The British Mysteries Edition: 14 Novels & 70+ Short Stories. Sapper
at a time—to sit up with Potts." Hugh glanced at the other three. "Damn it—you blighters—wake up!"
Darrell struggled to his feet and walked up and down the room.
"I don't know what it is," he said, rubbing his eyes, "I feel most infernally sleepy."
"Well, listen to me—confound you ... Toby!" Hugh hurled a tobacco-pouch at the offender's head.
"Sorry, old man." With a start Sinclair sat up in his chair and blinked at Hugh.
"They're almost certain to try and get him to-night," went on Hugh. "Having given the show away by leaving a clue on the wretched secretary, they must get the real man as soon as possible. It's far too dangerous to leave the—leave the——" His head dropped forward on his chest: a short, half-strangled snore came from his lips. It had the effect of waking him for the moment, and he staggered to his feet.
The other three, sprawling in their chairs, were openly and unashamedly asleep; even the dogs lay in fantastic attitudes, breathing heavily, inert like logs.
"Wake up!" shouted Hugh wildly. "For God's sake—wake up! We've been drugged!"
An iron weight seemed to be pressing down on his eyelids: the desire for sleep grew stronger and stronger. For a few moments more he fought against it, hopelessly, despairingly; while his legs seemed not to belong to him, and there was a roaring noise in his ears. And then, just before unconsciousness overcame him, there came to his bemused brain the sound of a whistle thrice repeated from outside the window. With a last stupendous effort he fought his way towards it, and for a moment he stared into the darkness. There were dim figures moving through the shrubs, and suddenly one seemed to detach itself. It came nearer, and the light fell on the man's face. His nose and mouth were covered with a sort of pad, but the cold, sneering eyes were unmistakable.
"Lakington!" gasped Hugh, and then the roaring noise increased in his head; his legs struck work altogether. He collapsed on the floor and lay sprawling, while Lakington, his face pressed against the glass outside, watched in silence.
* * * * *
"Draw the curtains." Lakington was speaking, his voice muffled behind the pad, and one of the men did as he said. There were four in all, each with a similar pad over his mouth and nose. "Where did you put the generator, Brownlow?"
"In the coal-scuttle." A man whom Mrs. Denny would have had no difficulty in recognising, even with the mask on his face, carefully lifted a small black box out of the scuttle from behind some coal, and shook it gently, holding it to his ear. "It's finished," he remarked, and Lakington nodded.
"An ingenious invention is gas," he said, addressing another of the men. "We owe your nation quite a debt of gratitude for the idea."
A guttural grunt left no doubt as to what that nation was, and Lakington dropped the box into his pocket.
"Go and get him," he ordered briefly, and the others left the room.
Contemptuously Lakington kicked one of the dogs; it rolled over and lay motionless in its new position. Then he went in turn to each of the three men sprawling in the chairs. With no attempt at gentleness he turned their faces up to the light, and studied them deliberately; then he let their heads roll back again with a thud. Finally, he went to the window and stared down at Drummond. In his eyes was a look of cold fury, and he kicked the unconscious man savagely in the ribs.
"You young swine," he muttered. "Do you think I'll forget that blow on the jaw?"
He took another box out of his pocket and looked at it lovingly.
"Shall I?" With a short laugh he replaced it. "It's too good a death for you, Captain Drummond, D.S.O., M.C. Just to snuff out in your sleep. No, my friend, I think I can devise something better than that; something really artistic."
Two other men came in as he turned away, and Lakington looked at them.
"Well," he asked, "have you got the old woman?"
"Bound and gagged in the kitchen," answered one of them laconically. "Are you going to do this crowd in?"
The speaker looked at the unconscious men with hatred in his eyes.
"They encumber the earth—this breed of puppy."
"They will not encumber it for long," said Lakington softly. "But the one in the window there is not going to die quite so easily. I have a small unsettled score with him...."
"All right; he's in the car." A voice came from outside the window, and with a last look at Hugh Drummond, Lakington turned away.
"Then we'll go," he remarked. "Au revoir, my blundering young bull. Before I've finished with you, you'll scream for mercy. And you won't get it...."
* * * * *
Through the still night air there came the thrumming of the engine of a powerful car. Gradually it died away and there was silence. Only the murmur of the river over the weir broke the silence, save for an owl which hooted mournfully in a tree near by. And then, with a sudden crack, Peter Darrell's head rolled over and hit the arm of his chair.
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH A VERY OLD GAME TAKES PLACE ON THE HOG'S BACK
I
A thick grey mist lay over the Thames. It covered the water and the low fields to the west like a thick white carpet; it drifted sluggishly under the old bridge which spans the river between Goring and Streatley. It was the hour before dawn, and sleepy passengers, rubbing the windows of their carriages as the Plymouth boat express rushed on towards London, shivered and drew their rugs closer around them. It looked cold ... cold and dead.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the vapour rose, and spread outwards up the wooded hills by Basildon. It drifted through the shrubs and rose-bushes of a little garden, which stretched from a bungalow down to the water's edge, until at length wisps of it brushed gently round the bungalow itself. It was a daily performance in the summer, and generally the windows of the lower rooms remained shut till long after the mist had gone and the sun was glinting through the trees on to the river below. But on this morning there was a change in the usual programme. Suddenly the window of one of the downstair rooms was flung open, and a man with a white haggard face leant out drawing great gulps of fresh air into his lungs. Softly the white wraiths eddied past him into the room behind—a room in which a queer, faintly sweet smell still hung—a room in which three other men lay sprawling uncouthly in chairs, and two dogs lay motionless on the hearthrug.
After a moment or two the man withdrew, only to appear again with one of the others in his arms. And then, having dropped his burden through the window on to the lawn outside, he repeated his performance with the remaining two. Finally he pitched the two dogs after them, and then, with his hand to his forehead, he staggered down to the water's edge.
"Holy smoke!" he muttered to himself, as he plunged his head into the cold water, "talk about the morning after.... Never have I thought of such a head."
After a while, with the water still dripping from his face, he returned to the bungalow and found the other three in varying stages of partial insensibility.
"Wake up, my heroes," he remarked, "and go and put your great fat heads in the river."
Peter Darrell scrambled unsteadily to his feet. "Great Scott! Hugh," he muttered thickly, "what's happened?"
"We've been had for mugs," said Drummond grimly.
Algy Longworth blinked at him foolishly from his position in the middle of a flower-bed.
"Dear old soul," he murmured at length, "you'll have to change your wine merchants. Merciful Heavens! is the top of my head still on?"
"Don't be