, Professor—and also, my dear Madam, to you—I would suggest that you might see your way to accepting that apology, and that we might terminate the interview. I have no doubt that now that Captain Drummond has satisfied himself so—ah—practically that you are not—I forget his friend's name—will have no hesitation in handing over the notes to me. Should he still refuse, I shall, of course, have no other alternative but to send for the police which would cause a most unpleasant contretemps for all concerned. Especially on the very day of the—er—funeral."
Drummond fumbled in his pocket. "I'll hand 'em over right enough," he remarked wearily. "I wish I'd never seen the blamed things."
He passed the sheets of paper across the desk to Mr Tootem. "If I don't get outside a pint of beer soon," he continued, reaching for his hat, "there will be a double event in the funeral line."
Once again he apologised profusely to the German, and staggered slightly in his tracks as he gazed at the lady. Then blindly he made his way to the door, and twenty minutes later he entered his house a comparatively broken man. Even Algy awoke from his lethargy and gazed at him appalled.
"You mean to say you pulled the old bean's nose?" he gasped.
"This way and that," sighed Hugh. "And very, very hard. Only nothing like as hard as his wife hit me. She's got a sweeping left, Algy, like the kick of a mule. Good Lord! what an unholy box-up. I must say if it hadn't been for old Tootem, it might have been deuced serious. The office looked like the morning after a wet night."
"So you've handed over the notes?"
"I have," said Hugh savagely. "And as I told old Tootem in his office, I wish to heavens I'd never seen the bally things. Old Scheidstrun's got 'em, and he can keep 'em."
Which was where the error occurred. Professor Scheidstrun had certainly got them—Mr Tootem senior had pressed them into his hands with almost indecent brevity the instant Drummond left the office—but Professor Scheidstrun was not going to keep them. At that very moment, in fact, he was handing them over to a benevolent looking old gentleman with mutton-chop whiskers in a room in Mr Atkinson's house in the quiet square.
"Tell me all about it," murmured the old gentleman, with a smile. "You've no idea how interested I am in it. I would have given quite a lot to have been present myself."
"Mein Gott!" grunted the Professor. "He is a holy terror, that man. He tear off my wig; he try to tear off my nose."
"And then I him on the ear hit," boomed his wife.
"Splendid," chuckled the other. "Quite splendid. He is a violent young man at times, is Captain Drummond."
"It was that the colour of my wig was different that first made him suspect," went on the German. "And then I do what you tell me—I tap with my left hand so upon my knee. The next moment he jumps upon me like a madman."
"I thought he probably would," said the old gentleman. "A very amusing little experiment in psychology. You might make a note of it, Professor. The surest way of allaying suspicions is to arouse them thoroughly, and then prove that they are groundless. Hence your somewhat sudden summons by aeroplane from Germany. I have arranged that you should return in the same manner tomorrow after the funeral—which you will attend this afternoon."
"It was inconvenient—that summons," said his wife heavily. "And my husband has been assaulted..."
Her words died away as she looked at the benevolent old man. For no trace of benevolence remained on his face, and she shuddered uncontrollably.
"People who do inconvenient things, Frau," he said quietly, "and get found out must expect inconvenient calls to be made upon them."
"How long is this to continue?"