Bulldog Drummond. Herman Cyril McNeile

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СКАЧАТЬ Drummond."

      "I don't recall the name at the moment, my dear," he answered courteously—a fact which was hardly surprising—"but I fear I'm getting a little forgetful. I am pleased to meet you, Captain Drummond. You'll stop and have some dinner, of course."

      Hugh bowed. "I should like to, Mr. Benton. Thank you very much. I'm afraid the hour of my call was a little informal, but being round in these parts, I felt I must come and look Miss Benton up."

      His host smiled absent-mindedly, and walking to the window, stared through the gathering dusk at the house opposite, half hidden in the trees. And Hugh, who was watching him from under lowered lids, saw him suddenly clench both hands in a gesture of despair.

      It cannot be said that dinner was a meal of sparkling gaiety. Mr. Benton was palpably ill at ease, and beyond a few desultory remarks spoke hardly at all: while the girl, who sat opposite Hugh, though she made one or two valiant attempts to break the ​long silences, spent most of the meal in covertly watching her father. If anything more had been required to convince Drummond of the genuineness of his interview with her at the Carlton the preceding day, the atmosphere at this strained and silent party supplied it.

      As if unconscious of anything peculiar, he rambled on in his usual inconsequent method, heedless of whether he was answered or not; but all the time his mind was busily working. He had already decided that a Rolls-Royce was not the only car on the market which could break down mysteriously, and with the town so far away, his host could hardly fail to ask him to stop the night. And then—he had not yet quite settled how—he proposed to have a closer look at The Elms.

      At length the meal was over, and the maid, placing the decanter in front of Mr. Benton, withdrew from the room.

      "You'll have a glass of port, Captain Drummond," remarked his host, removing the stopper, and pushing the bottle towards him. "An old pre-war wine which I can vouch for."

      Hugh smiled, and even as he lifted the heavy old cut glass, he stiffened suddenly in his chair. A cry—half shout, half scream, and stifled at once—had come echoing through the open windows. With a crash the stopper fell from Mr. Benton' s nerveless fingers, breaking the finger-bowl in front of him, while every vestige of colour left his face.

      "It's something these days to be able to say that," remarked Hugh, pouring himself out a glass. "Wine, Miss Benton?" He looked at the girl, who was ​staring fearfully out of the window, and forced her to meet his eye. "It will do you good."

      His tone was compelling, and after a moment's hesitation, she pushed the glass over to him. "Will you pour it out?" she said, and he saw that she was trembling all over.

      "Did you—did you hear—anything?" With a vain endeavour to speak calmly, his host looked at Hugh.

      "That night-bird?" he answered easily. "Eerie noises they make, don't they? Sometimes in France, when everything was still, and only the ghostly green flares went hissing up, one used to hear 'em. Startled nervous sentries out of their lives." He talked on, and gradually the colour came back to the other man's face. But Hugh noticed that he drained his port at a gulp, and immediately refilled his glass. …

      Outside everything was still; no repetition of that short, strangled cry again disturbed the silence. With the training bred of many hours in No Man's Land, Drummond was listening, even while he was speaking, for the faintest suspicious sound—but he heard nothing. The soft whispering night-noises came gently through the window; but the man who had screamed once did not even whimper again. He remembered hearing a similar cry near the brickstacks at Guinchy, and two nights later he had found the giver of it, at the edge of a mine-crater, with glazed eyes that still held in them the horror of the final second. And more persistently than ever, his thoughts centred on the fifth occupant of the Rolls-Royce. …

      ​It was with almost a look of relief that Mr. Benton listened to his tale of woe about his car.

      "Of course you must stop here for the night," he cried. "Phyllis, my dear, will you tell them to get a room ready?"

      With an inscrutable look at Hugh, in which thankfulness and apprehension seemed mingled, the girl left the room. There was an unnatural glitter in her father's eyes—a flush on his cheeks hardly to be accounted for by the warmth of the evening; and it struck Drummond that, during the time he had been pretending to look at his car, Mr. Benton had been fortifying himself. It was obvious, even to the soldier's unprofessional eye, that the man's nerves had gone to pieces; and that unless something was done soon, his daughter's worst forebodings were likely to be fulfilled. He talked disjointedly and fast; his hands were not steady, and he seemed to be always waiting for something to happen.

      Hugh had not been in the room ten minutes before his host produced the whisky, and during the time that he took to drink a mild nightcap, Mr. Benton succeeded in lowering three extremely strong glasses of spirit. And what made it the more sad was that the man was obviously not a heavy drinker by preference.

      At eleven o'clock Hugh rose and said good-night. "You'll ring if you want anything, won't you?" said his host. "We don't have very many visitors here, but I hope you'll find everything you require. Breakfast at nine."

      Drummond closed the door behind him, and stood ​for a moment in silence, looking round the hall. It was deserted, but he wanted to get the geography of the house firmly imprinted on his mind. Then a noise from the room he had just left made him frown sharply—his host was continuing the process of fortification—and he stepped across towards the drawing-room. Inside, as he hoped, he found the girl.

      She rose the instant he came in, and stood by the mantelpiece with her hands locked.

      "What was it?" she half whispered—"that awful noise at dinner?"

      He looked at her gravely for a while, and then he shook his head. "Shall we leave it as a night-bird for the present?" he said quietly. Then he leaned towards her, and took her hands in his own. "Go to bed, little girl," he ordered; "this is my show. And, may I say, I think you're just wonderful. Thank God you saw my advertisement!"

      Gently he released her hands, and walking to the door, held it open for her. "If by any chance you should hear things in the night—turn over and go to sleep again."

      "But what are you going to do?" she cried.

      Hugh grinned. "I haven't the remotest idea," he answered. "Doubtless the Lord will provide."

      The instant the girl had left the room Hugh switched off the lights, and stepped across to the curtains which covered the long windows. He pulled them aside, letting them come together behind him; then, cautiously, he unbolted one side of the big centre window. The night was dark, and the moon was not due to rise for two or three hours, but ​he was too old a soldier to neglect any precautions. He wanted to see more of The Elms and its inhabitants; he did not want them to see more of him.

      Silently he dodged across the lawn towards the big trees at the end, and leaning up against one of them, he proceeded to make a more detailed survey of his objective. It was the same type of house as the one he had just left, and the grounds seemed about the same size. A wire fence separated the two places, and in the darkness Hugh could just make out a small wicket-gate, closing a path which connected both houses. He tried it, and found to his satisfaction that it opened silently.

      Passing through, he took cover behind some bushes from which he could command a better view of Mr. Lakington's abode. Save for one room on the ground-floor the house was in darkness, and Hugh determined to have a look at that room. There was a chink in the curtains, through which the light was streaming СКАЧАТЬ