Ambrotox and Limping Dick

O >> Oliver Fleming >> Ambrotox and Limping Dick

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Oh, yes! Last night they had brought in a woman--a lady abducted. He
would have put his knife in her, had THEY so bidden him--until
he knew that she was El Cojeante's woman. Now, he would knife
THEM, any or all, before El Cojeante's woman should lose a hair.

As he knew the sun at his rising, so surely had he known El Cojeante
when he had struck his first blow at the doctor that was a black bull.
He had run from the house lest El Cojeante should slay Pepe before
knowing him.

Hidden as the Lizard they called him hides in winter, he had seen the
black doctor in pursuit of El Cojeante escaping with his woman that was
clad in Dutch Fridji's skirt and the loose coat of a man. And, since he
knew that God and the Saints will take the side of the man whom none can
outwit, Pepe crept back to the house.

Here Dick interrupted:

"You left your companero de grillos for fear of the Black Bull!" he
exclaimed.

Pepe smiled, shaking his head.

"It was for fear of that which came to el toro erizado," he answered.
"Very wise was I, and prudent, for but three minutes since did I see
him, and in his throat la navaja de la ramera Holandesa." He made a
movement with his hand, and added: "I remembered the days when I and
Dicco threw the knife."

He had gone back, he shamelessly continued, to learn how the land lay;
for, should they be all dead, as he almost expected, for Pepe there
would be pickings.

To find Dicco el Cojeante again, time was plenty, for la senorita con el
pelo rojo must set the pace.

In the hall, Melchardo was not yet come back to his sense; that other
that had fallen with him--Heberto, the London man--was pouring water on
Melchardo's head, while upstairs screamed la Holandesa.

And then came imperious clamour of the telephone. Pepe felt it was
angry.

Boldly he pushed past the London man and went to the room of the
instrument.

Through the machine spoke one Bayliss, teniente de Melchardo--chief of
THOSE in Millsborough, having charge of the tooth-drawing--el
negocio dental, that was a cloak to cover great traffic in cocaine,
opium and hashish. And Pepe knew this Bayliss for a man, if less subtle,
even more prompt and terrible in action than Melchardo himself. But when
Pepe answered with a password of Melchard's, Bayliss replied with
questions in a stream--what of the venture of yesterday? Had they found
the new drug? Were they safe from pursuit?

And it was well for Pepe that this questioning was broken by the hand
that tore the instrument from his fingers and pushed him aside. It was
Melchardo, the man of sweet odours, weak upon his feet, but strong in
his mind.

When Pepe would have sidled away, Melchardo bade him keep close. Driven
desperate by his enemies, he must trust what friend was at hand. "Stand
by lest I need thee," he had said. "For very soon there will be hell to
pay, if I act not now and with vigour."

So Pepe el Lagarto sunned himself in the window, and listened. And he
heard Melchardo put the whole cuadrilla de morfinistas under orders to
draw a net around the man who had fled with the precious powder of the
new drug and the girl who knew too much.

"For I tell you, Senor Dicco," he said, "that it is the web of a spider.
He is the great Arana that sits in the midst, to run out and to seize
and to devour. It began in the Millsborough and Lowport sleeping-houses
of the slant-eyed men of the sea, and spreads every day wider and wider
its meshes and stays. Some day the web will cover the great towns and
countries of the world, unless----"

"Unless a great Ticodromo come, Pepe. Tell thy tale quickly," said Dick.

Five parties had Melchard sent out from Millsborough; two cars, as if
going to the fair and cricket match at Ecclesthorpe, or the races at
Timsdale-Horton, each with four men; and three motor-cycles with
sidecars, two men apiece. And their five bases, as Pepe showed upon the
table with bread-crumbs, were set at Gallowstree Dip, in the hollow
half-way between "The Goat in Boots" and Ecclesthorpe; again, hard by
the railway-junction of Harthborough; thirdly, at the joining of the
Ecclesthorpe parish-road with the highway to London; fourthly, between
this and Millsborough, at "The Coach and Horses" Inn; and fifth, by
Margetstowe village, where the woodland track from Monkswood Cottage
runs into the seaward road over against "The Goat in Boots."

"And so, you are caught," said Pepe, "in a cage, with horse road and
rail road beyond the bars."

"And you heard all this, in the talk which Melchard made with his
teniente through the telephone?" asked Dick.

"All this," replied Pepe, "is what I tell you, from what I hear, from
what I know, and from what I have seen."

"Pepe, I have an automobile of great speed. It is over there at 'The
Coach and Horses.' You must take us across the moor, I will creep in and
get the car, while you keep the lady hidden. I will drive out, and----"

"It is too late, Dicco. For while Melchardo talked and made commands,
there was a sound from above of the breaking of wood and blows of a
hammer, and the screaming of the woman was hushed. And before he had
come to an end with the ordering, that Dutch Fury, set free by Heberto,
springs into the room of the telephone, with blood in her eyes, and
half-naked. When she knew what he was about, she asked him in her sharp
voice:

"'Have you told him first to find the man's car?'

"'What car? What man?' says Melchardo.

"'The devil that laid me out, and you fools too,' quoth Fridji. 'The man
that knew who stole the girl; the man that knew where you'd taken her;
the man who had her out of this house three hours after we fetched her
in. He came--he _must_ have come in a car, and by the London Road. And
he must have left the car near by,' she cried, cursing Melchardo. 'Give
me a little writing on a paper, with a signature which none can
decipher, saying that the gentleman sends for his car which he left in
keeping, when the master of "The Coach and Horses" put him on the way to
"The Myrtles." And give me money, so that I pay him more than was
promised. If that devil get to his car, he will hang us all. But I will
myself drive it half-way hither,' said la Holandesa, 'and send it over
the road's edge by the way.'"

And after these things, said Pepe, she went to clothe herself, Melchardo
sat him down to write, and Heberto, the London man, was set to cleaning
and preparing for the road that automobile in which they had fetched la
senorita roja from the south; and him, Pepe, they despatched scouting
after Ocklee the Bull, to learn what might have been his luck in dealing
with El Cojeante and the girl.

"And behind my teeth," he concluded, "I smiled, knowing well that I went
to learn how thou hadst dealt with Ocklee."

"And how, Lagarto marrullero, shall we now deal with ourselves?" asked
Dick. "Tell me that."

"Melchardo waits awhile for me and my news," murmured the Lizard
thoughtfully, shifting his geographical bread-crumbs. "If I be too long
away, he will move without my words to misguide him."

Then he set forth how, since Bayliss had taken his orders, there had
elapsed full time for each one of the pickets to reach its post, though
perhaps not yet for regular contact to have been established by the
patrols betwixt point and point. But the Senorita must be waked at once
and take the road with Dicco, moving towards the best, or weakest, bars
of the cage; for, though the net was spread, the great spider himself
was not yet amove down its spokes and round the felloe.

"Come soon," said Pepe, "and I will set you in the best way, and then
back to send the Spider on the worst."

And under his soft, dog's eyes Pepe for the first time showed white,
smiling teeth.

"Amigo de grillos," said Dick, in the voice which Pepe knew so well, but
had never before heard unsteady, "she has not slept an hour since I
thought her mind astray."

Then Pepe, fumbling at an inner pocket, spoke swiftly what wisdom was in
him.

"Dicco must get gaiters, rough trousers, and a hat. La senorita must
change the Dutchwoman's skirt for whatever this old dame can furnish.
When I leave you, feed her always, a little at a time. Talk, make love,
make laugh."

"And if the strength fail altogether?" asked Dick, for a moment humble
before this wizened wisdom.

"Better the spur and the whip than the wolves should eat the mare,"
answered Pepe. And he drew a little box from his pocket. "It is the
leaves," he said. "They are not evil like the drugs of shops and cities.
If she flag and is without strength by the way, let her chew a little,
whilst you fill her mind with other thoughts. Then will she endure till
Dicco wins."

Dick turned to Mrs. Brundage, and, to her relief, spoke at last in
English.

"Madam," he said, "the Marquis and his myrmidons must be hoodwinked.
Talking of hoods and winking suggests a sun-bonnet----"

"Silly, old-fashioned things!" said the woman. "But mebbe I have one
that I wore whilst Brundage was courtin'."

"And a plain blouse?" Dick continued. "And perhaps a darker skirt----"

"And hair in a plait down her back," cried the woman, greeting with a
chuckle her first game of make-believe for many a long year; "your
nobleman might pass his daughter twenty times like that, an' never would
'e know 'er."

CHAPTER XVI.

"THE GOAT IN BOOTS."

It was almost noon of Saturday, June the twenty-first, when a party of
three halted in the shade of a few stunted hawthorns by the side of the
sandy, half-made road which leads from Margetstowe village to the
turnpike, which, branching from the main London Road fifteen miles to
the south-west, runs north-eastward through Ecclesthorpe-on-the-Moor to
the sea at the mouth of the great estuary.

From this tree-clump could be seen, facing the junction of the sandy
road with the metalled, the front and the swinging signboard of "The
Goat in Boots." And here, that its two more ordinary-looking members
might shed the oddity which they owed to the company of the third, the
party was to separate.

For in Amaryllis, sleep, Dick's care and Mrs. Brundage's wardrobe had
worked transformation. From the dust and mud on the thick little shoes,
up over five visible inches of coarse grey stocking to clumsy amplitude
of washed-out, pink-striped cotton skirt, and thence by severity of
blue-linen blouse to the face lurking in the pale lavender of the
quilted sun-bonnet, the eye met nothing which was not proper to the
country-girl, dressed a little older, when the tail of hair swung to her
body's movement, than her sixteen years required.

If the face was not so ruddy as a moorland girl's should be, and if the
mark of the "smutty finger" beneath each eye suggested, out of Ireland,
ill health--well, sickness and recovery are not restricted to the town,
and the bright eyes, when the lids would lift, gave promise of returning
health.

Dick matched her well.

With the cut cheek decently washed, the face shaved with Tom Brundage's
worst razor, and a patch of flour congealing the blood of his wound, he
looked very different from the ruffian who had disturbed, so short a
while since, the lunch of the Brundage chickens. For his brown boots,
brushed to the semblance of a shine, brown gaiters of the army cut,
green cord riding-breeches which had delighted the heart of Tom Brundage
until petrol prevailed over horseflesh and drove him into black; a
striped waistcoat, of the old-fashioned waspish, horsey favour, partly
buttoned over a grey army shirt and loosely covered by his own Norfolk
jacket, with a knotted bandanna in place of collar, made of him an odd,
but wholly credible nondescript of the lower sporting world.

Men on the roads of that joyous Saturday might have asked was it
whippets, horses, or the ring which best explained this lank, keen-eyed,
humorous-lipped, uneven-gaited fellow; but none would have suspected a
masquerade in the figure offered to their eyes with an assurance so
entirely devoid of self-consciousness.

Yet to Amaryllis it was perhaps the raffish green imitation-velours
Homburg hat which did most to alter Dick Bellamy's aspect; so that she
would wait for a glance of his eyes to assure herself that this was
indeed her wonderful friend and champion, and no new man nor changed
spirit.

But Pepe, its one honest and unpretentious person, had made the whole
trio bizarre and incredible.

For though, on one word from Dick, Amaryllis had given her credence and
trust to the Lizard, she yet felt that he suited so ill with any English
surroundings that his incongruity would show up any boggled stitch in
their two disguises. So, while she nibbled the biscuit which Dick had
taken from the paper in his pocket and ordered her to eat, and listened
to the unintelligible valedictory advice which Pepe was ladling out in
Spanish, she was longing to be alone with the gentleman who looked so
impossible, and free from the company of the man who the very pricking
of her thumbs told her was a criminal, in spite of the modest bearing
and the uplifted gaze at his idol.

Did she also adore her Limping Dick, as Pepe his Cojeante? Was the one
worship antagonistic to the other? Why then--but Amaryllis, like many
another woman, was so good a logician that she knew when to halt on the
road to an awkward conclusion.

Pepe at last swept off his hat in profound obeisance to "la senorita
roja," took Dick's hand with reverence and his generous wad of notes
without shame, and hurried back on his road to "The Myrtles."

She looked at Dick's face as his eyes followed the Lizard, and read in
it an expression so strange and so mixed, that she turned again to take
her own last sight of the man she was glad to be rid of.

Pepe had vanished utterly.

"Yes," said Dick, following her thought, and responsive even to the
terms of her recent reflection, "he never would fit an English landscape
till it swallowed him."

"'Amigo de grillos'?" said the girl. "Why do you call him that? _Amigo_
must be _friend_. But _grillos_?"

"Irons--fetters," said Dick; and taking her by the arm, started in the
direction of "The Goat in Boots," walking with a curiously swaggering
gait which went far to mask his limp. "Amigos de grillos--fetter-pals.
We were chained together for six months."

"In--in prison? Oh, Dick!" she cried, "I knew he was horrid."

"And me?"

"I know you aren't," she replied.

"I'm afraid he is, from your point of view," he replied. "But Pepe el
Lagarto has one streak which interests me."

"Tell me," said Amaryllis.

And as they walked slowly towards the inn, he told her of Pepe and his
coca-leaves; of the Peruvian Indians' use of them to resist hunger and
fatigue; and of how the little man had given his all, which he could not
replace, to help la senorita roja over the roughness of her way.

"I had to keep a little in a bit of paper to satisfy him," said Dick.

"Then he's kind to women, at least," said Amaryllis.

"When I met him, he was in for five years--murdering his wife."

"Why?"

"Found her in company he wasn't fond of," said Dick, "so he threw her
out of window."

"And the--company?"

"Pepe slit its throat."

Amaryllis shuddered.

"No," resumed Dick, "you won't find any pretty Idylls of the King
gadgets about Pepe. He gave you all his coca-leaves because he regarded
you as El Cojeante's woman--that's all."

"Do you?" asked Amaryllis, and her colour for the first time matched her
head-gear.

"For to-day--of course," he answered. "You're my daughter--and don't you
forget it."

Amaryllis, if the word may be used of a sound so pleasant, giggled.

"Well, daddy dear," she replied, "I admit that your friend has a shiny
streak running through his horridness. And I like him for worshipping
you with his dog's eyes. And I shouldn't wonder if you often find those
silver veins in queer places, dad."

She said it like a question but received no response.

"If I've caught on to Pepe's topography," he said, "the road to the
right there runs on an easy downward grade for two miles, then dips
sharply for another. At the lowest point--they call it Gallowstree
Dip--there's another road, to the left, which runs straight to
Harthborough Junction--the place we want. But at Gallowstree Dip, says
Pepe, we shall find a motor-bike and side-car with two men ready to put
our lights out on contact--if there aren't too many witnesses. So when
we pass them we've got to be a larger party than two. So we start by
going into the bar here, and you're going to swallow bread and cheese
and beer, there's a good daughter."

Amaryllis nodded. "But, Dick," she said, "if they aren't at Gallowstree
Dip?"

"We've got to make our plans as we go, and change 'em when we must. It'd
seem incredible, wouldn't it--if it weren't for what you've seen and
suffered since last night. England! And you and I as much cut off from
Bobbies and Bow Street as if we were in Petrograd or Central New Guinea.
Suppose we _could_ find a village constable in a cottage--they'd kill
him as gaily as they would you or me--but it isn't his at-home day, he's
at Timsdale-Horton Races. When this gaff's over, the belated soothsayers
will tell me: 'you ought to have roused the police and laid your case
before them,' in one of the three great towns that I drove through last
night. And what yarn was I to pitch? That there might be murder going to
be done at a place called 'The Myrtles'? And what time had I to tell it
in? And where'd you be now, daughter, if I'd been two minutes later than
I was?"

Ever so gently Amaryllis squeezed his arm against her side in gratitude,
and then quivered a little, remembering the horror of Dutch Fridji and
her knife--and where last she had seen it.

But Dick went on, as if he had noticed nothing, to tell her of the two
letters which had barely yet, he supposed, reached Scotland Yard. He had
no certainty, indeed, that the second, given to the landlord of "The
Coach and Horses," had even been posted. Before nightfall, at the
earliest, therefore, no help could be counted upon from the police.

"Either," said Dick, "we must break through the bars of Melchard's cage,
or keep hidden inside it. The bosses of this mob, you see, won't give a
damn how many of their people get strafed as long as they suppress us,
and get back what I've got in my pocket."

They were now not fifty yards from the horse-trough in front of "The
Goat in Boots."

A little way from the entrance, drawn up opposite to the stable-yard,
stood a long, clumsy wagonette-brake with coats and green-carpet
cricket-bags lying about its seats. Two horses were at the pole,
seriously bowed over their nose-bags. A swingle-tree hung at the pole's
end, and a second pair of reins was fast to the driver's seat, the four
cheek-buckles lying crossed over the wheeler's backs.

"Fower-in-hand, and leaders in staable! Sick, likely, or more gradely
stuff," said Dick, musing aloud.

Amaryllis, whose eyes were on the signboard, started as if a stranger
had spoken at her side. She looked quickly in his face, and found it so
altered in expression that she knew the words had come from his lips.

"Oh, Dick!" she whispered. "You're wonderful. But whatever shall I do?
If I open my mouth, I shall give us away."

"Howd tha mouth shut, then, 'Minta, lass," he said. Then, lowering his
tone, he added in his own language: "I'll account for you. Don't forget
your name's Araminta. You've been ill, and the doctor's ordered open-air
treatment."

As they reached the threshold, the roar of Millsborough dialect came to
them through the windows of the bar-parlour.

Dick pointed to the bench by the door.

"Set there, lass, and Ah'll fetch t' grub," he said aloud. "'Tis bad air
for 'ee in tap-room."

As if the world were his, he swung into the bar, where he found two
yokels listening to the half-drunken lamentations of a middle-aged,
plum-cheeked fellow in a shabby blue livery coatee with shabbier gilt
buttons; and even while he was giving his order for a glass of mild, and
a bit of bread and cheese on plate for daughter--who'd been main sick,
and would likely throw her stomach if she sat in tap-room, for doctor
said for her open-air treatment was best medicine--he was listening
patiently to the man he guessed to be the driver of the cricketers'
brake.

He took the glass and plate and a pat on the shoulder to 'Minta.

"You just make un go doan, lovey," he said. "More eaten, more stomick
next time. Eat slow and steady, says Dr. Pape."

Back in the bar, he buried his nose in his tankard.

For the tenth time Plum-face summed up his woes.

"Boy and man, nineteen year Ah've tooled St. Asaph's Eleven to
Ecclesthorpe June Fixture. Four-in-'and's historical, like goose to
Michaelmas. But to-day, Old Grudgers--ye know Grudger's Bait, far end o'
Mill Street? To-day, old Grudge, 'e says, 'You hitch Fancy Blood
near-lead,' and I says 'im back, 'If 'ee puts 'er 'long o' Tod Sloan,
Fancy'll go dead lame afore "T'Goat in Boots."' And dead lame she
stands in staable here, first time six month. Not offerin' lame, mind
you, with a peck an' a limp when she keeps 'er mind on 'er wicked
meanin', but sore up to the off fore pastern, and the hoof that hot
it'd light a lucifer. Fancy's a female, she is, same as your wife or
mine; and Tod, 'e just sours 'er blood, and there ye are. Ah tell
'ee, boys, Ned Blossom's shamed, 'e is, if he comes slatherin' into
Ecclesthorpe-on-the-Moor wi' two sweatin' wheelers in twentieth year o'
the match."

By this time Dick had received from the tapster his second order, a
tankard of old ale, laced with a surreptitious noggin of unsweetened
gin.

"And what-like nature o' a nag may this Tod be?" he asked, speaking with
so easy a familiarity, and holding the pewter so invitingly that Ned
Blossom responded as to an old friend.

"Gradely bit o' stuff sure-ly," he replied. "And do love to fill his
collar; but sulky-like he's been on t' road this day, wi' Fancy doin'
nowt to share."

"Then leave Fancy in staable," said Dick, "and drive owd Tod unicorn
into Ecclesthorpe wi' style."

Ned Blossom chuckled foolishly, and took the tankard Dick was offering,
handle free, to his fingers.

"Like t' owd flea-bitten mare used to stand bottom o' Church Hill out o'
Water Street, waitin' for t' bus comin'. They'd take the bar offen 'er
back, hitch it to pole, an' away she'd go, scratchin' and scramblin' up
to moor, like cat on roof-tiles. Ha! ha!" laughed Ned, and took a pull
from the pewter. "But, say, who be you, standin' drinks like an owd
friend?"

"Forgotten Doncaster races, nineteen five, hast tha, Ned? Well, Ah'm
pained in my choicest feelin's. Here Ah finds 'ee in misfortune, order
the stuff tha needs, pay for it, give 'ee good counsel and call 'ee Ned,
and 'tis not till ale's drownin' t' sadness of 'ee where it bides, that
'ee call to mind you've forgotten Sam Bunce."

"Sam'l--ay, Sam'l Ah remembers. 'Twas t' Bunce as came 'ard like. But
nineteen five? Challacombe's Leger, that was. Ay, Bunce fits into it.
This ale clears the wits wunnerful."

Dick was at the bar, money passing to the tapster.

"There's another, owd cock, where that came from," he said, turning to
Blossom. "Mebbe the next pint'll make 'ee call to mind how Challacombe's
win cleaned me out--and me bound to get south away to Coventry?"

"Ay," said Ned again, politely remembering all that he was told. "See'd
'ee off by t' train, I did."

"Good old Blossom you be," said Dick, laughing kindly, "sayin' nowt o'
the two jimmies you lent to get me home--an' us both that full we forgot
all about where I was to send the blunt! But it's not Sam Bunce'll
forget what he owes a man, and Ah knew as Ah'd meet 'ee again."

And he pushed three one-pound notes into the fuddled Ned's hand, who saw
no reason in denying a friend of this kind.

"'Most gone out o' my head, the money," he muttered. "But Ah knew 'ee
meant paying."

Then, as he awkwardly separated the notes, puzzling over the third, "Bit
of interest for the waitin'," said Dick. "Put 'em away, while I go and
get that Tod Sloan hitched single to lead your pair."

"I'll never drive 'im," objected Ned mournfully. "Ah've been turned all
ends up, wi' this 'ere 'appening. Tod, 'e'll turn an' laugh at me."

"'Tis easy, owd man, if you keep 'im canterin' from start."

"Tried 'im tandem once, they did--oh, Gawd!"

"What you needs, owd Ned, is a kip, e'en if 'ee can't sleep. Who's
Captain of o' this St. Asaph's cricketin' lot?"

"Rev'runt Mallaby--Dixon Mallaby. Gradely chap. Champion bat 'e be,
nobbut 'e's a parson."

"Then I'll drive 'em," said Dick, "and you get a lift o'er to
Ecclesthorpe later, an' tool 'em home. 'Long about that time you'll be
rested, an' Tod'll be after his oats."

Blossom nodded, lifting his tankard and waving it on the way to his
mouth, in feeble farewell.

As he went out Dick glanced sideways at Amaryllis. The sparkle in her
eyes stopped him.

"Oh, daddy!" she murmured, "what a liar you are!"

"Cha-ampion!" said Dick, adding, as he left her: "Rubberneck!"

Already the cricketers were gathering about the rear of the brake,
amongst them a gentleman.

To him Dick touched his hat.

"T' driver, sir, be o'ercome with near leader fallin' la-ame. He be an
owd pal. Seems me tryin' t' buck 'im oop's gone wrong way down. So be
you offers no objection, sir, I'll drive 'ee myself. Sam'l Bunce I'm
called, and 'tis Ecclesthorpe where us wants to go."

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