THE COMPLETE BULLDOG DRUMMOND SERIES (10 Novels in One Edition). H. C. McNeile / Sapper

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СКАЧАТЬ Count shrugged his shoulders, and with a gesture of his hand dismissed the matter. Then he picked up a piece of paper from the desk and glanced at it.

      "I will now give you your orders for Sheffield," he continued. "It has been reported to me that in Sir John Manton's works there is a red-hot madman named Delmorlick. He has a good job himself, but he spends most of his spare time inciting the unemployed—of which I am glad to say there are large numbers in the town—to absurd deeds of violence. He is a very valuable man to us, and appears to be one of those extraordinary beings who really believe in the doctrines of Communism. He can lash a mob, they tell me, into an absolute frenzy with his tongue. I want you to seek him out, and give him fifty pounds to carry on with. Tell him, of course, that it comes from the Great Master in Russia, and spur him on to renewed activity.

      "You will also employ him, and two or three others whom you must leave him to choose, to carry out a little scheme of which you will find full details in this letter." He handed an envelope to Latter, who took it with a trembling hand. "You personally will make arrangements about the necessary explosives. I calculate that, if successful, it should throw at least three thousand more men out of work. Moreover, Mr. Latter, if it is successful your fee will be a thousand pounds."

      "A thousand!" muttered Latter. "Is there much danger?"

      The Count smiled contemptuously. "Not if you do your work properly. Hullo! What's up?"

      From a little electric bell at his elbow came four shrill rings, repeated again and again.

      The Count rose and with systematic thoroughness swept every piece of paper off the desk into his pocket. Then he shut down the top and locked it, while the bell, a little muffled, still rang inside.

      "What's the fool doing?" he cried angrily, stepping over to the big safe let into the wall, while Latter, his face white and terrified, followed at his side. And then abruptly the bell stopped.

      Very deliberately the Count pressed two concealed knobs, so sunk into the wall as to be invisible to a stranger, and the door of the safe swung open. And only then was it obvious that the safe was not a safe, but a second exit leading to a flight of stairs. For a moment or two he stood motionless, listening intently, while Latter fidgeted at his side. One hand was on a master switch which controlled all the lights, the other on a knob inside the second passage which, when turned, would close the great steel door noiselessly behind them.

      He was frowning angrily, but gradually the frown was replaced by a look of puzzled surprise. Four rings from the shop below was the recognised signal for urgent danger, and everybody's plan of action was cut and dried for such an emergency. In the other rooms every book and paper in the slightest degree incriminating was hurled pell-mell into secret recesses in the floor which had been specially constructed under every table. In their place appeared books carefully and very skillfully faked, purporting to record the business transactions of Mr. William Atkinson. And in the event of surprise being expressed at the size of Mr. Atkinson's business considering the sort of office he possessed below, and the type of his clientele, it would soon be seen that Hoxton was but one of several irons which that versatile gentleman had in the fire. There were indisputable proofs in indisputable ledgers that Mr. Atkinson had organised similar enterprises in several of the big towns of England and Scotland, to say nothing of a large West End branch run under the name of Lewer Brothers. And surely he had the perfect right, if he so wished, to establish his central office in Hoxton...Or Timbuctoo...What the devil did it matter to anyone except himself?

      In the big room at the end the procedure was even simpler. The Count merely passed through the safe door and vanished through his private bolt- hole, leaving everything in darkness. And should inconvenient visitors ask inconvenient questions—well, it was Mr. Atkinson's private office, and a very nice office too, though at the moment he was away.

      Thus the procedure—simple and sound; but on this occasion something seemed to have gone wrong. Instead of the industrious silence of clerks working overtime on affairs of financial import in Edinburgh and Manchester, a perfect babel of voices became audible in the passage. And then there came an agitated knocking on the door.

      "Who is it?" cried the Count sharply. It may be mentioned that even the most influential members of his staff knew better than to come into the room without previously obtaining permission.

      "It's me, sir—Cohen," came an agitated voice from outside.

      For a moment the Count paused: then with a turn of the knob he closed the safe door silently. With an imperious hand he waved Latter to a chair, and resumed his former position at the desk.

      "Come in," he snapped.

      It was a strange and unwholesome object that obeyed the order, and the Count sat back in his chair.

      "What the devil have you been doing?"

      A pair of rich blue-black eyes, and a nose from which traces of blood still trickled had not improved the general appearance of the assistant downstairs. In one hand he carried a pair of hobnail boots, in the other a piece of paper, and he brandished them alternately while a flood of incoherent frenzy burst from his lips.

      For a minute or two the Count listened, until his first look of surprise gave way to one of black anger.

      "Am I to understand, you wretched little worm," he snarled, "that you gave the urgency danger signal, not once but half a dozen times, merely because a man hit you over the nose?"

      "But he knocked me silly, sir," quavered the other. "And when I came to, and saw the boots lying beside me and the till opened, I kind of lost my head. I didn't know what had happened, sir—and I thought I'd better ring the bell—in case of trouble."

      He retreated a step or two towards the door, terrified out of his wits by the look of diabolical fury in the hunchback's eyes. Three or four clerks, who had been surreptitiously peeping through the open door, melted rapidly away, while from his chair Mr. Latter watched the scene fascinated. He was reminded of a bird and a snake, and suddenly he gave a little shudder as he realised that his own position was in reality much the same as that of the unfortunate Cohen.

      And then just as the tension was becoming unbearable there came the interruption. Outside in the passage, clear and distinct, there sounded twice the hoot of an owl. To Mr. Latter it meant nothing; to the frightened little Jew it meant nothing; but on the Count the effect was electrical. With a quickness incredible in one so deformed he was at the door, and into the passage, hurling Cohen out of his way into a corner. His powerful fists were clenched by his side: the veins in his neck were standing out like whipcord. But to Mr. Latter's surprise he made no movement, and rising from his chair he too peered round the door along the passage, only to stagger back after a second or two with a feeling of sick fear in his soul, and a sudden dryness in the throat. For twenty yards away, framed in the doorway at the head of the stairs leading down to the office below, he had seen a huge, motionless figure. For a perceptible time he had stared at it, and it had seemed to stare at him. Then the door had shut, and on the other side a key had turned. And the figure had been draped from head to foot in black....

      V. — IN WHICH CHARLES LATTER, M.P., GOES MAD

       Table of Content

      Drummond arrived at Drayton House just as the house-party was sitting down to tea in the hall. A rapid survey of the guests as the footman helped him out of his coat—convinced him that, with the exception of Latter, he didn't know a soul: a second glance indicated that he could contemplate the fact with equanimity. They were a stodgy-looking crowd, and СКАЧАТЬ