CHAPTER XXVI.
PRISONER AND ESCORT.
Dick presented to the expectant three the same disreputable andtruculent aspect which had so deeply offended Charles of Mayfair--anaspect so extraordinary as to strike speechless for a moment even thethree so deeply interested in his advent.
"That chair with arms," said Dick to the sergeant, "or he'll fall off."
The sergeant brought it, and Dick pushed the still tipsy wretch, abundle of false elegance deflowered, into its embrace.
Then Randal, with beaming face, caught his brother by the shoulders.
"You grisly scallywag!" he cried.
Finucane had risen, turning his own chair for the new-comer.
"Sit down, sir," he said.
And Dick, seeing only those who addressed him, dropped into the seat.
"Don't hurry yourself, Mr. Bellamy. What'll you have?" asked Finucane."Brandy--whisky?"
"Tea," interrupted Dick. "A potful--and awfully strong."
"See to that, will you, sergeant?" said Finucane.
The man left the room, and Dick spoke again.
"There are things I must tell you before I slack off." Then, a littlemore alert, he looked round him, and for the first time saw Caldegardglowering at him across the table with fierce curiosity.
"I didn't see you, sir," he said, his heart warming to the old man'spiteous face, "or I'd have told you before I spoke to anyone else thatMiss Caldegard is perfectly well, though she's a bit done up."
"Where is she?" asked the father, new lines of joy making havoc of amask scored by inelastic sorrow.
"In bed, I think. Asleep, I hope. If you'll let me get a few bits ofinformation off my chest for the police, I'll tell you all about it--howI found her, how brave and clever she's been--lots of things."
Then the bright spark came into the tired eyes again, as they searchedthe face of the father of Amaryllis--the spark which Amaryllis says,comes always just before he says something nice.
But Caldegard spoke first.
"You've had a devilish bad time of it, my boy," he said.
"Nothing to what you've been through, sir. It's hell, I know, when onecan't do anything."
Caldegard stretched his hand across the table. Dick turned from hisgrasp to see Randal pouring terrific black tea into a thick white cup.
When he had swallowed three burning gulps of it, he began:
"That's Melchard," he said, pointing. "This bundle of letters I took offhim. Amongst them you'll find useful information. Read 'em now,superintendent. You'll find there's a flat in Bayswater, where two orthree of his crowd in the illicit drug traffic are expecting himto-morrow morning. That's the important one--the thick mauve paper."
And he drank more tea, while Finucane ran eager eyes over the letter.
"Good God!" he said, rising. "Go on with your tea, Mr. Bellamy--not yourstory. Back in three minutes."
He pushed an electric button, and almost ran from the room.
"You see, sir," said Dick to Caldegard, "as we were coming home in thetrain from our little day out, poor Miss Caldegard was so tired that shesaid I must find her a fairy godmother directly we reached town. So Itook her straight to the only lady of that rank whom I know. I dare sayyou know her too--it's Lady Elizabeth Bruffin. George Bruffin's an oldfriend of mine--Mexico--and his wife's a connoisseur in pumpkins andrat-traps."
Since all London that season was talking of the two Bruffins, and everynewspaper, in direct ratio to the badness of its paper and print, wasscavenging for paragraphs, true or false, concerning the "palatial home"in Park Lane, neither Caldegard nor Randal Bellamy could concealround-eyed astonishment.
"But Amaryllis? Did she look--well, anything like----"
"Like me?" asked Dick, grinning all over the better side of his twistedface. "Well, sir, she hasn't been knocked about, you know. But her rigdid her certainly less justice than mine does me. Nothing on earth couldmake her look like a tough, and the sun-bonnet certainly had an----"
But Finucane was with them again.
"Excuse me behaving like Harlequin in the pantomime, gentlemen," hesaid. "Now, Mr. Bellamy."
"Can you take advice?" asked Dick.
"From you, Mr. Bellamy," said Finucane, "who wouldn't?"
"I'm so sleepy that if I don't give it now, I may forget it. Properlyhandled, that dirty thing in the chair there will give his show away.Keep him to-night as a drunk and disorderly. Better have a doctor tohim. I tasted the stuff. Tomorrow I'll swear a dozen charges againsthim--burglary, abduction, instigation to murder, attempts to kill; andwhen he hears 'em read over, he'll be putty in your fingers."
"Thanks," said Finucane.
"Next: ring up the police and the station-master at Todsmoor. Tell 'emto keep tight hold of the man who fell out of the train betweenHarthborough and Todsmoor at five-forty p.m. and of the bloke that waswith him, suspected of throwing him out."
Finucane paid his guest the compliment of obeying without question.
As he hung up the receiver,
"The man's in hospital, all right," he said, "broken collar-bone. I wasjust in time to prevent them from letting the other go. They're to holdhim on a charge of throwing his pal out."
"I did that," said Dick. "At least, I scared the bird off his perch."
Again Finucane rang.
"And I'll send this one," he said, "to his nest."
When Melchard had been removed, Dick gave his three listeners a rapidand, as their faces and exclamatory comment testified, a vivid sketch ofhis adventure from his detection of the perfume which pervaded thealcove in Randal's study and the corroboration of his suspicions givenby Melchard's attempted alibi in the letter to Amaryllis, to the timewhen his train pulled out of Todsmoor station; and, in the course of hisnarrative, he laid on the table, each at its historic point, his _piecesde conviction_.
Having told how Amaryllis had fainted at the sight of Ockley with theknife-point protruding from the back of his neck, he extracted theWebley from his overcrowded pocket.
"That," he said, "is the man's gun, which Miss Caldegard found for me."
Later, he produced Mut-mut's baag-nouk, laying it, talons upward, besidethe Webley.
"That was strapped to his hand. I gave him the first of my two shotsbefore he jumped, the second I put through his head as he lay scrabblingin the car."
At this point there entered the room a stout, bearded man with carewornface and irritable expression. Finucane rose respectfully, but thenew-comer made a motion waiving ceremony, sat in the nearest chair, andbecame one of the audience.
Dick, never observing the addition, continued his tale in a voicemonotonous with fatigue.
In their turn he added to the display the Malay's revolver, with whichhe had captured Melchard, and Melchard's automatic.
And, after telling them how he had forced his prisoner to drink,
"I couldn't bring the bottle--no room," he said, patting his shrinkingpocket. "The tangle-foot all went down the pussyfoot's neck, so I left'Robbie Burns' in the car. By the way, don't forget to ring up aboutthat car. Old Mut-mut cut the cushions to ribbons; that bit of evidencemight save my neck."
Finucane smiled pleasantly.
"You seem to have left a trail of coroner's inquests behind you," hesaid.
"All in the day's work," said Dick. "But not, thank God! in to-night's."
And when he had carried his audience past Todsmoor station,
"That's all," he said. "Can't I go home to bed now, superintendent?"
But the bearded stranger intervened.
"One of your clever young officers, I presume," he said to Finucane.
"I wish to God he were, Sir Gregory," replied the superintendent.
"A clever, and, I gather, somewhat high-handed amateur. The young lady,I hope, is safe."
"She is, Sir Gregory--thanks entirely to the extraordinary rapidity ofMr. Richard Bellamy's intuition and action," said Finucane, speakingwith unruffled respect, which yet did not hide, nor was intended tohide, a note
of reproof. "Without him the Department would have been toolate for the show. As it is, we are acting effectively--on informationsupplied by Mr. Bellamy."
Now Dick stood in no awe of potentates, and he liked his superintendent.
"It was my luck to be on the spot," he said. "There's nothing more init."
"Pardon me if I differ from you, Mr. Bellamy," said Sir Gregory. "Thereis this more in it: if the police had been given your opportunities theywould not have limited their action to the rescue of this unfortunateyoung lady, but would have devoted themselves also to the recovery ofwhat is, for the country--I might almost say for the world--of vastlygreater importance. You are possibly aware that a sample of a new drugof great potentiality for good and ill was the object of the outragewhich led to the abduction."
The great man's beard and the great man's manner annoyed Dick Bellamy,stimulating him even through his shroud of somnolence.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned; then looked up at Sir Gregory.
"I don't know who you are, my good man," he said, "nor why you comebarging into this. What more d'you want? Your Napoleon of crime is inthe oubliette, two of his dastard accomplices are in clink at Todsmoor,three more are being tracked to their doom in Bayswater, two aredead----"
Here Dick produced from inner pockets a small white packet and anenvelope.
"And these," he concluded, "are the dope and the book-o'-the-words."
Both Finucane and Sir Gregory started forward as if to take possession,but Dick drew back.
"No," he said, "I didn't go looting for my country's sake, nor theworld's. I just happened to pick up two little things belonging to afriend of mine." And, turning, he put the Ambrotox and the formula intoCaldegard's hand, smiling his crooked smile.
"That's the lot," he murmured, and laid his head on his arms, foldedupon the table.
An uncomfortable pause was broken by the entrance of a constable with acard.
"Gentleman wishes to know if Mr. Richard Bellamy is here," he said tothe superintendent.
But Dick did not move.
His brother bent over him.
"The boy's fast asleep," he said.
Finucane passed the card to Randal.
"'George Bruffin,'" he read out. "Better ask him up, superintendent, ifyou don't mind."
Sir Gregory had been feeling himself pushed aside. He had taken the sow,it seemed, by the wrong ear. And now, the great Bruffin and hismillions!
George came in, ponderous and unsmiling; picked out the superintendentat once, and thanked him gruffly for admission to the "sanctum"; a wordwhich George chose to please him--and succeeded.
Sir Gregory pressing himself forward, Finucane was obliged to mumble anintroduction.
George replied vaguely, saying, "Oh, ah--yes, of course!"
And then, his eye falling on Randal, he came alive.
"You're Dick's big brother," he said.
"I can't help that," responded Randal, holding out his hand.
"Some people do have all the luck," said George. Then, looking down atthe sleeper, he continued: "My car's outside. My wife's waiting till Ibring him. You'd better come with us, Sir Randal, and help us tuck himup in bed."
Sir Gregory tried again.
"Game to the last!" he said, joining the group; "but not, I suppose,very robust. Evidently a case of complete nervous exhaustion."
Caldegard had spoken little since Dick's entrance. He now rose as ifshot from his chair by a spring, and spoke with a vigour that remindedRandal of their youth.
"Five hundred miles--driving your own car in the dark! Climb the side ofa house. Break in--save one woman from being knifed by another. Fightfive armed men with your fists and boots. Knock out four of them. Run amile, dragging a girl--from a man chasing you, and shooting at you witha revolver. Kill a murderer with a murderess's dagger. Nurse a girl withan attack of hysteria. Drive a coach, humbug a woman, a parson, arailway porter, a guard and a station-master. Kill a man armed with thatsteel-clawed thing there, steal a car, knock a man off a train, andbring home the exhausted woman alive and your chief enemy drunk and aprisoner--do all that without sleep for thirty-six hours, Sir Gregory;then, if you can drop off to sleep like that, instead of having yourhead packed in ice and babbling pink spiders and blue monkeys, you maycall your constitution cast-iron. All exhaustion is nervous, SirGregory, and the man who can stand the biggest dose of it is thestrongest man."
"Oh, from that point of view--yes--of course," bleated the beardedpolitician.
But George covered his final discomfiture.
"I wish you'd tell me your name, sir," he said to Caldegard.
Caldegard told him.
"Thought so," exclaimed George, almost with enthusiasm. "We have theimmense pleasure of looking after Miss Caldegard. My wife won't be happyunless you come round with me and feast your eyes on what she says isthe prettiest sight in London--Miss Caldegard asleep."
This time the father's countenance did him justice.
Finucane told his wife that night that he had at last seen an old manperfectly happy.
The potentate saw that flash of glory, and put himself "on-side."
He went round to Caldegard, and saying, "Let me congratulate you," tookthe hand offered him, and went out.
"Nothing in this meeting became him like----" began Randal.
But Caldegard cut him short.
"He meant it, Randal," he said.
"Exactly. Requiescat. Let's see if we can get this neurasthenic down tothe car without waking him."