The strange countess
“Do you see that?” he asked. “Watch!”
Where it came from, how it got there, Tappatt could not for the life
of him tell; but though the hand apparently had not moved it was
holding a short-barrelled Browning of heavy calibre.
“Where on earth did that come from?” he gasped. “You had it there all
the time----”
“No, it came out of my pocket,” laughed Michael. Again he was engaged
in one of his subtle acts of intimidation.
“I’ll swear that it didn’t.”
“Watch!”
Again the hand was held stiffly. An imperceptible movement, whether up
or down or backward Tappatt could not say, and the hand was empty.
“It is a trick,” said Dorn carelessly. “And if you speak dog language
you might explain to these hounds of yours that I am a man to leave
severely alone. By-the-way, dog patrols have always been a specialty
of yours? Wasn’t the trouble in Bengal over a patient who had been
worried to death? Refresh my memory.”
The doctor swallowed something, and then Dorn asked:
“Why are these dogs chained up?”
“I keep them chained.”
“They weren’t chained last night. You knew I was in the neighbourhood,
and that doesn’t seem to be the time to put them on the leash. Yet at
four o’clock this morning they were fast. Why did you tie them up,
doctor?”
Their eyes met.
“Shall I tell you why?”
Tappatt was silent; the detective had returned at four o’clock in the
morning; he had just missed the little procession that had crossed the
fields!
“Shall I tell you why?” Dorn asked again.
“You’re in an informative mood,” sneered Tappatt.
“Very. You tied them up because you took those two women out of the
house last night, out through this yard, and you could only do that
when you had put the dogs on the chain. Correct me if I’m wrong. They
went out this way and they will come back this way.”
Dr. Tappatt’s jaw dropped; this was a turn to his disadvantage with a
vengeance. He had expected Dorn to be satisfied with his search and to
leave some time during the day. His plan was not working as he had
expected.
“You can invite me to breakfast; I shall stay until they return.”
“I swear to you that I know nothing whatever about any women,”
protested Tappatt violently. “You’re making a mistake, Dorn! Anyway,
you’ve no right here--you know that!”
Michael shook his head.
“I never make mistakes,” he said arrogantly, “and I have every right
to be here. It is the first duty of a citizen to frustrate any
wrong-doing, and the first duty of a host to ask his guest if he is
hungry. Now you can invite me to breakfast. And over that pleasant
meal I will tell you something which will interest and amuse you.”
The baffled man looked first one way and then the other. He was
trapped; his ruse had not only failed, but had rebounded against
himself. Dorn, out of the corner of his eye, saw the quick rise and
fall of his chest, and knew something of the panic in him.
“You can’t stay here. I don’t want you!” exploded Tappatt angrily.
“That story about women being in my house is all moonshine and you
know it. I’ll give you one minute to clear out! You can’t bluff me!”
Michael Dorn laughed softly.
“What will happen if I don’t clear out? Will you send for the police?
There is the opportunity to get back on the cruel police commissioner
who shut down your little home in the Provinces and might have got you
five long weary years in Delhi prison if the official mind had only
moved a little quicker. Send for the police, my good man; it will be a
grand advertisement for you.”
Dr. Tappatt had no intention of sending for the police; the force was
not a popular constituent of public life with him. From the height of
his intellect he looked down upon all other professions and callings
than his own.
“All right,” he growled, “come in. And as for the women, you’ll find
you were mistaken.”
“Don’t let us discuss them,” said Michael with an airy gesture of his
hand.
Chapter Twenty-eight
He could almost afford to feel jubilant at the contemplation of his
partial success, only he was a man who never counted eggs as chickens;
nor did he underrate the resourcefulness of the man he was dealing
with.
The doctor was thinking rapidly, and a stiff glass of whisky helped
further to clear a mind which was only normal when it was stimulated.
Dorn was there to stay; such subterfuges as came into his mind to rid
himself of the unwelcome visitor, he rejected.
“Tell me where the coffee is and I will make it myself,” said Dorn.
“Please forgive me if I’m a little suspicious, but doctors have an
uncanny knowledge of the properties of certain drugs, and I should
hate to feel myself going to sleep for no other reason than that you
had found an opportunity for doctoring my drink.”
He went into the kitchen, kindled the fire and put on the kettle. In
one of the cupboards he found a tin of biscuits and a can of preserved
milk--there were the elements of safe refreshment here. He knew his
doctor very well--he had set a train of thought in motion. Would he
take the obvious step, or go outside the detective’s plan?
The doctor crouched before the fire in his study, his mind working in
all directions. It was a curious fact that, until Dorn’s jesting
remark, he had not thought of drugs. He heard Michael whistling softly
to himself, and, rising noiselessly, crossed to his desk and searched
among the bottles that were arrayed on various shelves and in divers
pigeonholes, and presently found what he sought.
He slipped a grey pellet from the phial, dropping it into the palm of
his hand, and, replacing the bottle, pulled down the desk cover. There
might be no opportunity. Against that, every man as self-assured as
Dorn was left himself open at one point.
Wedging the pellet between the second and third fingers of his left
hand, he came back to the fire, and was there when Michael Dorn came
in later with coffee, cups, and saucers on a tray, the biscuits under
his arm.
“I’ve been thinking that perhaps, after reflection, you will tell me
what time you expect our friends to return?” he asked. “Or, failing
that, would you tell me what is the signal you are to give to signify
that the coast is clear?”
“You’re mad to make such suggestions,” said Tappatt gruffly. “I
thought you weren’t going to talk about the women. They are not here.”
“Somebody has got to talk about them,” murmured Michael
apologetically. “Have some coffee? It is infinitely better than that
yellow stuff you’ve got on the mantelpiece, and costs about one
twentieth the price.”
He poured out a cup and pushed it towards his companion, but the
doctor did not so much as turn his head.
Michael sipped luxuriously at the hot comforting fluid, his eyes fixed
upon Tappatt’s moody face. Suddenly the doctor lifted his head as
though he had heard something.
“There is somebody coming now,” he said, and the detective walked to
the door and listened.
When he turned the doctor was in his old posture.
“You’re getting jumpy--it is the whisky, my friend,” he said.
He refilled his cup, stirred it vigorously, and dropped in a liberal
supply of condensed milk.
“What is this interesting thing you were going to tell me?” asked
Tappatt, still staring into the fire.
“It concerns you. There is a movement to get you brought before the
General Medical Council for that Indian trouble, which means, I
suppose, that you will be struck off the medical register.”
This was news to the doctor, and he sprang to his feet.
“That is a lie!” he said loudly.
Suddenly Michael bent his head.
“What was that?” he asked.
Tappatt looked round.
“I didn’t hear anything.”
But the detective motioned him to silence. He rose, picked up his
coffee, and walked to the door, listening.
“Stay here,” he said and disappeared from view.
He was back again in a minute, but remained standing by the door,
sipping at his cup, and the doctor affected to be amused.
“You’ve got nerves, man,” he said. “If you’d trusted me enough to
leave your cup behind I’d have given you something to cure you!”
“So I suppose,” said Michael, setting down the vessel nearly empty. “I
hate showing discourtesy to a host, but I have made a practice all my
life of pouring out my own drinks when I’m in dubious company, and
hanging on to them until I’m finished.”
The doctor glanced at the cup and his face cleared. It had been so
absurdly easy, though the danger was by no means over.
“What I like about you, Dorn, is that you’re a gentleman. I’m not
paying you a compliment. I’m merely stating a fact. I’ve had to do
with a few police officers who have been the scum of the gutter, and
the contrast is refreshing. You were kidding about striking me off the
register, weren’t you?”
Michael shook his head.
“I never kid. I am the man who intends making a personal application
at the next meeting of the Council,” he said. “You can be sure that I
shall be able to lay before them sufficient proof to make your
position in England a pretty uncomfortable one.”
Tappatt forced a smile.
“In that case,” he said, rising, “I’d better do what I can to get on
the right side of you. If you will come with me, I will show you
something you’ve overlooked.”
He smiled in the other’s face, and Michael followed him down the
passage into the yard.
“You were rather unkind about the airiness of this admirable place of
detention,” said Tappatt. He stood on the top of the steps which led
to the underground room. “Did it occur to you that it might be just a
little more airy than you had imagined? Come!”
He ran down the steps, pushed open the heavy door, and went into the
cellar chamber.
“You did not see the trap-door in the corner of the room, did you?”
Michael pushed past him and strode across the brick floor. He had
taken three steps when the door shut. The key squeaked as it turned
and there came to him the sound of Tappatt’s mocking laughter.…
“That is a trick of mine--now show me your trick with the gun!”
laughed the doctor.
A splinter of wood leapt from the door; there was the sound of a
muffled explosion and Tappatt scrambled up the steps, laughing
hysterically.
He ran back to the room. Michael’s cup stood on the table, and he
spooned a quantity of the lukewarm liquid and tasted it, smacking his
lips.
“Brain against brain. I think I’ve scored the final point!” he said
with satisfaction. It had been so crudely simple. What would happen
after, he did not stop to consider.
For Dr. Tappatt the game was almost finished. His employer had been
more than generous--a large sum was due for his latest services, and
the whole world was open to him. For two years he had served his
friend faithfully and well. It had been an unromantic service, a
service that kept him well within the boundaries of the law. The
doctor had a very clear viewpoint. He knew that the end of this
adventure meant the worst kind of trouble, and one more offence
against the law would make little difference if he faced a jury. He
was determined to avoid juries. The detention of Michael Dorn gave him
a breathing space--a respite. The machinery of the law moved slowly,
and nowadays a man who took forethought might go from one end of
Europe to the other between sunrise and sunrise.
Half an hour passed, an hour. He looked at his watch for the twentieth
time, and, pulling open a drawer of his desk, he took out a pair of
handcuffs, humming a tune as he worked the hinges.
Returning to the cellar room, he knocked loudly on the door and called
the prisoner by name. There was no reply, and he unlocked the door and
peeped cautiously inward. The slit afforded him a view of the bed.
Michael Dorn was lying face downward, his head on his arm and
motionless.
Without hesitation, the doctor went into the room, and, turning the