Money for Nothing (21 page)

With a violent effort he contrived to take in a stock of breath.

'I want the car, to go to Healthward Ho. I can drive it.'

The chauffeur's manner changed. Up till now he had been the cheery clubman meeting an old friend in the smoking-room and drawing him aside for a long, intimate chat, but at this shocking suggestion he froze. He gazed at Soapy with horrified incredulity.

'Drive the Dex-Mayo, sir?' he gasped.

'Over to Healthward Ho.'

The crisis passed. Bolt swallowed convulsively and was himself once more. One must be patient, he realized, with laymen. They do not understand. When they come to a chauffeur and calmly propose that their vile hands shall touch his sacred steering-wheel they are not trying to be deliberately offensive. It is simply that they do not know.

'I'm afraid that wouldn't quite do, sir,' he said with a faint, reproving smile.

'Do you think I can't drive?'

'Not the Dex-Mayo you can't, sir.' Bolt spoke a little curtly, for he had been much moved and was still shaken. 'Mr Carmody don't like nobody handling his car but me.'

'But I must go over to Healthward Ho. It's important. Business.'

The chauffeur reflected. Fundamentally he was a kindly man, who liked to do his Good Deed daily.

'Well, sir, there's an old push-bike of mine lying in the stables. You could take that if you liked. It's a little rusty, not having been used for some time, but I daresay it would carry you as far as Healthward Ho.'

Soapy hesitated for a moment. The idea of a twenty-mile journey on a machine which he had always supposed to have become obsolete during his knickerbocker days made him quail a little. Then the thought of his mission lent him strength. He was a desperate man, and desperate men must do desperate things.

'Fetch it out!' he said.

Bolt fetched it out, and Soapy, looking upon it, quailed again.

'Is that it?' he said dully.

'That's it, sir,' said the chauffeur.

There was only one adjective to describe this push-bike – the adjective blackguardly. It had that leering air, shared by some parrots and the baser variety of cat, of having seen and being jauntily familiar with all the sin of the world. It looked low and furtive. Its handle-bars curved up instead of down, it had gaps in its spokes, and its pedals were naked and unashamed. A sans-culotte of a bicycle. The sort of bicycle that snaps at strangers.

'H'm!' said Soapy, ruminating.

'Yes,' said Soapy, still ruminating.

Then he remembered again how imperative was the need of reaching Healthward Ho somehow.

'All right,' he said, with a shudder.

He climbed on to the machine, and after one majestic wobble passed through the gates into the park, pedalling bravely. As he disappeared from view, there floated back to Bolt, standing outside the stable-yard, a single, agonized 'Ouch!'

Chauffeurs do not laugh, but they occasionally smile. Bolt smiled. He had been bitten by that bicycle himself.

It was twenty minutes past one when butler Sturgis, dozing in his pantry, was jerked from slumber by the sound of the telephone bell. He had been hoping for an uninterrupted siesta, for he had had a perplexing and trying morning. First, on top of the most sensational night of his life, there had been all the nervous excitement of seeing policemen roaming about the place. Then the American gentleman, Mr Molloy, had told him that Mr Carmody wanted something to drink, and Mr Carmody had denied having ordered it. Then Mr Molloy had asked for a drink himself and had disappeared without waiting to get it. And, finally, there was the matter of the cupboard. Mr Molloy, after starting to build a rabbit-hutch, had apparently suspended operations in favour of smashing in the door of the cupboard at the foot of the stairs. It was all very puzzling to Sturgis, and, like most men of settled habit, he found the process of being puzzled upsetting.

He went to the telephone, and a silver voice came to him over the wire.

'Is that the Hall? I want to speak to Mr Carroll.'

Sturgis recognized the voice.

'Miss Wyvern?'

'Yes. Is that Sturgis? I say, Sturgis, what has become of Mr Carroll? I was expecting him here half an hour ago. Have you seen him about anywhere?'

'I have not seen him since shortly after breakfast, Miss. I understand that he went off in his little car with Miss Molloy.'

'What!'

'Yes, Miss. Some time ago.'

There was silence at the other end of the wire.

'With Miss Molloy?' said the silver voice flatly.

'Yes, Miss.'

Silence again.

'Did he say when he would be back?'

'No, Miss. But I understand that he was not proposing to return till quite late in the day.'

More silence.

'Oh?'

'Yes, Miss. Any message I can give him?'

'No, thank you....No...No, it doesn't matter.'

'Very good, Miss.'

Sturgis returned to his pantry. Pat, hanging up the receiver, went out into her garden. Her face was set, and her lips compressed.

A snail crossed her path. She did not tread on it, for she had a kind heart, but she gave it a look. It was a look which, had it reached John, at whom it was really directed, would have scorched him.

She walked to the gate and stood leaning on it, staring straight before her.

It had been the opinion of Dolly Molloy, expressed during her conversation with Mr Twist, that John, on awaking from his drugged slumber, would find himself suffering from a headache. The event proved her a true prophet.

John, as became one who prized physical fitness, had been all his life a rather unusually abstemious young man. But on certain rare occasions dotted through the years of his sojourn at Oxford he had permitted himself to relax. As for instance, the night of his twenty-first birthday . . . Boat-Race night in his freshman year . . . and, perhaps most notable of all, the night of the University football match in the season when he had first found a place in the Oxford team and had helped to win one of the most spectacular games ever seen at Twickenham. To celebrate each of these events he had lapsed from his normal austerity, and every time had woken on the morrow to a world full of greyness and horror and sharp, shooting pains. But never had he experienced anything to compare with what he was feeling now.

He was dimly conscious that strange things must have been happening to him, and that these things had ended by depositing him on a strange bed in a strange room, but he was at present in no condition to give his situation any sustained thought. He merely lay perfectly still, concentrating all his powers on the difficult task of keeping his head from splitting in half.

When eventually, moving with exquisite care, he slid from the bed and stood up, the first thing of which he became aware was that the sun had sunk so considerably that it was now shining almost horizontally through the barred window of the room. The air, moreover, which accompanied its rays through the window had that cool fragrance which indicates the approach of evening.

Poets have said some good things in their time about this particular hour of the day, but to John on this occasion it brought no romantic thoughts. He was merely bewildered. He had started out from Rudge not long after eleven in the morning, and here it was late afternoon.

He moved to the window, feeling like Rip van Winkle. And presently the sweet air, playing about his aching brow, restored him so considerably that he was able to make deductions and arrive at the truth. The last thing he could recollect was the man Twist handing him a tall glass. In that glass, it now became evident, must have lurked the cause of all his troubles. With an imbecile lack of the most elementary caution, inexcusable in one who had been reading detective stories all his life, he had allowed himself to be drugged.

It was a bitter thought, but he was not permitted to dwell on it for long. Gradually, driving everything else from his mind, there stole upon him the realization that unless he found something immediately to slake the thirst which was burning him up he would perish of spontaneous combustion. There was a jug on the wash-stand: and, tottering to it, he found it mercifully full to the brim. For the next few moments he was occupied, to the exclusion of all other mundane matters, with the task of seeing how much of the contents of this jug he could swallow without pausing for breath.

This done, he was at leisure to look about him and examine the position of affairs.

That he was a prisoner was proved directly he tested the handle of the door. And, as further evidence, there were those bars on the window. Whatever else might be doubtful, the one thing certain was that he would have to remain in this room until somebody came along and let him out.

His first reaction on making this discovery was a feeling of irritation at the silliness of the whole business. Where was the sense of it? Did this man Twist suppose that in the heart of peaceful Worcestershire he could immure a fellow for ever in an upper room of his house?

And then his clouded intellect began to function more nimbly. Twist's behaviour, he saw, was not so childish as he had supposed. It had been imperative for him to gain time in order to get away with his loot; and, John realized, he had most certainly gained it. And the longer he remained in this room, the more complete would be the scoundrel's triumph.

John became active. He went to the door again and examined it carefully. A moment's inspection showed him that nothing was to be hoped for from that quarter. A violent application of his shoulder did not make the solid oak so much as quiver.

He tried the window. The bars were firm. Tugging had no effect on them.

There seemed to John only one course to pursue.

He shouted.

It was an injudicious move. The top of his head did not actually come off, but it was a very near thing. By a sudden clutch at both temples he managed to avert disaster in the nick of time, and tottered weakly to the bed. There for some minutes he remained while unseen hands drove red-hot rivets into his skull.

Presently the agony abated. He was able to rise again and make his way feebly to the jug, which he had now come to look on as his only friend in the world.

He had just finished his second non-stop draught when something attracted his notice out of the corner of his eye, and he saw that in the window beside him were framed a head and shoulders.

'Hoy!' observed the head in a voice like a lorry full of steel girders passing over cobblestones. 'I've brought you a cuppertea.'

The head was red in colour and ornamented half-way down by a large and impressive moustache, waxed at the ends. The shoulders were broad and square, the eyes prawn-like. The whole apparition, in short, one could tell at a glance, was a sample or first instalment of the person of a Sergeant-Major. And unless he had dropped from heaven – which from John's knowledge of Sergeant-Majors, seemed unlikely – the newcomer must be standing on top of a ladder.

And such, indeed, was the case. Sergeant-Major Flannery, though no acrobat, had nobly risked life and limb by climbing to this upper window to see how his charge was getting on and to bring him a little refreshment.

'Take your cuppertea, young fellow,' said Mr Flannery.

The hospitality had arrived too late. In the matter of tea-drinking John was handicapped by the fact that he had just swallowed approximately a third of a jug of water. He regretted to be compelled to reject the contribution for lack of space. But as what he desired most at the moment was human society and conversation, he advanced eagerly to the window.

'Who are you?' he asked.

'Flannery's my name, young fellow.'

'How did I get here?'

'In that room?'

'Yes.'

'I put you there.'

'You did, did you?' said John. 'Open this door at once, damn you!'

The Sergeant-Major shook his head.

'Language!' he said reprovingly. 'Profanity won't do you no good, young man. Cursing and swearing won't 'elp you. You just drink your cuppertea and don't let's have no nonsense. If you'd made a 'abit in the past of drinking more tea and less of the other thing, you wouldn't be in what I may call your present predicament.'

'Will you open this door!'

'No, sir. I will not open that door. There aren't going to be no doors opened till your conduct and behaviour has been carefully examined in the course of a day or so and we can be sure there'll be no verlence.'

'Listen,' said John, curbing a desire to jab at this man through the bars with the tea-spoon. 'I don't know who you are . . .'

'Flannery's the name, sir, as I said before. Sergeant-Major Flannery.'

'...but I can't believe you're in this business . . .'

'Indeed I am, sir. I am Doctor Twist's assistant.'

'But this man is a criminal, you fool . . .'

Sergeant-Major Flannery seemed pained rather than annoyed.

'Come, come, sir. A little civility, if you please. This what I may call contumacious attitude isn't helping you. Surely you can see that for yourself? Always remember, sir, the voice with the smile wins.'

'This fellow Twist burgled our house last night. And all the while you're keeping me shut up here he's getting away.'

'Is that so, sir? What house would that be?'

'Rudge Hall.'

'Never heard of it.'

'It's near Rudge-in-the-Vale. Twenty miles from here. Mr Carmody's place.'

'Mr Lester Carmody who was here taking the cure?'

'Yes. I'm his nephew.'

'His nephew, eh?'

'Yes.'

'Come, come!'

'What do you mean?'

'Is so 'appens,' said Mr Flannery, with quiet satisfaction, removing one hand from the window-bars in order to fondle his moustache, 'that I've seen Mr Carmody's nephew. Tallish, thinnish, pleasant-faced young fellow. He was over here to visit Mr Carmody during the latter's temp'ry residence. I had him pointed out to me.'

Painful though the process was, John felt compelled to grit his teeth.

'That was Mr Carmody's other nephew.'

'Other nephew, eh?'

'My cousin.'

'Your cousin, eh?'

'His name's Hugo.'

'Hugo, eh?'

'Good God!' cried John. 'Are you a parrot?'

Mr Flannery, if he had not been standing on a ladder, would no doubt have drawn himself up haughtily at this outburst. Being none too certain of his footing, he contented himself with looking offended.

'No, sir,' he said with a dignity which became him well, 'in reply to your question, I am not a parrot. I am a salaried assistant at Doctor Twist's health-establishment, detailed to look after the patients and keep them away from the cigarettes and see that they do their exercises in a proper manner. And, as I said to the young lady, I understand human nature and am a match for artfulness of any description. What's more, it was precisely this kind of artfulness on your part that the young lady warned me against. "Be careful, Sergeant-Major," she said to me, clasping her 'ands in what I may call an agony of appeal, "that this poor, misguided young son of a what-not don't come it over you with his talk about being the Lost Heir of some family living in the near neighbourhood. Because he's sure to try it on, you can take it from me, Sergeant-Major," she said. And I said to the young lady, "Miss," I said, "he won't come it over Egbert Flannery. Not him. I've seen too much of that sort of thing, Miss," I said. And the young lady said, "Gawd's strewth, Sergeant-Major," she said, "I wish there was more men in the world like you, Sergeant-Major, because then it would be a damn sight better place than it is, Sergeant-Major."' He paused. Then, realizing an omission, added the words, 'She said.'

John clutched at his throbbing head.

'Young lady? What young lady?'

'You know well enough what young lady, sir. The young lady what brought you here to leave you in our charge. That young lady.'

'That young lady?'

'Yes, sir. The one who brought you here.'

'Brought me here?'

'And left you in our charge.'

'Left me in your charge?'

'Come, come, sir!' said Mr Flannery. 'Are you a parrot?'

The adroit thrust made no impression on John. His mind was too busy to recognize it for what it was – viz., about the cleverest repartee ever uttered by a non-commissioned officer of His Majesty's regular forces. A monstrous suspicion had smitten him, with the effect almost of a physical blow. Suspicion? It was more than a suspicion. If it was at Dolly Molloy's request that he was now locked up in this infernal room, then, bizarre as it might seem, Dolly Molloy must in some way be connected with the nefarious activities of the man Twist. The links that connected the two might be obscure, but as to the fact there could be no doubt whatever.

'You mean...' he gasped.

'I mean your sister, sir, who brought you over here in her car.'

'What! That was my car.'

'No, no, sir, that won't do. I saw her myself driving off in it some hours ago. She waved her 'and to me,' said Mr Flannery, caressing his moustache and allowing a note of tender sentiment to creep into his voice. 'Yes, sir! She turned and waved her 'and.'

John made no reply. He was beyond speech. Trifling though it might seem to an insurance company in comparison with the loss of Rudge Hall's more valuable treasures, the theft of the two-seater smote him a blow from which he could not hope to rally. He loved his Widgeon Seven. He had nursed it, tended it, oiled it, watered it, watched over it in sickness and in health as if it had been a baby sister. And now it had gone.

'Look here!' he cried feverishly. 'You must let me out of here. At once!'

'No, sir. I promised your sister . . .'

'She isn't my sister! I haven't got a sister! Good heavens, man, can't you understand . . .'

'I understand very well, sir. Artfulness! I was prepared for it.' Sergeant-Major Flannery paused for an instant. 'The young lady,' he said dreamily, 'was afraid, too, that you might try to bribe me. She warned me most particular.'

John did not speak. His Widgeon Seven! Gone!

'Bribe me!' repeated Sergeant-Major Flannery, his eyes widening. It was evident that the mere thought of such a thing sickened this good man. 'She said you would try to bribe me to let you go.'

'Well, you can make your mind easy,' said John between his teeth. 'I haven't any money.'

There was a moment's silence. Then Mr Flannery said 'Ho!' in a rather short manner. And silence fell again.

It was broken by the Sergeant-Major, in a moralizing vein.

'It's a wonder to me,' he said, and there was peevishness in his voice, 'that a young fellow with a lovely sister like what you've got can bring himself to lower himself to the beasts of the field, as the saying is. Drink in moderation is one thing. Mopping it up and becoming verlent and a nuisance to all is another. If you'd ever seen one of them lantern-slides showing what alcohol does to the liver of the excessive drinker maybe you'd have pulled up sharp while there was time. And not,' said the Sergeant-Major, still with that oddly querulous note in his voice, 'have wasted all your money on what could only do you 'arm. If you 'adn't of give in so to your self-indulgence and what I may call besottedness, you would now 'ave your pocket full of money to spend how you fancied.' He sighed. 'Your cuppertea's got cold,' he said moodily.

'I don't want any tea.'

'Then I'll be leaving you,' said Mr Flannery. 'If you require anything, press the bell. Nobody'll take any notice of it.'