Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 8

The b.a.l.l.s were clicking in the billiard-room upstairs, and he hesitated with a foot on the lowest step. But the bond of the protection which had been accepted even while confidence had been withheld, seemed to tie him to the post she had a.s.signed him.

He lit a cigar, sank into the very chair he had left, and let his mind revert to his discontented mood of the afternoon, laughing softly as he admitted that it had needed only the trace of trouble on that charming face to convince him that he was indeed "all in."

Something in the girl's face as she looked up at him had planted a seed of hope.

A clock somewhere struck softly and many times. The cigar had been a dead stump between his teeth for how long d.i.c.k did not know.

Randal's voice broke his reverie.

"I'm sick of knocking the b.a.l.l.s about," he said. "Come and give me a game, you slacker."

"Eleven!" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "Of course I'll play. Let's go and fetch Miss Caldegard and I'll play the two of you."

"All right," said Randal. "Where is she?"

"In your study," replied d.i.c.k, leading the way. It was an hour since he had left her and he was anxious to rouse the girl from her depression.

He opened the door, entered quickly, and stopped.

"Good G.o.d, she's gone!" he exclaimed.

"What d'you mean?" asked Randal.

"I left her here about an hour ago," said d.i.c.k. "She's not come out this way. There's something wrong."

"My dear boy, don't excite yourself," said his brother. "Here's the french-window. I expect she's out there."

"With bare shoulders and thin dress? It's been raining like h.e.l.l since ten o'clock. I tell you there's something wrong," said d.i.c.k, taking one stride to the table, and lifting the lamp above his head. He glanced swiftly round the room.

"Look at your safe," he said.

Randal, impressed by his brother's tone, went quickly to the alcove, between whose looped curtains showed the green door of a safe embedded in the wall. Before he touched it,

"My G.o.d! There's a key!" he said.

"Where's yours?" snapped d.i.c.k.

"Here," said Randal, pulling a bunch from his pocket.

"Look inside."

Randal turned the key, swung back the heavy door, groped for a minute, and swung round with a face like death.

"What's gone?" cried d.i.c.k.

"Caldegard's drug-bottle and formula!"

CHAPTER VII.

PERFUME.

Search of house and grounds was fruitless.

Before half-past eleven the rainstorm was over, and a bright moon lighted the brothers and the men-servants to the discovery of just nothing at all.

Except to give an order, or make a suggestion, neither Bellamy spoke until they stood alone together in the hall.

They looked at each other like men who from dreams of h.e.l.l have waked to find it.

Then the elder groaned, beside himself.

"The poor girl!" he said. "To think of her ill-used--murdered, perhaps!"

The younger man cut him short with a glance, which even through his agony pierced Randal as if the livid lightning of a G.o.d had been launched at the inept.i.tude of human compa.s.sion.

"Cut it out," said d.i.c.k. "That's a car coming. The father. Take him right back to town in it. You've got the pull. You can make the political coves get Scotland Yard and the police of the world working, before you'd get the county bobbies into their trousers."

The car drew up in front of the house.

"How shall I tell him?" said Randal.

"I shall," answered d.i.c.k. "You get into tweeds--jump." And he went to meet Caldegard at the door.

"Good G.o.d!" said the old man, when he saw the young one's face. "What's happened?"

"I'll tell you," said d.i.c.k. "Is that a good car?"

Caldegard knew how to obey. "It's Broadfoot's--Rolls-Royce, six cylinder," he replied promptly.

"Tell the man he must take you back to town."

When the order was given, the lover, in curt and terrible phrases, told the father what had happened. And Caldegard's face, as he listened without a word, was a tragedy which d.i.c.k Bellamy, heeding it not at all for the moment, remembered all his life.

"Set every dog in the world on the men who've stolen Ambrotox," he said in conclusion, "and you'll find Amaryllis. A trace of one is a track of the other; news of either is news of both. Leave the local work to me."

Caldegard looked into the strange face, and almost flinched from the terrible eyes.

"I'll do all you say," he replied simply.

Then Randal came, pulling on his coat. His brother made him swallow whisky and water, forced the elder man to do the same, and before they left, demanded money of Randal.

"There's a hundred and twenty pounds in notes, in the small right-hand drawer in the safe," he replied, "--unless they got that too."

"No," said d.i.c.k. "They were hustled. Let her rip," he said to the driver, and went back into the house.