Bulldog Drummond by H. C. McNeile

Author:H. C. McNeile [McNeile, H. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Detective and mystery stories, English fiction -- 20th century, World War, 1914-1918 -- Veterans -- Fiction, Drummond, Bulldog (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2022-12-26T05:50:05+00:00

VII

In Which He Spends an Hour or Two on a Roof

I

Drummond paused for a moment at the door of the sitting-room, then with a slight shrug he stepped past Peterson. During the last few days he had grown to look on this particular room as the private den of the principals of the gang. He associated it in his mind with Peterson himself, suave, impassive, ruthless; with the girl Irma, perfectly gowned, lying on the sofa, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and manicuring her already faultless nails; and in a lesser degree, with Henry Lakington’s thin, cruel face, and blue, staring eyes.

But tonight a different scene confronted him. The girl was not there: her accustomed place on the sofa was occupied by an unkempt-looking man with a ragged beard. At the end of the table was a vacant chair, on the right of which sat Lakington regarding him with malevolent fury. Along the table on each side there were half a dozen men, and he glanced at their faces. Some were obviously foreigners; some might have been anything from murderers to Sunday-school teachers. There was one with spectacles and the general appearance of an intimidated rabbit, while his neighbour, helped by a large red scar right across his cheek, and two bloodshot eyes, struck Hugh as being the sort of man with whom one would not share a luncheon basket.

“I know he’d snatch both drumsticks and gnaw them simultaneously,” he reflected, staring at him fascinated; “and then he’d throw the bones in your face.”

Peterson’s voice from just behind his shoulder roused him from his distressing reverie.

“Permit me, gentlemen, to introduce to you Captain Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., the originator of the little entertainment we have just had.”

Hugh bowed gravely.

“My only regret is that it failed to function,” he remarked. “As I told you outside, I’d quite forgotten your menagerie. In fact”⁠—his glance wandered slowly and somewhat pointedly from face to face at the table⁠—“I had no idea it was such a large one.”

“So this is the insolent young swine, is it?” The bloodshot eyes of the man with the scarred face turned on him morosely. “What I cannot understand is why he hasn’t been killed by now.”

Hugh waggled an accusing finger at him.

“I knew you were a nasty man as soon as I saw you. Now look at Henry up at the end of the table; he doesn’t say that sort of thing. And you do hate me, don’t you, Henry? How’s the jaw?”

“Captain Drummond,” said Lakington, ignoring Hugh and addressing the first speaker, “was very nearly killed last night. I thought for some time as to whether I would or not, but I finally decided it would be much too easy a death. So it can be remedied tonight.”

If Hugh felt a momentary twinge of fear at the calm, expressionless tone, and the half-satisfied grunt which greeted the words, no trace of it showed on his face. Already the realisation had come to him that if he got through the night alive he would be more than passing lucky, but he was too much of a fatalist to let that worry him unduly.

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