Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 43

Her eyes shone with a kind of maternal satisfaction, but she looked at her husband without speaking.

"How's the young woman?" he asked. "She looked about done in."

"She's had a bath. Suzanne's done her hair. She's in bed, so sleepy that I left Suzanne with her to keep her from spilling her bouillon and toast before she's finished it. Oh, George, she's a ripper--perfectly lovely, without all those horrid clothes."

George took his cigar from his mouth.

"I shouldn't wonder," he said.

Lady Elizabeth ignored the interruption.

"And I _believe_ she's d.i.c.k's," she went on. "Who is this Professor Caldegard?"

"Scientific--coal-tar--big bug of the first magnitude," answered Bruffin. "Some day he'll synthesize alb.u.men, and then all the farmers'll go into the workhouse."

"But are they--what sort of people are they? It's _d.i.c.k_, George."

"You've seen the girl, Betsy."

"Yes," admitted Lady Elizabeth.

"And when you catch d.i.c.k Bellamy making a break over a man, a horse, a dog or a woman, Bet, p'r'aps you'll let me know."

Lady Elizabeth sighed contentedly, as if he had removed the last doubt from a happy mind.

"That's quite true," she said. Then she looked round the room. "Is he in your bath-room, or in bed, or where? You oughtn't to leave him alone."

"He's left me," replied George. "Wouldn't stay a moment after he knew Miss Caldegard was in your clutches. He's gone off with his intoxicated captive. He's made a conquest of Charles by pitching him out of the house, and the taxi-man would help him do murders."

"Is he coming back to bed here?"

"Didn't ask."

"Oh, George, why not?"

"He'll come if he wants to."

"Didn't he tell you where he was taking his prisoner?"

"Only said, 'Must get a move on. Got a man to be hanged,' and went."

"Then it's Scotland Yard," said Lady Elizabeth.

"I don't think that's where they turn 'em off, Betsy, but perhaps you know best."

"I do, this time. Have a car out at once and drive there. Somebody's got to look after him. And, if you get on the track of the father, tell him about Amaryllis----"

"Amaryllis!" echoed George, reflectively weighing the word.

"And bring him along too, if he wants to have just a peep at her."

George nodded and rang the bell.

CHAPTER XXV.

WAITERS.

d.i.c.k Bellamy's two letters, the one posted in York, the other in the country letter-box by the landlord of "The Coach and Horses," had been read at New Scotland Yard at about eight o'clock in the evening.

The first note had contained merely the information that Alban Melchard was the man of whom d.i.c.k was going in pursuit, and Melchard's address, found that evening in the letter received by Amaryllis; the second, the few particulars concerning Melchard which he had gathered from the landlord.

Superintendent Finucane, of the Criminal Investigation Department, had immediately put himself in telephonic communication with the chief constables of Millsborough and the County.

To the Government, this fresh proof of the Opiate Ring's influence and power, and of its ramification even wider than had hitherto been ascertained, was matter of the first importance.

Sir Charles Colombe had lost sight of the abducted girl in the theft of the drug and its formula; while the Secretary of State, Sir Charles's political chief, had suspicion so strong of liaison between certain European leaders of Bolshevism and the Opiate Ring, that the Drug, the Lost Lady, and even the Deleterious Drugs' Control Bill itself, had become secondary factors in the greatest struggle of the day.

To net a Millsborough gallimaufry of decadents, criminals, and potential rebels had become in a few hours his absorbing desire. And in this short time he had almost frayed the smooth edges of the Permanent Under Secretary's official decorum.

Randal Bellamy, with his affection for the girl, and his absorbing love of his younger brother, had as much interest in the affair as any other concerned. But he alone of them all had been really welcome at New Scotland Yard; for, whatever he may have felt, he had shown there on his first visit that Sat.u.r.day--at about three o'clock in the afternoon--a face as smiling and unwrinkled as his excellent white waistcoat. And there was a refres.h.i.+ng serenity in the offer that he made to the commissioner himself, of laying him ten pounds to one on his brother Richard's success in any _s.h.i.+kar_ that he undertook.

This wager, made in the superintendent's room, had so much pleased that official, to-day more oppressed by his superiors than by his work, that he had actually invited Sir Randal to give him a call after dinner. The others were merely expected.

"After dinner" is an elastic appointment, and Randal stretched it as late as Caldegard's impatience would endure.

At a quarter past eleven the father could bear suspense no longer, and forced his friend to go with him to the Castle where, between the Embankment and Parliament Street, Argus and Briareus dwell together in awful co-operation.

As they walked down Whitehall, the father remembered that this was a lover at his side.

"I don't see how you manage to bear it with all that _sang froid_, Bellamy," he said. "Another day of it'll drive me mad."

"I'm banking on d.i.c.k," said Randal.

"He's all you say, no doubt. But if you feel all you've told me for my girl, it's almost as terrible for you as for me. And your brother can't do the impossible, tracking without trace. _Vestigia nulla!_" And the father groaned, looking twenty years older than he had seemed twenty-four hours ago. "I watch every young woman in the street, half hoping she'll turn her face and show me Amaryllis. And all the time I know it's impossible."

Then, again, "G.o.d, man!" he broke out, "these things don't happen in civilised communities. I suffer like the d.a.m.ned, without the satisfaction of believing in my h.e.l.l."

A few minutes later, as they turned out of Parliament Street, "You do take it easy for a lover, Randal," he repeated. "I don't understand you."

At the moment Randal made no reply, but, as they waited for the lift, "Perhaps I ought to tell you," he said, "that I'm no longer in the running. I'm afraid it pained her kind heart, saying no to me."

"When was that?" asked the father, speaking more like his ordinary self.

"The last time we spoke of it was about an hour before we missed her.

After that I think she went into my study to be alone, and possibly, as a woman will, shed a few tears over the matter; and then, perhaps, fell asleep, and was caught unawares--but it's no use guessing."