N Or M? Part 20

He tried gingerly to move his limbs or body, but he could not succeed.

At that moment, there was a faint creaking sound and a door somewhere behind him was pushed open. A man with a candle came in. He set down the candle on the floor. Tommy recognized Appledore. The latter disappeared again and then returned carrying a tray on which were a jug of water, a gla.s.s and some bread and cheese.

Stooping down he first tested the cords binding the other's limbs. He then touched the gag.

He said in a quiet level voice: "I am about to take this off. You will then be able to eat and drink. If, however, you make the slightest sound, I shall replace it immediately."

Tommy tried to nod his head, which proved impossible, so he opened and shut his eyes several times instead.

Appledore, taking this for consent, carefully unknotted the bandage.

His mouth freed, Tommy spent some few minutes easing his jaw. Appledore held the gla.s.s of water to his lips. He swallowed at first with difficulty, then more easily. The water did him a world of good.

He murmured stiffly: "That's better. I'm not quite so young as I was. Now for the eats, Fritz - or is it Franz?"

The man said quietly"

"My name here is Appledore."

He held the slice of bread and cheese up and Tommy bit at it hungrily.

The meal washed down with some more water, he then asked: "And what's the next part of the programme?"

For answer, Appledore picked up the gag again.

Tommy said quickly: "I want to see Commander Haydock."

Appledore shook his head. Deftly he replaced the gag and went out.

Tommy was left to meditate in darkness. He was awakened from a confused sleep by the sound of the door reopening. This time Haydock and Appledore came in together. The gag was removed and the cords that held his arms were loosened so that he could sit up and stretch his arms.

Haydock had an automatic pistol with him.

Tommy, without much inward confidence, began to play his part.

He said indignantly: "Look here, Haydock, what's the meaning of all this? I've been set upon - kidnapped -"

The Commander was gently shaking his head.

He said: "Don't waste your breath. It's not worth it."

"Just because you're a member of our Secret Service, you think you can -"

Again the other shook his head.

"No, no, Meadowes. You weren't taken in by that story. No need to keep up the pretense."

But Tommy showed no signs of discomfiture. He argued to himself that the other could not really be sure. If he continued to play his part - "Who the devil do you think you are?" he demanded. "However great your powers you've no right to behave like this. I'm perfectly capable of holding my tongue about any of our vital secrets!"

The other said coldly: "You do your stuff very well, but I may tell you that it's immaterial to me whether you're a member of the British Intelligence, or merely a muddling amateur -"

"Of all the d.a.m.ned cheek -"

"Cut it out, Meadowes."

"I tell you -"

Haydock thrust a ferocious face forwards.

"Be quiet, d.a.m.n you. Earlier on it would have mattered to find out who you were and who sent you. Now it doesn't matter. The time's short, you see. And you didn't have the chance to report to anyone what you 'd found out."

"The police will be looking for me as soon as I'm reported missing."

Haydock showed his teeth in a sudden gleam.

"I've had the police here this evening. Good fellows - both friends of mine. They asked me all about Mr Meadowes. Very concerned about his disappearance. How he seemed that evening - what he said. They never dreamed, how should they, that the man they were talking about was practically underneath their feet where they were sitting. It's quite clear, you see, that you left this house well and alive. They'd never dream of looking for you here."

"You can't keep me here forever," Tommy said vehemently.

Haydock said with a resumption of his most British manner: "It won't be necessary, my dear fellow. Only until tomorrow night. There's a boat due in at my little cove - and we're thinking of sending you on a voyage for your health - though actually I don't think you'll be alive, or even on board, when they arrive at their destination."

"I wonder you didn't knock me on the head straightaway."

"It's such hot weather, my dear fellow. Just occasionally our sea communications are interrupted, and if that were to be so - well, a dead body on the premises has a way of announcing its presence."

"I see," said Tommy.

He did see. The issue was perfectly clear. He was to be kept alive until the boat arrived. Then he would be killed - or drugged - and taken out to sea. Nothing would ever connect his body, when found, with Smugglers' Rest.

"I just came along," continued Haydock, speaking in the most natural manner, "to ask whether there is anything we could - er - do for you - afterwards?"

Tommy reflected. Then he said: "Thanks - but I won't ask you to take a lock of my hair to the little woman in St. John's Wood, or anything of that kind. She'll miss me when pay day comes along - but I daresay she'll soon find a friend elsewhere."

At all costs, he felt, he must create the impression that he was playing a lone hand. So long as no suspicion attached itself to Tuppence then the game might still be won through, though he was not there to play it.

"As you please," said Haydock. "If you did care to send a message to - your friend - we would see that it was delivered."

So he was, after all, anxious to get a little information about this unknown Mr Meadowes? Very well, then. Tommy would keep him guessing.

He shook his head. "Nothing doing," he said.

"Very well." With an appearance of the utmost indifference Haydock nodded to Appledore. The latter replaced the bonds and the gag. The two men went out, locking the door behind them.

Left to his reflections, Tommy felt anything but cheerful. Not only was he faced with the prospect of rapidly approaching death but he had no means of leaving any clue behind him as to the information he had discovered.

His body was completely helpless. His brain felt singularly inactive. Could he, he wondered, have utilized Haydock's suggestion of a message? Perhaps if his brain had been working better... But he could think of nothing helpful.

There was, of course, still Tuppence. But what could Tuppence do? As Haydock had just pointed out, Tommy's disappearance would not be connected with him. Tommy had left Smugglers' Rest alive and well. The evidence of two independent witnesses would confirm that. Whoever Tuppence might suspect, it would not be Haydock. And she might not suspect at all. She might think that he was merely following up a trail.

d.a.m.n it all, if only he had been more on his guard - There was a little light in the cellar. It came through the grating which was high up in one corner. If only he could get his mouth free, could shout for help. Somebody might hear, though it was very unlikely.

For the next half hour he busied himself straining at the cords that bound him and trying to bite through the gag. It was all in vain, however. The people who had adjusted those things knew their business.

It was, he judged, late afternoon. Haydock, he fancied, had gone out, he had heard no sounds from overhead.

Confound it all, he was probably playing golf, speculating at the clubhouse over what could have happened to Meadowes!

"Dined with me night before last - seemed quite normal then. Just vanished into the blue."

Tommy writhed with fury. That hearty English manner! Was everyone blind not to see that bullet-headed Prussian skull? He himself hadn't seen it. Wonderful what a first cla.s.s actor could get away with.

So here he was - a failure - an ignominious failure - trussed up like a chicken, with no one to guess where he was.

If only Tuppence could have second sight! She might suspect. She had, sometimes, an uncanny insight...

What was that?

He strained his ears listening to a far-off sound.

Only some man humming a tune.

And here he was, unable to make a sound to attract anyone's attention.

The humming came nearer. A most untuneful noise.

But the tune, though mangled, was recognizable. It dated from the last war - had been revived for this one.

"If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy."

How often he had hummed that in 1917.

Dash this fellow. Why couldn't he sing in tune?

Suddenly Tommy's body grew taut and rigid. Those particular lapses were strangely familiar. Surely there was only one person who always went wrong in that one particular place and in that one particular way!

"Albert, by Gos.h.!.+" thought Tommy.

Albert prowling round Smugglers' Rest. Albert quite close at hand, and here was he, trussed up, unable to move hand or foot, unable to make a sound...

Wait a minute. Was he?

There was just one sound - not so easy with the mouth shut as with the mouth open, but it could be done.

Desperately Tommy began to snore. He kept his eyes closed, ready to feign a deep sleep if Appledore should come down, and he snored, he snored...

Short snore, short snore, short snore - pause - long snore, long snore, long snore - pause - short snore, short snore, short snore...

II.

Albert, when Tuppence had left him, was deeply perturbed.

With the advance of years he had become a person of slow mental processes, but those processes were tenacious.

The state of affairs in general seemed to him quite wrong.

The war was all wrong to begin with.

"Those Germans," thought Albert gloomily and almost without rancour. Heiling Hitler and goose-stepping and over-running the world and bombing and machine-gunning and generally making pestilential nuisances of themselves. They'd got to be stopped, no two ways about it - and so far it seemed as though n.o.body had been able to stop them.

And now here was Mrs Beresford, a nice lady if there ever was one, getting herself mixed up in trouble and looking out for more trouble, and how was he going to stop her? Didn't look as though he could. Up against this Fifth Column and a nasty lot they must be. Some of 'em English born, too! A disgrace, that was!

And the master who was always the one to hold the missus back from her impetuous ways - the master was missing.

Albert didn't like that at all. It looked to him as though "those Germans" might be at the bottom of that.

Yes, it looked bad, it did. Looked as though he might have copped one.

Albert was not given to the exercise of deep reasoning. Like most Englishmen, he felt something strongly and proceeded to muddle around until he had, somehow or other, cleared up the mess. Deciding that the master had got to be found, Albert, rather after the manner of a faithful dog, set out to find him.

He acted upon no settled plan, but proceeded in exactly the same way as he was wont to embark upon the search for his wife's missing handbag or his own spectacles when either of those essential articles were mislaid. That is to say, he went to the place where he had last seen the missing objects and started from there.

In this case, the last thing known about Tommy was that he had dined with Commander Haydock at Smuggler's Rest, and had then returned to Sans Souci and been last seen turning in at the gate.

Albert accordingly climbed the hill as far as the gate of Sans Souci, and spent some five minutes staring hopefully at the gate. Nothing of a scintillating character having occurred to him, he sighed and wandered slowly up the hill to Smuggler's Rest.

Albert, too, had visited the Ornate Cinema that week, and had been powerfully impressed by the theme of "Wandering Minstrel". Romantic, it was! He could not but be struck by the similarity of his own predicament. He, like that hero of the screen, Larry Cooper, was a faithful Blondel seeking his imprisoned master. Like Blondel, he had fought at that master's side in bygone days. Now his master was betrayed by treachery, and there was none but his faithful Blondel to seek for him and restore him to the loving arms of Queen Berengaria.

Albert heaved a sigh as he remembered the melting strains of "Richard, O mon roi," which the faithful troubadour had crooned so feelingly beneath tower after tower.

Pity he himself wasn't better at picking up a tune.

Took him a long time to get hold of a tune, it did.

His lips shaped themselves into a tentative whistle.

Begun playing the old tunes again lately, they had.

"If you were the only girl in the world and I was the only boy -"

Albert paused to survey the neat white painted gate of Smuggler's Rest. That was it, that was where the master had gone to dinner.

He went up the hill a little further and came out on the downs.

Nothing here. Nothing but gra.s.s and a few sheep.

The gate of Smugglers' Rest swung open and a car pa.s.sed out. A big man in plus fours with golf clubs drove out and down the hill.

"That would be Commander Haydock, that would," Albert deduced.