Читать книгу The Murder Germ - A. O. Pollard - Страница 6

Table of Contents

It was not Tony Grayling’s fault that four months elapsed after his encounter with le Maitre before he saw Hilary Manners again. Twice he called at her Kensington address, which he unearthed from the telephone directory, and he telephoned on several occasions, but each time he was politely informed by a suave-voiced butler that she was away from home.

Even the most ardent infatuation is apt to fade in such circumstances, and he had almost relegated her to a might-have-been when they met unexpectedly in Oxford Street.

She was staring at some hats in a shop window when he caught sight of her and, halting abruptly, waited for her to turn towards him. As he gazed at the nape of her neck just below where her hair curled upwards in a rippling wave he thought what a stunning creature she was. He would be an ass indeed if he did not get to know her better.

Presently she resumed her walk. Tony at once planted himself in front of her and removed his hat, but she showed not the slightest sign of recognition, and passed him by with an easy self-possessed disdain.

Discomfited by the rebuff, Tony hesitated. He had no wish to force himself on her if she did not wish to know him; and yet—hang it all, it could only be that she had forgotten him.

An inspiration flashed into his brain, and he hurried after her.

“How’s Rags getting on, Miss Manners?” he inquired pleasantly.

She stopped at once and looked at him with an expression which he did not understand.

“I remember you now, of course,” she admitted, though without very much enthusiasm. “You’re Flight Lieutenant Grayling, aren’t you—the man who crashed near our house at Rainhurst. Forgive me for not recognizing you just now, but I—well—er——”

“I quite understand,” Tony relieved her embarrassment. “You thought I was being fresh.”

He laughed contentedly; it was a topping bit of luck meeting her again.

She made no reply, and he racked his brains for something to say next; somehow his usual verbosity seemed to have deserted him. He was so terribly anxious to make a good impression so that she would want to see him again that the sentences would not form properly.

“How is Rags?” he repeated at last. “I thought him such a jolly little fellow.”

Surely an interest in her dog would warm her heart.

To his amazement and distress she went very pale and tears glistened in her eyes.

“Rags is dead,” she revealed in a half-strangled sob.

“Oh, I say! That’s too bad. I’m most dreadfully sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I had had the least idea.”

He could have kicked himself for distressing her when he only wanted to please her.

His sincerity was so evident that she was touched by it.

“I’m quite sure you wouldn’t,” she declared. “But you couldn’t possibly know about him, could you?”

Someone bumped heavily into Tony’s back and reminded him that they were taking up a large portion of a crowded pavement.

“Look here,” he proposed earnestly, “what about having a cup of coffee somewhere and telling me all about it? Unless, of course, you don’t care to talk about it,” he amended quickly.

Hilary hesitated. She really had intended to buy some things before lunch, and she would only just have time. But he seemed so interested in her dog and her loss was so very recent that she felt she must unburden herself of the whole story. Both her father and Erasmus Beney merely regarded the defunct animal as a medical specimen; it was rather nice to find someone who promised sympathy.

“Very well, but I mustn’t be too long.”

Tony gave her no time to change her mind. There was a tea-shop within a few yards which would do as well as any other, and he led her towards it. A corner table provided the right atmosphere for the exchange of confidences.

When the coffee had been placed on the table Hilary began her story. Rags, who was four years old, had always been of a quiet and affectionate disposition. He barked at dustmen and postmen, of course, in a perfectly normal doggy way, but he had never bitten anyone in his life up to the time of Tony’s aeroplane crash; with most people he had, in fact, been rather too friendly, with the result that he was totally useless as a watch-dog.

“I never could stand animals that bark the place down as soon as anyone looks at them,” put in Tony tactfully.

He well remembered the joyous welcome Rags gave him in the garden at Rainhurst; at the time he thought what a jolly nice pal such a good-tempered creature must be.

“He remained like that until about a fortnight ago,” Hilary went on with her story. “Then he suddenly had a fit of madness.”

“Madness? Good lord!”

“You may well say ‘Good lord!’; that’s what I said. It only lasted a couple of hours, and then he was absolutely normal again. I swear he was; I knew him better than anyone in the world. I was prepared to guarantee that it would never happen again, but they wouldn’t believe me, and he—he had to be put to sleep.”

“My word, I am sorry. Poor little chap.”

“Yes, and that horrid, cruel, loathsome Erasmus Beney wanted to conduct a post mortem on him. On Rags. Can you imagine anything so utterly—beastly?”

“I certainly can’t; he must have the soul of a vandal. What did your father say?”

“Dad? Oh, he didn’t say much; he never does. He’s so completely absorbed in his search for an influenza filter—if you know what that is—that he scarcely knows what’s going on around him.”

There was a short pause whilst Tony lit a fresh cigarette.

“I know a bit about dogs,” he declared. “Tell me about this madness. What were the symptoms? Did he foam at the mouth or anything like that?”

“Oh no, it wasn’t rabies; at least, Dr. Westacott said it couldn’t have been, otherwise the postmen would have got it.”

“The postmen?”

“Yes, he bit two of them. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Well, no. You haven’t really told me very much about it at all yet. Where did all this happen?”

“At Rainhurst; we were there for the week-end. I had only just returned from Scotland, where I had been staying with an aunt. Rags was with me. The whole time we were there he never once showed the slightest sign of temper over anything.”

“When did you get back?” asked Tony, thinking of his telephone calls.

“Last Tuesday week; we flew from Perth. You’re used to the air, Flight Lieutenant Grayling; do you think it could possibly have been flying that upset poor Rags?”

“Upset him? How do you mean? Was he air-sick?”

“No, no, I don’t mean in that way. Do you think the height and the strangeness of being off the ground could have unbalanced his brain.”

Tony grunted.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I’ve never heard of an animal being affected in that way, and thousands of them travel by air nowadays. Why, did he seem at all funny when you landed?”

“Oh no, he was absolutely O.K.—as far as I could see. It was on the Saturday—we drove down to Rainhurst on the Friday evening. I had arranged to play golf with some people I know. When I left home he was quite all right—at least, as right as he ever was when I went out without him. He used to clap his tail between his legs and creep into his basket with an expression on his face as if he had been whipped for something he hadn’t done.”

She smiled at the recollection; then remembered that he would never do it again and bit her lip.

“It’s funny how they like to go everywhere with you, whether it’s possible or not, isn’t it?” said Tony.

“We’re the fools not to take them,” declared Hilary fiercely. “If ever I have another dog I’ll never let him out of my sight for a single instant; then things won’t happen like that which happened to Rags.”

“Do you think the postman kicked him?”

“The man never had a chance to kick him, from what they told me. He was delivering a registered package at the door when Rags simply hurled himself out of the morning-room and buried his teeth in the man’s calf. There was a second man waiting in the road with a van, and before anyone could stop him Rags dashed out and bit him too. What I don’t understand is that he’s never once attempted to bite anyone before.”

“It certainly does seem queer if the man hadn’t provoked him in any way. How do you, yourself, account for it?”

“I can’t. I’ve thought and thought and I can only assume it was some sudden brainstorm. That’s why I had to agree to have him destroyed. However much I loathed having it done, it was impossible to guarantee that the fit wouldn’t recur.”

“No, you can’t very well shut them up in an asylum when you see it coming on like they do human beings.”

“Even that doesn’t always work; what about the man who attacked you that day?”

“Le Maitre? Yes, that’s true. They say he hadn’t had a relapse for three or four years before he broke out that afternoon.”

“You had a very lucky escape from being killed.”

“I was lucky in more senses than one,” countered Tony, and looked at her meaningly.

Hilary returned his gaze with complete composure. She was quite used to the admiration of the opposite sex, and she accepted his homage as a matter of course. Nevertheless, she was much too feminine to resist the impulse to lead him on a little further.

“Yes, it isn’t everyone who crashes in a doctor’s back garden and finds three medical men waiting to pick up the pieces. Didn’t it surprise you?”

“It certainly did,” agreed Tony, and suddenly remembered the conversation he had overheard.

Once again he wondered, as he had wondered several times in the last few months, what constituted the secret hold that Beney obviously possessed over Hilary’s father.

“Don’t forget that a word from me will send you to ...” Beney had said in a tone that was unmistakably sincere.

What did he mean? Where could he send him? What unhappy mistake could Dr. Manners possibly have made that enabled his Chi-chi partner to blackmail him?

If only he had caught that last word before Hilary’s question drowned the conversation. Was Hilary aware of her father’s misdeed—whatever it was? Tony did not think so. In the short time he had known her he had formed the opinion that she would not tolerate Beney for a single instant if she guessed he was linked to her father with a threat.

“A penny for your thoughts,” offered Hilary.

She was surprised and not a little piqued that he had failed to follow up his first implied compliment to her. According to the rules of the oldest game in the world he should have ignored her wilful misinterpretation of his remark and returned to the attack. Instead of which he had retired into his shell like a snail.

He must be very much more backward than she had imagined, and the impulse to enmesh him in the web of her attractiveness instinctively strengthened.

“They wouldn’t be worth such a large sum of money,” smiled Tony. “I was thinking of Erasmus Beney.”

“What about him? He’s a very ordinary young man.”

“Extraordinary. He struck me as being quite an unusual type.”

“In what way—because he’s a Eurasian?”

“Partly that—it’s a little difficult to explain. For one thing he’s so very different from your father that I was surprised to learn they were in partnership.”

“Oh, that! Dad thinks the world of him. He’s frightfully clever and terribly useful in the hunt for the ’flu bug. They’ve been working on it together for years, ever since they met somewhere in Burma.”

So they had met in Burma. Tony made a mental note of the fact for future reference. If ever he met anyone who had been out there he might casually mention the two men’s names and see if they awakened any memories.

In the meantime he would keep his ears open for any casual remark that might give a clue to the mystery. He must think of an excuse to call at their laboratory and renew acquaintance with them.

“If you’re so interested in Mr. Beney, how would you like to meet him again?” Hilary might have read his thoughts. “He’ll be at our place for dinner tomorrow night; if you like to come along too you can talk to him to your heart’s content.”

The invitation was the outcome of Hilary’s awakening interest in her new admirer. Although he was totally unaware of the fact, his preoccupation over Beney’s threat against her father had done more to further his cause than any number of compliments.

Had he fussed over her and given her his undivided attention she might never have given him another thought; nearly all men behaved like that towards her. But when he persisted in talking about Erasmus Beney, whom she loathed and detested, he succeeded in annoying her.

This young man must be punished for his indifference, she decided severely. She would invite him to dinner, and when he came she would jolly well see that he got his fill of Beney. From past experience she knew that most of the conversation round the table would be medical shop; by the end of the evening he would be cured of his interest in Beney for life.

“I say, that’s most awfully decent of you. I should like to come immensely.”

There was no doubt about the enthusiasm of Tony’s acceptance.

Hilary gathered her bag and gloves with the smile of a siren.

“Very well, then, that’s settled. We shall expect you a few minutes before eight. Father will be wearing a dinner jacket, I expect.”

Tony followed her from the shop in a seventh heaven of delight. Beney and his mysterious threat no longer had any place in his mind. Hilary liked him well enough to invite him to dinner at their second meeting. Everything was going swimmingly.

He saw her into a taxi and closed the door.

“Au revoir, and thanks awfully,” he cried exultantly.

The taxi moved off and Tony turned to stride purposefully along the pavement. Life was jolly good.

A newsboy at his elbow shook out a new placard.

“Brutal Murder in the West End”, he read.