The Profiteers Part 35

"Without a doubt. I think he saw trouble ahead. By the by, have you heard anything of Phipps lately? Why not ring up and enquire about his health?"

Dredlinton stared a little wildly at the speaker. Then he hurried to the telephone, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the receiver and talked into it, his eyes all the time fixed upon Wingate in a sort of frightened stare.

"Mayfair 365," he demanded. "Quick, please! An urgent call! Yes? Who's that? Yes, yes! Browning--Mr. Phipps' secretary. I understand. Where's Mr. Phipps?--_What_?"

Dredlinton drew away from the telephone for a moment. He dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. He looked like a man on the verge of collapse.

"Something unusual seems to have happened," Wingate remarked softly.

Dredlinton was listening once more to the voice at the other end of the telephone.

"You've tried his club? Eh? And the restaurant where he was to have dined? What do you say? Kept them waiting and never turned up? You've rung up the police?--What do they say?--Doing their best?--My G.o.d!"

The receiver slipped from his nerveless fingers. He turned around to face Wingate, crouching over the table, his arms resting upon it, his eyes blood-shot, a slave to abject fear.

"Peter Phipps has disappeared!" he gasped weakly.

The atmosphere of the room seemed to have completely changed during the last few minutes. Wingate was no longer the conventional and casual caller. His face had hardened, his eyes were brighter, his manner ominous. He was the modern figure of Fate, playing for a desperate stake with cold and deadly earnestness. Dredlinton was simply panic-stricken.

He was white to the lips; his eyes were filled with the frightened gleam of the trapped animal; he shook and twitched in a paroxysm of nervous collapse. He seemed terrified yet fascinated by the strange metamorphosis in his visitor.

"This is your doing?" he cried.

"It is my doing," Wingate admitted, with his eyes still fixed upon the other's face.

Dredlinton stumbled to the fireplace, found the bell and pressed it violently. A gleam of rea.s.surance came to him.

"My servants shall hear you repeat that!" he exclaimed. "I will have them all in to witness your confession. You are pleading guilty to a crime! I shall send out for the police! I shall hand you over from here!"

"Not a bad idea," Wingate acknowledged. "By the by, though," he added, a moment or two later, "your servants don't seem in a great hurry to answer that bell."

Dredlinton pressed it more violently than ever. By listening intently both men could hear its faraway summons. But nothing happened. The house itself seemed empty. There was not even the sound of a footfall.

"You will really have to change your servants," Wingate continued. "Fancy not answering a bell! They must hear it pealing away. Still, you have the telephone. Why not ring up Scotland Yard direct?"

Dredlinton, dazed now with terror, took his fingers from the bell and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the telephone receiver. All the time his eyes were riveted upon his companion's, their weak depths filled with a nameless horror.

"Quick!" he shouted down the receiver. "Scotland Yard! Put me straight through to Scotland Yard!--Can you hear me, Exchange? I am Lord Dredlinton, 1887 Mayfair. If I am cut off, ring through to Scotland Yard yourself. Tell them I am in danger of my life! Tell them to rush here at once!"

"Yes, they had better hurry," Wingate said tersely.

Dredlinton pulled down the hook of the receiver desperately.

"Can't you hear me, Exchange?" he shouted. "Quick! This is urgent!"

"Really," Wingate remarked, "the telephone people seem almost as negligent as your servants."

The receiver slipped from the hysterical man's fingers. He collapsed into a chair and leaned across the table.

"What does it mean?" he demanded hoa.r.s.ely. "No one will answer the bell.

I seem to be speaking through the telephone to a dead world."

"If you really want some one, I dare say I can help you," Wingate replied. "The telephone was disconnected by my orders, as soon as you had spoken to Phipps' rooms. But--now you are only wasting your time."

Dredlinton had rushed to the door, shaken the handle violently, only to find it locked. He pommelled with his fists upon the panels.

"Come, come," his companion expostulated, "there is really no need for such extremes. You want something, perhaps? Allow me."

Wingate crossed the room, rang the bell three times quickly, and stood in an easy att.i.tude upon the hearth rug, with his hands behind his back.

"Let us see," he said, "whether that has any effect or not."

"Is this your house or mine?" Dredlinton demanded.

"Your house," was the laconic reply, "but my servants."

From outside was heard the sound of a turning key. The door was opened.

Grant, the new butler, made his appearance,--a thin, determined-looking man, with white hair and keen dark eyes, who bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Andrew Slate.

"His lords.h.i.+p wants the whisky and soda brought in here, Grant," Wingate told him, "and--wait just a moment.--You seem very much distressed about the disappearance of your friends, Lord Dredlinton. Would you like to see them?"

"What? See Stanley Rees and Peter Phipps now?"

"Yes!"

"You are talking nonsense!" Dredlinton shouted. "You may know where they are--I should think it is very likely that you do--but you aren't going to persuade me that you've got them here in my house--that you can turn them loose when you choose to say the word!"

Wingate glanced across at the butler, who nodded understandingly and withdrew. Dredlinton intercepted the look and shook his fist.

"You've been tampering with my servants, d.a.m.n you!" he exclaimed.

"Well, they haven't been yours very long, have they?" Wingate reminded him.

"So this is all part of a plot!" Dredlinton continued, with increasing apprehension. "They are in your pay, are they? It was only this morning I noticed all these new faces around me.--G.o.d help us!"

The words seemed to melt away from his lips. The door had been flung open, and a queer little procession entered. First of all came Grant, followed by a footman leading Peter Phipps by the arm. Phipps' hands were tied together. A gag in the form of a respirator covered his mouth. Cords which had apparently only just been unknotted were around each leg. He had the expression, of a man completely dazed. After him came another of the footmen leading Stanley Rees, who was in similar straits. The latter, however, perhaps by reason of his longer detention, showed none of the pa.s.sivity of his companion. He struggled violently, even in the few yards between the door and the centre of the room, Wingate motioned to a third footman, who had followed behind.

"Pull out that round table," he directed. "Place three chairs around it.--So!--Sit down, Phipps. Sit down, Rees."

They obeyed, Rees only after a further useless struggle. Dredlinton, who had been speechless for the last few seconds, gazed with horror-stricken eyes at the third chair. Wingate smiled at him grimly.

"That third chair, Dredlinton," he announced, "is for you."

The terrified man made an ineffectual dash for the door.

"You mean to make a prisoner of me in my own house?" he shouted, as he found himself in the clutches of one of the footmen. "What fool's game is this? You know you can't keep it up, Wingate. You'll be transported, man. Come, confess it's a joke. Tell that man to take these d.a.m.ned cords away."

"It is a joke," Wingate a.s.sured him gravely, "but it may need a very peculiar sense of humour to appreciate it. However, you need not fear.

Your life is not threatened.--Now, d.i.c.kenson, the loaf."