Ambrotox and Limping Dick

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"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.

Dick 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 Dick 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 Saturday--at about three o'clock in the afternoon--a
face as smiling and unwrinkled as his excellent white waistcoat. And
there was a refreshing 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 _shikar_ 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 Dick," 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, "God, man!" he broke out, "these things don't happen in
civilised communities. I suffer like the damned, without the
satisfaction of believing in my hell."

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."

The lift came down, and the escorting constable sidled up and entered it
after them.

As they left it, the discreet guide keeping well ahead in the gloomy
corridor, Caldegard whispered:

"Then it's even worse for you than I thought, Randal. You're a good man,
and I'm an ill-tempered old one."

"We shall have news, and her, soon--and something else," said Randal.

"What?" asked Caldegard.

"I thought you'd forgotten it! Ambrotox, of course. I'll tell her,
Caldegard. I once heard a man tell his wife, after she'd been chattering
to him for twenty minutes, that he'd forgotten to light his pipe all the
time she'd been talking. She said it was the best compliment she'd ever
had. I shall tell Amaryllis how you forgot Ambrotox."

Superintendent Finucane felt his spirits rise at the sight of the urbane
barrister, and received even the dishevelled person of the lost lady's
father with a measure of cordiality. He showed his visitors Dick's two
scrawled messages, and explained how he had acted upon their
information.

Caldegard complained: Dick should have telegraphed, should have gone
himself to the police in the neighbourhood.

"From what I have heard of him, Mr. Richard Bellamy is the kind that
seizes on a big chance, and doesn't lose it by running after smaller
ones," said Finucane. "If he has played against time and wins, they call
him a genius."

"_Will_ he succeed?" asked Caldegard.

"I am inclined to think he will bring your daughter back," replied
Finucane. "But I don't advise you to be too hopeful about the drug."

"Oh, damn the drug!" interjected Caldegard.

"He has appreciated his job," explained the superintendent. "He's not
after side issues. He isn't even out to catch a man who's committed a
crime--only to prevent a crime being committed."

"Has he prevented it--tell me that?" cried Caldegard.

And, as if in answer, the bell of Finucane's telephone jarred the nerves
of all three men.

While he listened to the one-sided interview between the superintendent
and the instrument on his table, Caldegard's control was in danger of
breaking down altogether.

"Hold the line," said Finucane at last. "Dr. Caldegard, can you describe
the dress Miss Caldegard was wearing when she disappeared?"

"I dined in town," began the father, his face like white paper.

"My brother and I," said Randal, "dined with Miss Caldegard. She wore a
dinner-gown--silk--darkish green, which showed, when she moved, the
crimson threads it was interwoven with."

"And her shoes?" asked Finucane.

Bellamy shook his head; it was Caldegard, now steady as a rock, who
answered:

"With that frock, my daughter always wore green-bronze shoes and green
stockings."

Finucane turned again to the telephone. After saying that Miss Caldegard
had worn green silk shot with red, and green evening slippers, he
listened for a time which kept his guests in torture of suspense. Then,
"I'm here all night. But scrape the county with a tooth-comb," he said,
and hung up the receiver. Swinging his chair round, he faced the two
men, and spoke with gravity.

"Millsborough got my information about eight-thirty p.m. By nine every
available man was out on the hunt, to round up all Melchard's places,
and to go through all the riverside dens and harbour slums. The county
police, horse and foot, under the chief constable, were all over the
place. Martingale--that's the man I've just been talking to--rushed a
strong party of the Millsborough force out to 'The Myrtles' in cars.
House deserted, except a fellow lying in bed, groaning. In the back
kitchen a woman's frock had been burned. Unconsumed fragments were
found--green silk shot with red. Upstairs, in a bedroom, pair of lady's
shoes--shiny green leather."

Caldegard rose from his seat, opened his mouth to speak, and sat down
again.

In relation to merely normal death the abandoned garment carries an
intimate cruelty which will unexpectedly break down control proof
against direct attack.

But to hear, in these surroundings, of his daughter's little green
shoes, and to remember how, the first time she had worn them, she had
flourished at him from her low chair that pretty foot and reckless green
stocking, and to catch himself now foolishly wondering where the green
stockings themselves would be found, brought poor Caldegard to an
embittered weakness which he fought only in vague desire neither to
break into cursing nor decline upon weak tears.

The great man of science had not attracted the superintendent of the
Criminal Investigation Department; but the father grunting savagely:
"Oh, damn the drug!" was another man. And Finucane, by no means himself
convinced that the worst must be argued from these fragments of
evidence, yet found himself at a loss for encouraging words. Pity,
however, forced him to the effort, and he would have spoken, had not
Randal Bellamy touched him on the arm.

"Not now," he said. "You can't wash that picture from his mind. There'll
be more news coming."

With a tap on the door, it came.

To the superintendent's consent there entered a police sergeant.

"There's a gentleman wishes to see you, sir. Says he can't keep awake
another ten minutes. Has important evidence, and a person he wishes to
introduce to you. Name o' Bellamy."

"Oh, hell!" said Randal, in a voice like his brother's, "fetch him up."

The sergeant took no notice, but kept his gaze on the superintendent.
Finucane's eyes twinkled. "Fetch him up," he said.

"To save time, sir, he's standing outside."

"Fetch him in," said Finucane.

The sergeant moved himself three inches.

"Superintendent Finucane will see you, sir," he said; and made room for
the entrance of Dick Bellamy, holding by the arm, and both supporting
and guiding the wavering steps of Alban Melchard.

CHAPTER XXVI.

PRISONER AND ESCORT.

Dick presented to the expectant three the same disreputable and
truculent aspect which had so deeply offended Charles of Mayfair--an
aspect so extraordinary as to strike speechless for a moment even the
three 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, a
bundle 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 little
more alert, he looked round him, and for the first time saw Caldegard
glowering at him across the table with fierce curiosity.

"I didn't see you, sir," he said, his heart warming to the old man's
piteous face, "or I'd have told you before I spoke to anyone else that
Miss Caldegard is perfectly well, though she's a bit done up."

"Where is she?" asked the father, new lines of joy making havoc of a
mask scored by inelastic sorrow.

"In bed, I think. Asleep, I hope. If you'll let me get a few bits of
information off my chest for the police, I'll tell you all about it--how
I found her, how brave and clever she's been--lots of things."

Then the bright spark came into the tired eyes again, as they searched
the 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 one
can't do anything."

Caldegard stretched his hand across the table. Dick turned from his
grasp 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 off
him. Amongst them you'll find useful information. Read 'em now,
superintendent. You'll find there's a flat in Bayswater, where two or
three of his crowd in the illicit drug traffic are expecting him
to-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 your
story. 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 the
train from our little day out, poor Miss Caldegard was so tired that she
said I must find her a fairy godmother directly we reached town. So I
took her straight to the only lady of that rank whom I know. I dare say
you know her too--it's Lady Elizabeth Bruffin. George Bruffin's an old
friend of mine--Mexico--and his wife's a connoisseur in pumpkins and
rat-traps."

Since all London that season was talking of the two Bruffins, and every
newspaper, in direct ratio to the badness of its paper and print, was
scavenging for paragraphs, true or false, concerning the "palatial home"
in Park Lane, neither Caldegard nor Randal Bellamy could conceal
round-eyed astonishment.

"But Amaryllis? Did she look--well, anything like----"

"Like me?" asked Dick, grinning all over the better side of his twisted
face. "Well, sir, she hasn't been knocked about, you know. But her rig
did her certainly less justice than mine does me. Nothing on earth could
make 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," he
said. "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. Properly
handled, 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 to
him. I tasted the stuff. Tomorrow I'll swear a dozen charges against
him--burglary, abduction, instigation to murder, attempts to kill; and
when 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 'em
to keep tight hold of the man who fell out of the train between
Harthborough and Todsmoor at five-forty p.m. and of the bloke that was
with 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 was
just in time to prevent them from letting the other go. They're to hold
him 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 rapid
and, as their faces and exclamatory comment testified, a vivid sketch of
his adventure from his detection of the perfume which pervaded the
alcove in Randal's study and the corroboration of his suspicions given
by Melchard's attempted alibi in the letter to Amaryllis, to the time
when his train pulled out of Todsmoor station; and, in the course of his
narrative, he laid on the table, each at its historic point, his _pieces
de conviction_.

Having told how Amaryllis had fainted at the sight of Ockley with the
knife-point protruding from the back of his neck, he extracted the
Webley 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, beside
the Webley.

"That was strapped to his hand. I gave him the first of my two shots
before he jumped, the second I put through his head as he lay scrabbling
in the car."

At this point there entered the room a stout, bearded man with careworn
face and irritable expression. Finucane rose respectfully, but the
new-comer made a motion waiving ceremony, sat in the nearest chair, and
became one of the audience.

Dick, never observing the addition, continued his tale in a voice
monotonous with fatigue.

In their turn he added to the display the Malay's revolver, with which
he 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 shrinking
pocket. "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 about
that car. Old Mut-mut cut the cushions to ribbons; that bit of evidence
might save my neck."

Finucane smiled pleasantly.

"You seem to have left a trail of coroner's inquests behind you," he
said.

"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 of
Mr. Richard Bellamy's intuition and action," said Finucane, speaking
with unruffled respect, which yet did not hide, nor was intended to
hide, a note of reproof. "Without him the Department would have been too
late for the show. As it is, we are acting effectively--on information
supplied 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 in
it."

"Pardon me if I differ from you, Mr. Bellamy," said Sir Gregory. "There
is this more in it: if the police had been given your opportunities they
would not have limited their action to the rescue of this unfortunate
young lady, but would have devoted themselves also to the recovery of
what is, for the country--I might almost say for the world--of vastly
greater importance. You are possibly aware that a sample of a new drug
of great potentiality for good and ill was the object of the outrage
which 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 come
barging into this. What more d'you want? Your Napoleon of crime is in
the oubliette, two of his dastard accomplices are in clink at Todsmoor,
three more are being tracked to their doom in Bayswater, two are
dead----"

Here Dick produced from inner pockets a small white packet and an
envelope.

"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 the
world's. I just happened to pick up two little things belonging to a
friend of mine." And, turning, he put the Ambrotox and the formula into
Caldegard's hand, smiling his crooked smile.

"That's the lot," he murmured, and laid his head on his arms, folded
upon the table.

An uncomfortable pause was broken by the entrance of a constable with a
card.

"Gentleman wishes to know if Mr. Richard Bellamy is here," he said to
the 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, if
you 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 his
millions!

George came in, ponderous and unsmiling; picked out the superintendent
at once, and thanked him gruffly for admission to the "sanctum"; a word
which George chose to please him--and succeeded.

Sir Gregory pressing himself forward, Finucane was obliged to mumble an
introduction.

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 at
the sleeper, he continued: "My car's outside. My wife's waiting till I
bring him. You'd better come with us, Sir Randal, and help us tuck him
up 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 if
shot from his chair by a spring, and spoke with a vigour that reminded
Randal of their youth.

"Five hundred miles--driving your own car in the dark! Climb the side of
a house. Break in--save one woman from being knifed by another. Fight
five armed men with your fists and boots. Knock out four of them. Run a
mile, dragging a girl--from a man chasing you, and shooting at you with
a revolver. Kill a murderer with a murderess's dagger. Nurse a girl with
an attack of hysteria. Drive a coach, humbug a woman, a parson, a
railway porter, a guard and a station-master. Kill a man armed with that
steel-clawed thing there, steal a car, knock a man off a train, and
bring home the exhausted woman alive and your chief enemy drunk and a
prisoner--do all that without sleep for thirty-six hours, Sir Gregory;
then, if you can drop off to sleep like that, instead of having your
head packed in ice and babbling pink spiders and blue monkeys, you may
call your constitution cast-iron. All exhaustion is nervous, Sir
Gregory, and the man who can stand the biggest dose of it is the
strongest man."

"Oh, from that point of view--yes--of course," bleated the bearded
politician.

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 the
immense pleasure of looking after Miss Caldegard. My wife won't be happy
unless you come round with me and feast your eyes on what she says is
the 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 man
perfectly happy.

The potentate saw that flash of glory, and put himself "on-side."

He went round to Caldegard, and saying, "Let me congratulate you," took
the 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 to
the car without waking him."

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN INTERIM REPORT.

Though maid to a lady accounted very fine, Suzanne, in presence of
beauty unadorned, was a simple and kind-hearted enthusiast in her art.
Before lunch-time next day she had done so well for Amaryllis out of
Lady Elizabeth Bruffin's wardrobe, that she declared, with conviction to
fill up the gap in evidence, "_que mademoiselle n'a jamais pu paraitre
plus seduisante, plus pimpante qu'aujourd'hui_."

"How can she know that?" asked Amaryllis laughing.

"Because nothing possible could be, you pretty creature," said Lady
Elizabeth, glowing with pleasure in the success of her nursing and in
the quality of Dick Bellamy's conquest.

She had, indeed, good reason: eleven hours' sleep, with redundant
happiness and bodily health as elastic as a child's, had made Amaryllis
scarcely more delightful to her new friends' eyes than to her own. For
on this Sunday morning she looked into her glass for the first time
through a man's eyes.

In spite of her beauty, however, and of her joy in the man who was to
see and praise it, there was yet in her heart a pricking as of
conscience.

In the night there had come to her, for the first time since Dick had
saved her from the Dutchwoman and her knife, the memory of Randal
Bellamy; of his kindness, of his favour with her father and of his love
for herself.

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