The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
btained.
AM C. POTTS.
At length he replaced the scrap in his pocket-book and rang the bell.
"James," he remarked as his servant came in, "will you whisper 'very little meat and no alcohol' in your wife's ear, so far as the bird next door is concerned? Fancy paying a doctor to come round and tell one that!"
"Did he say nothing more, sir?"
"Oh! a lot. But that was the only thing of the slightest practical use, and I knew that already." He stared thoughtfully out of the window. "You'd better know," he continued at length, "that as far as I can see we're up against a remarkably tough proposition."
"Indeed, sir," murmured his servant. "Then perhaps I had better stop any further insertion of that advertisement. It works out at six shillings a time."
Drummond burst out laughing. "What would I do without you, oh! my James," he cried. "But you may as well stop it. Our hands will be quite full for some time to come, and I hate disappointing hopeful applicants for my services."
"The gentleman is asking for you, sir." Mrs. Denny's voice from the door made them look round, and Hugh rose.
"Is he talking sensibly, Mrs. Denny?" he asked eagerly, but she shook her head.
"Just the same, sir," she announced. "Looking round the room all dazed like. And he keeps on saying 'Danger.'"
Hugh walked quickly along the passage to the room where the millionaire lay in bed.
"How are you feeling?" said Drummond cheerfully.
The man stared at him uncomprehendingly, and shook his head.
"Do you remember last night?" Hugh continued, speaking very slowly and distinctly. Then a sudden idea struck him and he pulled the scrap of paper out of his case. "Do you remember signing that?" he asked, holding it out to him.
For a while the man looked at it; then with a sudden cry of fear he shrank away. "No, no," he muttered, "not again."
Hugh hurriedly replaced the paper. "Bad break on my part, old bean; you evidently remember rather too well. It's quite all right," he continued reassuringly; "no one will hurt you." Then after a pause—"Is your name Hiram C. Potts?"
The man nodded his head doubtfully and muttered "Hiram Potts" once or twice, as if the words sounded familiar.
"Do you remember driving in a motor-car last night?" persisted Hugh.
But what little flash of remembrance had pierced the drug-clouded brain seemed to have passed; the man only stared dazedly at the speaker. Drummond tried him with a few more questions, but it was no use, and after a while he got up and moved towards the door.
"Don't you worry, old son," he said with a smile. "We'll have you jumping about like a two-year-old in a couple of days."
Then he paused: the man was evidently trying to say something. "What is it you want?" Hugh leant over the bed.
"Danger, danger." Faintly the words came, and then, with a sigh, he lay back exhausted.
With a grim smile Drummond watched the motionless figure.
"I'm afraid," he said half aloud, "that you're rather like your medical attendant. Your only contribution to the sphere of pure knowledge is something I know already."
He went out and quietly closed the door. And as he re-entered his sitting-room he found his servant standing motionless behind one of the curtains watching the street below.
"There's a man, sir," he remarked without turning round, "watching the house."
For a moment Hugh stood still, frowning. Then he gave a short laugh. "The devil there is!" he remarked. "The game has begun in earnest, my worthy warrior, with the first nine points to us. For possession, even of a semi-dazed lunatic, is nine points of the law, is it not, James?"
His servant retreated cautiously from the curtain and came back into the room. "Of the law—yes, sir," he repeated enigmatically. "It is time, sir, for your morning glass of beer."
III
Hugh turned back into his own room, and lighting a particularly noisy pipe, sat down in his own special chair, where James Denny found him five minutes later, with his hands deep in his pockets, and his legs crossed, staring out of the window. He asked him about lunch twice without result, and having finally been requested to go to hell, he removed himself aggrievedly to the kitchen. Drummond was under no delusions as to the risks he was running. Under-rating his opponent had never been a fault of his, either in the ring or in France, and he had no intention of beginning now. The man who could abduct an American millionaire, and drug him till he was little better than a baby, and then use a thumbscrew to enforce his wishes, was not likely to prove over-scrupulous in the future. In fact, the phit of that bullet still rang unpleasantly in his ears.
After a while he began half-unconsciously to talk aloud to himself. It was an old trick of his when he wanted to make up his mind on a situation, and he found that it helped him to concentrate his thoughts.
"Two alternatives, old buck," he remarked, stabbing the air with his pipe. "One—give the Potts bird up at Berners Street; two—do not. Number one—out of court at once. Preposterous—absurd. Therefore—number two holds the field." He recrossed his legs, and ejected a large wineglassful of nicotine juice from the stem of his pipe on to the carpet. Then he sank back exhausted, and rang the bell.
"James," he said, as the door opened, "take a piece of paper and a pencil—if there's one with a point—and sit down at the table. I'm going to think, and I'd hate to miss out anything."
His servant complied, and for a while silence reigned.
"First," remarked Drummond, "put down—'They know where Potts is.'"
"Is, sir, or are?" murmured Denny, sucking his pencil.
"Is, you fool. It's a man, not a collection. And don't interrupt, for Heaven's sake. Two—'They will try to get Potts.'"
"Yes, sir," answered Denny, writing busily.
"Three—'They will not get Potts.' That is as far as I've got at the moment, James—but every word of it stands. Not bad for a quarter of an hour, my trusty fellah—what?"
"That's the stuff to give the troops, sir," agreed his audience, sucking his teeth.
Hugh looked at him in displeasure. "That noise is not, James," he remarked severely. "Now you've got to do something else. Rise and with your well-known stealth approach the window, and see if the watcher still watcheth without."
The servant took a prolonged survey, and finally announced that he failed to see him.
"Then that proves conclusively that he's there," said Hugh. "Write it down, James: four—'Owing to the watcher without, Potts cannot leave the house without being seen.'"
"That's two withouts, sir," ventured James tentatively; but Hugh, with a sudden light dawning in his eyes, was staring at the fireplace.
"I've got it, James," he cried. "I've got it.... Five—'Potts must leave the house without being seen.' I want him, James, I want him all to myself. I want to make much of him and listen to his childish prattle. He shall go to my cottage on the river, and you shall look after him."
"Yes, sir," returned James dutifully.
"And in order to get him there, we must get rid of the watcher without. How can we get rid of the bird—how can we, James, I ask you? Why, by giving him nothing further to watch for. Once let him think that Potts is no longer within, unless he's an imbecile he will no longer remain without."
"I see, sir," said James.
"No, you don't—you don't see anything. Now trot along over, James, and give my compliments to Mr. Darrell. Ask him to come in and see me for a moment. Say I'm thinking and daren't move."