Bulldog Drummond

In the month of December 1918, and on the very day that a British Cavalry Division marched into Cologne, with flags flying and bands playing as the conquerors of a beaten nation, the manager of the Hôtel Nationale in Berne received a letter. Its contents appeared to puzzle him somewhat, for having read it twice he rang the bell on his desk to summon his secretary. Almost immediately the door opened, and a young French girl came into the room.

“Monsieur rang?” She stood in front of the manager’s desk, awaiting instructions.

“Have we ever had staying in the hotel a man called le Comte de Guy?” He leaned back in his chair and looked at her through his pince-nez.

The secretary thought for a moment and then shook her head.

“Not as far as I can remember,” she said.

“Do we know anything about him? Has he ever fed here, or taken a private room?”

Again the secretary shook her head.

“Not that I know of.”

The manager handed her the letter, and waited in silence until she had read it.

“It seems on the face of it a peculiar request from an unknown man,” he remarked as she laid it down. “A dinner of four covers; no expense to be spared. Wines specified and if not in hotel to be obtained. A private room at half-past seven sharp. Guests to ask for room X.”

The secretary nodded in agreement.

“It can hardly be a hoax,” she remarked after a short silence.

Captain Hugh Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., late of His Majesty’s Royal Loamshires, was whistling in his morning bath. Being by nature of a cheerful disposition, the symptom did not surprise his servant, late private of the same famous regiment, who was laying breakfast in an adjoining room.

After a while the whistling ceased, and the musical gurgle of escaping water announced that the concert was over. It was the signal for James Denny⁠—the square-jawed ex-batman⁠—to disappear into the back regions and get from his wife the kidneys and bacon which that most excellent woman had grilled to a turn. But on this particular morning the invariable routine was broken. James Denny seemed preoccupied, distrait.

Once or twice he scratched his head, and stared out of the window with a puzzled frown. And each time, after a brief survey of the other side of Half Moon Street, he turned back again to the breakfast table with a grin.

“What’s you looking for, James Denny?” The irate voice of his wife at the door made him turn round guiltily. “Them kidneys is ready and waiting these five minutes.”

Her eyes fell on the table, and she advanced into the room wiping her hands on her apron.

“Did you ever see such a bunch of letters?” she said.

This time she did not look away. She seemed to think that it was her turn to conduct the examination, and Drummond turned to his tea while the scrutiny continued. He poured himself out a cup, and then fumbled in his waistcoat pocket. After a moment he found what he wanted, and taking out a card he propped it against the teapot so that the girl could see what was on it. In large block capitals he had written Box X10. Then he added milk and sugar and waited.

She spoke almost at once. “You’ll do, X10,” she said, and he turned to her with a smile.

“It’s very nice of you to say so,” he murmured. “If I may, I will return the compliment. So will you.”

She frowned slightly. “This isn’t foolishness, you know. What I said in my letter is literally true.”

“Which makes the compliment even more returnable,” he answered. “If I am to embark on a life of crime, I would sooner collaborate with you than⁠—shall we say⁠—that earnest eater over there with the tomato in her hat.”

He waved vaguely at the lady in question and then held out his cigarette-case to the girl. “Turkish on this side⁠—Virginian on that,” he remarked. “And as I appear satisfactory, will you tell me who I’m to murder?”

With the unlighted cigarette held in her fingers she stared at him gravely. “I want you to tell me,” she said at length, and there was no trace of jesting in her voice, “tell me, on your word of honour, whether that advertisement was bona fide or a joke.”

“Still the same delusion,” repeated Peterson. “I shall be ready to receive both the paper and the man up till six o’clock tonight at 32A Berners Street; and it is possible, I might even say probable, should they turn up by then, that I shall not find it necessary to kill you.”

Hugh grinned. “Your kindly forbearance amazes me,” he cried. “Won’t you really change your mind and have a drink?”

“Should they not arrive by then, I shall be put to the inconvenience of taking them, and in that case⁠—much as I regret it⁠—you may have to be killed. You’re such an aggressive young man, Captain Drummond⁠—and, I fear, not very tactful.” He spoke regretfully, drawing on his gloves; then as he got to the door he paused. “I’m afraid that my words will not have much effect,” he remarked, “but the episode last night did appeal to me. I would like to spare you⁠—I would really. It’s a sign of weakness, my young friend, which I view with amazement⁠—but nevertheless, it is there. So be warned in time. Return my property to Berners Street, and leave England for a few months.” His eyes seemed to burn into the soldier’s brain. “You are meddling in affairs,” he went on gently, “of the danger of which you have no conception. A fly in the gearbox of a motorcar would be a sounder proposition for a life insurance than you will be⁠—if you continue on your present course.”

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.