The Destroying Angel Part 29

Whitaker shook his head. It was difficult to think how to deal with this trapped animal, so wildly different from the cultivated gentleman he always had in mind when he thought of Drummond. The futility of attempting to deal with him according to any code recognized by men of honour was wretchedly apparent.

"Drummond," he said slowly, "I wish to G.o.d you hadn't done this thing."

Drummond laughed discordantly. "Keep your mealy-mouthed compa.s.sion for yourself," he retorted, sneering. "I'm no worse than you, only I got caught." He added in a low tone, quivering with uncontrollable hatred: "d.a.m.n you!"

Whitaker gave a gesture of despair. "If you'd only been content to keep out of the way...! If only you'd let me alone--"

"Then _you_ let Sara Law alone, d'you hear?"

Surprised, Whitaker paused before replying. "Please understand," he said quietly, "that Mrs. Whitaker is seeking a divorce from me. After that, if she has any use for you, I have no objection to her marrying you. And as for the money you stole, I have said nothing about that--intend to say nothing. If you'd had the sense to explain things to me--if I could count on you to leave me alone and not try again to murder me--"

"Oh, go to h.e.l.l!"

The interruption was little short of a shriek. Ember motioned to Sum Fat, who quietly drew nearer.

"I swear I don't know what to do or say--"

"Then shut up--"

"That'll be about all," Ember interposed quietly. At a glance from him, Sum Fat closed in swiftly and caught and pinioned Drummond's arms from behind.

A disgusting change took place in Drummond. In an instant he was struggling, screaming, slavering: his face congested, eyes starting, features working wildly as he turned and twisted in his efforts to free himself.

Sum Fat held him as he would have held an unruly child. Whitaker looked away, feeling faint and sick. Ember looked on with shrewd and penetrating interest, biding the time when a break in Drummond's ravings would let him be heard. When it came at length, together with a gradual weakening of the man's struggles, the detective turned to Whitaker.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't dare take any further chances. He'd've been at your throat in another minute. I could see him working himself up to a frenzy. If Sum Fat hadn't grabbed him in time, there's no telling what might not have happened."

Whitaker nodded.

"It isn't as if we had simply an everyday crook to deal with," Ember went on, approaching the man. "He's not to be trusted or reasoned with.

He's just short of a raving morphomaniac, or I miss my guess."

With a quick movement he caught Drummond's left arm, pulled the sleeve of his coat back to the elbow, unb.u.t.toned and turned back his cuff.

"_Hmm_--yes," he continued bending over to inspect the exposed forearm, in spite of Drummond's efforts to twist away. "Deadly work of the busy little needle. Good Lord, he's fairly riddled with punctures!"

"That explains...." Whitaker muttered, sickened.

"It explains a lot." Ember readjusted the sleeve and turned away. "And it shows us our path of duty, clear," he continued, despite interruptions from the maddened drug fiend. "I think a nice little sojourn in a sanatorium--what?"

"Right," Whitaker agreed, relieved.

"We'll see what a cure does for him before we indulge in criminal proceedings--shall we?"

"By all means."

"Good." Ember glanced at his watch. "I'll have to hurry along now--must be in town not later than nine o'clock this morning. I'll take him with me. No, don't worry--I can handle him easily. It's a bit of a walk to the village, but that will only help to quiet him down. I'll be back to-morrow; meanwhile you'll be able to sleep soundly unless--"

He checked, frowning thoughtfully.

"Unless what?"

Ember jerked his head to indicate the prisoner. "Of course, this isn't by any chance the fellow you mixed it up with over on the beach--and so forth?"

"Nothing like him."

"Queer. I can't find any trace of him--the other one--nor can I account for him. He doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. However"--his expression lightened--"I daresay you were right; he's probably only some idle, light-fingered prowler. I'd keep my eyes open for him, but I don't really believe you need worry much."

Within ten minutes he was off on his lonely tramp through two miles of woodland and as many more of little travelled country road, at dead of night, with a madman in handcuffs for sole company.

XIII

OFFSh.o.r.e

"You ask me, I think very excellent d.a.m.n quick cure."

Sum Fat having for the third time since morning anointed with liniment and ma.s.saged Whitaker's ankle, tenderly adjusted and laced the makeshift canvas brace, drew a sock over it, and then with infinite care inserted the foot in a high-cut canvas tennis shoe.

He stood up, beaming.

Whitaker extended his leg and cast a critical eye over the heavily bandaged ankle.

"Anyway," he observed, "the effect is arresting. I look like a half Clydesdale."

Sum Fat's eyes clouded, then again gleamed with benevolent interest.

"You take it easy one day or two--no walk much--just loaf--no go see pretty ladies--"

"Go 'way, you heathen--go clean your teeth!" cried Whitaker, indignantly.

"--and I think be all well and sound," concluded Sum Fat.

He waddled away, chuckling.

Waiting till he was well out of sight, Whitaker got up, and with the aid of a cane made a number of tentative experiments in the gentle art of short-distance pedestrianism. The results were highly satisfactory: he felt little or no pain, thanks to Sum Fat's ice-packs and a.s.siduous attentions in general; and was hampered in free movement solely by the stiff brace and high-laced shoe.

On the other hand, he felt that the advice to which he had just listened was sound; it would be unwise to attempt a neighbourly call within at least another twenty-four hours.

He resumed his chair on the veranda, and sighed. It was late afternoon, and he was lonely. After the interest and excitement of the preceding day and night, to-day seemed very dull and uneventful; it had been, in truth, nothing less than stupid--a mere routine of meals and pipes interrupted by no communication from the outer world more blood-stirring than the daily calls of the village grocer and butcher. Ember had not telephoned, as Whitaker had hoped he would; and the chatelaine of the neighbouring cottage had not manifested any interest whatever in the well-being of the damaged amateur squire of dames.

Whitaker felt himself neglected and abused. He inclined to sulks. The loveliness of a day of unbroken calm offered him no consolation.

Solitude in a lonely lodge is all very well, if one cares for that sort of thing; but it takes two properly to appreciate the beauties of the wilderness.

The trouble with him was (he began to realize) that he had lived too long a hermit. For six years he had been practically isolated and cut off from the better half of existence; femininity had formed no factor in his cosmos. Even since his return to America his a.s.sociations had been almost exclusively confined to the wives and daughters of old friends, the former favouring him only with a calm maternal patronage, the daughters obviously regarding him as a sort of human curio old enough to be ent.i.tled to a certain amount of respectful consideration, but not to be taken seriously--"like a mummy," Whitaker told himself, not without sympathy for the view-point of the younger generation.

But now, of a sudden, he had been granted a flash of insight into the true significance of companionship between a man and a woman who had something in common aside from community in their generation. Not two hours altogether of such intercourse had been his, but it had been enough to infuse all his consciousness with a vague but irking discontent. He wanted more, and wanted it ardently; and what Whitaker desired he generally set himself to gain with a single-hearted earnestness of purpose calculated to compa.s.s the end in view with the least possible waste of time.