Читать книгу The Female of the Species - Herman Cyril McNeile - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Now, in view of the fact that this is my first essay in literature, I realise that many of my relatives may feel it to be their bounden duty to buy the result. Several, I know, will borrow a copy from one another, or else will endeavour to touch me for one of the six free copies which, I am given to understand, the author receives on publication. But most of them, in one way or another, will read it. And I am particularly anxious, bearing in mind the really astounding situations in which I found myself later, that no misconception should exist in their minds as to my mood at the beginning.

Particularly Uncle Percy—the Dean of Wolverhampton. He is, I am glad to say, a man of advanced years and considerable wealth. He is also unmarried, a fact which has never occasioned me great surprise. But few women exist who would be capable of dealing with his intellect or digestion, and so far he does not seem to have met one of them.

For his benefit, then, and that of others who know me personally, I may state that when I saw Captain Drummond engaged in the operation, as he called it, of “golluping his beer with zest,” I was extremely angry. He, on the contrary, seemed to have recovered his spirits. No longer did he shake his fists in the air; on the contrary, a most depressing noise issued from his mouth as he put down the empty tankard on the table. He appeared to be singing, and, incredible though it may seem, to derive some pleasure from the operation. The words of his dirge seemed to imply that the more we were together the merrier we would be—a statement to which I took the gravest exception.

I was to learn afterwards the amazing way in which this amazing individual could throw off a serious mood and become positively hilarious. For instance—on this occasion—having delivered himself of this deplorable sentiment, he advanced towards me. Fearing another blow on the back, I retreated rapidly, but he no longer meditated assault. He desired apparently to examine my cuff-links, a thing which did not strike me as being in the best of taste.

“You approve, I trust?” I said sarcastically.

He shook his head sadly.

“I feared as much,” he remarked. “Or have you left ’em at home?” he added hopefully.

I turned to Bill Tracey.

“Have you turned this place into a private lunatic asylum?” I demanded.

And all Bill did was to shout with laughter.

“Cheer up, Joe,” he said. “You’ll learn our little ways soon.”

“Doubtless,” I remarked stiffly. “In the meantime I think I’ll go and have some tea.”

I crossed the lawn to find several people I knew assembled in the summer-house. And, having paid my respects to my hostess, and been introduced to two or three strangers, I sat down with a feeling of relief beside Tomkinson, a dear old friend of mine.

“Really,” I said to him under cover of the general conversation, “there seem to be some very extraordinary people in this party. Who and what is that enormous man who calls himself Drummond?”

He laughed, and lit a cigarette.

“He does strike one as a bit odd at first, doesn’t he? But as a matter of fact, your adjective was right. He is an extraordinary man. He did some feats of strength for us last night that wouldn’t have disgraced a professional strong man.”

“He nearly smashed my spine,” I said grimly, “giving it a playful tap.”

“He is not communicative about himself,” went on Tomkinson. “And what little I know about him I have learned from that fellow with the eyeglasses—Algy Longworth—who incidentally regards him as only one degree lower than the Almighty. He has a very charming wife.”

He glanced round the party.

“You won’t see her here,” I remarked. “She has apparently taken his Bentley and gone out in it alone. Having discovered this fact, he first of all announces ‘They’ve got her!’ in blood-curdling tones, and then proceeds to lower inordinate quantities of ale. And his behaviour coming up from the station——”

“What’s that you said?”

A man whose face was vaguely familiar turned and stared at me.

“Why, surely you’re Mr. Darrell!” I cried. “You play for Middlesex?”

He nodded.

“I do—sometimes. But what’s that you were saying about Drummond having said ‘They’ve got her’?”

“Just that—and nothing more,” I answered. “As I was telling Tomkinson, Mrs. Drummond has apparently gone out in his Bentley alone, and when he heard of it he said, ‘They’ve got her.’ But who ‘they’ are I can’t tell you.”

“Good God!” His face had suddenly become grave. “There must be a mistake. And yet Hugh doesn’t make mistakes.”

He made the last remark under his breath.

“It all seems a little hard to follow,” I murmured with mild sarcasm.

But he paid no attention: he had glanced up quickly, and was staring over my shoulder.

“What’s this I hear about Phyllis, old boy?” he said.

“The Lord knows, Peter.”

Drummond was standing there with a queer look on his face.

“She got a note delivered here by a stranger. It came while I was at the station. And Algy said it seemed to upset her. Anyway, she went indoors and changed, and then went out alone in the Bentley.”

A silence had fallen on the party which was broken by our hostess.

“But why should that worry you, Captain Drummond? Your wife often drives, she tells me.”

“She knows no one in this neighbourhood, Mrs. Tracey, except your good selves,” answered Drummond quietly. “So who could have sent a note here to be delivered by hand?”

“Well, evidently somebody did,” I remarked. “And when Mrs. Drummond returns you’ll find out who it was.”

I spoke somewhat coldly: the man was becoming a bore.

“If she ever does return,” he answered.

I regret to state that I laughed.

“My dear sir,” I cried, “don’t be absurd. You surely can’t believe, or expect us to believe, that some evilly disposed persons are abducting your wife in broad daylight and in the middle of England?”

But he still stood there with that queer look on his face.

“Peter,” he said, “I want to have a bit of a talk with you.”

Darrell rose instantly, and the two of them strolled away together.

“Really,” I remarked irritably, when they were out of earshot, “the thing is perfectly preposterous. Is he doing it as a joke, or what?”

Algy Longworth had joined them, and the three of them were standing in the middle of the lawn talking earnestly.

“I must say it does all seem very funny,” agreed our hostess. “And yet Captain Drummond isn’t the sort of man to make stupid jokes of that sort.”

“You mean,” I said incredulously, “that he really believes that someone may be abducting his wife? My dear Mary, don’t be so ridiculous. Why should anyone abduct his wife?”

“He’s led a very strange life since the War,” she answered. “I confess I don’t know much about it myself—neither he nor his friends are very communicative. But I know he got mixed up with a gang of criminals.”

“I am not surprised,” I murmured under by breath.

“I’m not very clear about what happened,” went on Mary Tracey. “But finally Captain Drummond was responsible somehow or other for the death of the leader of the gang. And a woman, who had been this man’s mistress, was left behind.”

I stared at her: absurd, of course, but that bit of doggerel at the end of Kipling’s verse came back to me. And then common-sense reasserted itself. This was England: not a country where secret societies flourished and strange vendettas took place. The whole thing was a mere coincidence. What connection could there possibly be between the two men at the Cat and Custard Pot and the fact that Mrs. Drummond had gone out alone in a motor-car?

“It seems,” Mary Tracey was speaking again, “from what Bill tells me, that this woman vowed vengeance on Captain Drummond. I know it sounds very fantastic, and I expect we shall all laugh about it when Phyllis gets back. And yet——” she hesitated for a moment. “Oh! I don’t want to be silly, but I do wish she’d come back soon.”

“But, Mrs. Tracey,” said someone reassuringly, “there can be no danger. What could happen to her?”

“I quite agree,” I remarked. “If on every occasion a woman went out alone in a motor-car her friends and relations panicked about her being abducted, life would become a hideous affair.”

And then by tacit consent the subject dropped, and we dispersed about our lawful occasions. I didn’t see Drummond, but Darrell and Longworth were practising putting on the other side of the lawn. I strolled over and joined them.

“Your large friend,” I laughed, “seems to have put the wind up most of the ladies in the party fairly successfully.”

But they neither of them seemed to regard it as a subject for mirth.

“Let us hope it will end at that,” said Darrell gravely. “I confess that I have rarely been so uneasy in my life.”

And that, mark you, from a man who played for Middlesex! Really, I reflected, the thing was ceasing to be funny. And I was just getting a suitable remark ready, when Longworth suddenly straightened up and stared across the lawn. Bill Tracey was coming towards us, and at his side was a police-sergeant. And Bill Tracey’s face was serious.

“Where’s Drummond?” he called out.

“He said he was going to stroll down to the river,” said Darrell.

He cupped his mouth with his hands and let out a shout that startled the rooks for miles around. And very faintly from the distance came an answering cry.

“What’s happened?” he said curtly.

“I don’t know,” answered Bill uneasily. “Quite possibly it’s capable of some simple explanation. Apparently the Bentley has been found empty. However, we’d better wait till Drummond comes, and then the sergeant can tell his story.”

I noticed Darrell glance significantly at Longworth; then he calmly resumed the study of a long putt. With a bang the ball went into the hole, and he straightened himself up.

“My game, Algy. So Hugh was right: I was afraid of it. Here he comes.”

We watched him breasting the hill that led down to the river, running with the long, easy stride of the born athlete. And it’s curious how little things strike one at times. I remember noticing as he came up that his breathing was as normal as my own, though he must have run the best part of a quarter of a mile.

“What’s up?” he said curtly, his eyes fixed on the sergeant.

“Are you Captain Drummond?” remarked the officer, producing a note-book.

“I am.”

“Of 5a, Upper Brook Street?”

He was reading these details from the book in his hand.

Drummond nodded.

“Yes.”

“You have a red Bentley car numbered ZZ 103?”

“I have,” said Drummond.

With maddening deliberation the worthy sergeant replaced his note-book in his breast-pocket. And another curious little thing struck me: though Drummond must have been on edge with suspense, no sign of impatience showed in his face.

“Have you been out in that car to-day, sir?”

“I have not,” said Drummond. “But my wife has!”

“Was she alone, sir?”

“To the best of my belief she was,” answered Drummond. “She left here when I was down at the station in Mr. Tracey’s car meeting this gentleman.”

The sergeant nodded his head portentously.

“Well, sir, I have to report to you that your car has been found empty standing by the side of the road not far from the village of Tidmarsh.”

“How did you know I was here?” said Drummond quietly.

“The constable who found the car, sir, saw your name and address printed on a plate on the instrument board. So he went to the nearest telephone and rang up your house in London. And your servant told him you was stopping down here. So he rang up at the station in Pangbourne.”

“But why take all the trouble?” said Drummond even more quietly. “Surely there’s nothing very extraordinary about an empty car beside the road?”

“No, sir,” agreed the sergeant. “There ain’t. That’s true. But the constable further reported”—his voice was grave—“that he didn’t like the look of the car. He said it struck him that there had been some sort of struggle.”

“I see,” said Drummond.

Quite calmly he turned to Darrell.

“Peter—your Sunbeam, and hump yourself. Algy—ring up Ted and Toby, and tell ’em they’re wanted. Put up at the hotel. Sergeant—you come with me. Tracey, ring up the railway-station and find out if two foreign-looking men have been seen there this afternoon. If so, did they take tickets, and for what destination? Let’s move.”

And we moved. Gone in a flash was the large and apparently brainless ass; in his place was a man accustomed to lead, and accustomed to instant obedience. Heaven knows why I got into the Sunbeam: presumably because I was the only person who had received no definite instructions. And Drummond evinced no surprise when he found me sitting beside him in the back seat. The sergeant, a little dazed at such rapidity of action, was in front with Darrell, and except for him none of us even had a hat.

“Tell us the way, sergeant,” said Drummond, as we swung through the gates. “And let her out, Peter.”

And Peter let her out. The worthy policeman gasped feebly once or twice concerning speed limits, but no one took the faintest notice, so that after a time he resigned himself to the inevitable and concentrated on holding on his hat. And I, having no hat to hold on, concentrated on the man beside me.

He seemed almost unaware of my existence. He sat there, motionless save for the swaying of the car, staring in front of him. His face was set and grave, and every now and then he shook his head as if he had arrived at an unpleasant conclusion in his train of thought.

My own thoughts were frankly incoherent. Somehow or other I still couldn’t believe that the matter was serious—certainly not as serious as Drummond seemed to think. And yet my former scepticism was shaken, I confess. If what the sergeant said was right: if there were signs of a struggle in the car, it was undoubtedly sufficiently serious to make it very unpleasant. But I still refused to believe that the whole thing was not capable of some simple solution. A tramp, perhaps, seeing that an approaching car contained a woman alone had stopped it by the simple expedient of standing in the middle of the road. Then he had attacked Mrs. Drummond with the idea of getting her money.

Unpleasant, as I say—very unpleasant. But quite ordinary. A very different matter to all this absurd twaddle about gangs of criminals and dead men’s mistresses. Moreover, I reflected, with a certain amount of satisfaction, there was another thing that proved my theory. On Drummond’s own showing he attached considerable importance to the two foreign-looking men at the Cat and Custard Pot. Now it was utterly impossible that they could have had anything to do with it since they were sitting there in the garden at the very time that Mrs. Drummond must have left Tracey’s house in the car. Which completely knocked Drummond’s conclusion on the head. The whole thing was simply a coincidence, and I said as much to the man beside me. He listened in silence.

“Ever been ratting?” he asked when I’d finished.

Once more did I stare at this extraordinary individual in amazement. What on earth had that got to do with it?

“Well—have you?” he repeated when I didn’t answer.

“In the days of my youth I believe I did,” I answered. “Though the exact bearing of a boyish pastime on the point at issue is a little obscure.”

“Then it oughtn’t to be,” he remarked curtly. “It’s only obscure because your grey matter is torpid. When a party of you go ratting, you put a bloke at every hole you know of before you start to bolt your rats.”

He relapsed again into silence, and so did I. The confounded fellow seemed to have an answer for everything. And then just ahead of us we saw the deserted car.

A constable was standing beside it, and a group of four or five children were looking on curiously. It stood some three or four feet from the left-hand side of the road, so that there was only just room for another car to pass. And the road itself at this point ran through a small wood—barely more than a copse.

“You’ve moved nothing, constable?” said the sergeant.

“Just as I found it, sergeant.”

We crowded round the car and looked inside. It was an ordinary open touring model, and it was obvious at once that there were signs which indicated a struggle. The rug, for instance, instead of being folded, was half over the front seat and half in the back of the car. A lady’s handkerchief, crumpled up, was lying just behind the steering-wheel, and one of the covers which was fastened to the upholstery by means of press studs, was partially wrenched off. It was the cover for one of the side doors, and underneath it was a pocket for maps and papers.

“This is your car, sir?” asked the sergeant formally.

“It is,” said Drummond, and once more we fell silent.

There was something sinister about that deserted car. One felt an insane longing that the rug could speak: that a thrush singing in the drowsy heat on a tree close by could tell us what had happened. Its head, of course, was pointed away from Pangbourne, and suddenly Drummond gave an exclamation. He was looking at the road some fifteen yards in front of the bonnet.

At first I noticed nothing, though my sight is as good as most men’s. And it wasn’t until I got close to the place that I could see what had attracted his attention. Covered with dust was a pool of black lubricating oil—and covered so well that only the sharpest eye would have detected it.

“That accounts for one thing, anyway,” said Drummond quietly.

“What is that, sir?” remarked the sergeant, with considerable respect in his voice. I was evidently not the only one who had been impressed with the keenness of Drummond’s sight.

“I know my wife’s driving better than anybody else,” he answered, “and, under normal circumstances, if she pulled up, she would instinctively get into the side of the road. So the first question I asked myself was why she had stopped with the car where it is. She was either following another car which pulled up in front of her, or she came round the corner and found it stationary in the middle of the road, not leaving her room to pass. And the owners of the car that did not leave her room to pass wanted to conceal the fact that they had been here, if possible. So, finding they had leaked oil, they tried to cover it up. God! if only the Bentley could talk.”

It was over in a moment—that sudden, natural spasm of feeling, and he was the same cool, imperturbable man again. And I felt my admiration for him growing. Criminal gangs or no criminal gangs, it’s a damnable thing to stand on the spot where an hour or two earlier your wife has been the victim of some dastardly outrage, and feel utterly impotent to do anything.

“Do you think it’s possible to track that car?” said Darrell.

We walked along the road for a considerable distance, but it was soon obvious that the idea was impossible. Far too much traffic had been along previously, and since there had been no rain the chance of following some distinctive tire marking had gone.

“Hopeless,” said Drummond heavily. “Absolutely hopeless. Hullo! one of those kids has found something.”

They were running towards us in a body led by a little boy who was waving some object in his hand.

“Found this, governor, in the grass beside the road,” he piped out.

“My God!” said Drummond, staring at it with dilated eyes.

For “this” was a large spanner, and one end was stained a dull red. Moreover, the red was still damp, and when he touched it, it came off on his finger.

Blood. And the question which rose in all of our minds, and the question which none of us dared to answer was—Whose? As I say, none of us dared to answer it out loud: I think we all of us had answered it to ourselves.

“You don’t recognise the spanner, I suppose, sir?” said the sergeant. “Is it one from your car or not?”

“I do recognise it,” answered Drummond. “It’s the regular set spanner I keep in the pocket with the maps and papers and not in the tool-box, because it fits the nut of the petrol tank.”

“The pocket that was wrenched open,” I put in, and he nodded.

“Show us just where you found it, nipper,” said the sergeant, and we all trooped back to the Bentley.

“Here, sir,” said the urchin. “Behind that there stone.”

He was pointing to a place just about level with the bonnet, and it required no keenness of vision such as had been necessary to spot the dust-covered pool of oil to see the next clue. From the stone where the spanner had been found to a point in the grass opposite where the other car must have stood, there stretched a continuous trail of ominous red spots. Some were big, and some were small, but the line was unbroken. Blood once again—and once again the same unspoken question.

“Well, sir,” said the sergeant gravely, “it’s obvious that there has been foul play. I think the best thing I can do is to get back to the station and ’phone Scotland Yard. We want a look-out kept all over the country for a motor-car containing a wounded lady.”

Drummond gave a short laugh.

“Don’t be too sure of that, sergeant,” he remarked. “It was only my wife who knew where that spanner was kept. I should be more inclined, if I were you, to keep a look-out for a motor containing a wounded man. Though I tell you candidly if this thing is what I think it is—or, rather, what I know it is—you’re wasting your time.”

And not another word would he say.