Читать книгу They Wouldn't Be Chessmen - A.E.W. Mason - Страница 8

Table of Contents

AN unusually hot summer had persuaded Mr. Ricardo to break the precisions of a lifetime and leave London before the end of July. But where was he to go? It was too early for his annual visit to Aix-les-Bains. The date of that never varied. An advertisement upon a hoarding in Regent Street and a sudden recollection of Ouida's romances decided him. "I'll go to Trouville," he cried, in the middle of the road, and was almost run over by a Green Line charabanc.

Russian princes with hunting-boxes in Siberia were no doubt difficult to find, but there might still be déclassée mothers with daughters fresh as dew, irresistible tenors, gambling Greeks, and a fair sample of that odd section of his fellow-beings which it amused him to watch. But only the ghosts of them sauntered nowadays on the board-walk. The board-walk remained, certainly, a few yachts sat side by side on the tiny basin, and there was an empty casino. The rest was Southend-on-Sea. Mr. Ricardo consulted his Michelin Guide. Some spot close at hand, and still unspoilt—Caudebec! He had some water-colours of Caudebec, and etchings of its old cathedral with its soaring clock-tower, carved like lace.

He drove off the next day in his fine new Rolls-Royce car, crossed the vast forest of Brotonne, and coming to the ferry at St. Nicolas de Bliquetit, passed over the river into a place of summer peace. He was given a charming suite of a sitting-room and bedroom overlooking the Seine. He watched the oil-tankers and the tramps plod deeply-laden up to Rouen, and thrash down again empty to the sea. He made the acquaintance of young friendly and unpretentious people, students of the Slade School, artists beginning to have a name, couples upon their honeymoons. He commissioned a picture here, he bought a sketch there. He wandered among tiny squares and narrow ancient streets where brooks sang over stones. He made excursions into the high woods which embosomed the town. He explored William le Tellier's great church. Mr. Ricardo was perfectly happy. Even the gaudy dragonfly of a house-boat, at the upper end of the town, seemed to him to add a pleasant gaiety to the scene.

It was in William le Tellier's cathedral that Mr. Ricardo first met the party from the house-boat. A girl came noiselessly out of the cool shadows of that high place to a spot where a shaft of sunlight slanted down from a window. She was dressed in white, from her shoulders to her shoes, and under her linen coat she wore a silk shirt open at the throat which showed a triple row of beads too big and heavy to suit her years or daintiness. One moment she was a blur in the gloom, the next she stood revealed from the small shining golden head and violet eyes to the slender feet. Mr. Ricardo traced his first startled foolish thought to those heavy beads, which seemed a decoration from an image in a niche rather than an ornament for a living girl. But he had this first impression, that he was witnessing the visitation to this old church of some lovely spirit, The next minute, however, he recognised her for the girl she was. But not before she had recognised him.

A young man with fair hair which seemed to have been bleached by the sun, stepped quickly to her side, as though only just that moment he had become aware that there was a stranger close to them.

"Mr. Ricardo," said the girl.

Mr. Ricardo tittered. He could not hope that he had been recognised at the back of the Omnibus Box at Covent Garden by a famous singer on the stage, but he was flattered.

"It is reasonable that I should recognise you, Miss Flight," he said with a prim little bow. "But that you should know me is amazing."

"The Maecenas of Caudebec! Oh, come now, Mr. Ricardo!" she said mischievously. "Even in our house-boat we hear of your good deeds."

At the sound of her voice, another woman came quickly forward, taller than Lydia Flight, and without doubt more beautiful. But it was beauty with an exotic touch in it, of long sliding eyes and secret smiles. The smiles died quickly away, however, as she saw who it was that was talking to Lydia.

"This is Mr. Ricardo," said Lydia.

"Oh, yes," said Lucrece Bouchette. She bowed indifferently. She looked at the open door across the cathedral, where a great panel of sunlight lay on the stone floor. She looked at the watch upon her wrist. She yawned; and yet another voice broke in:

"Perhaps Mr. Ricardo can tell us."

Mr. Ricardo saw another man join the small party, the sort of man whom he would expect to see on a polo ground rather than in a church.

"This is Major Scott Carruthers," said Lydia.

"We want you to tell us where is the Stone of Desolation."

Mr. Ricardo was at once in his element. He was a born guide, and since the party he was leading contained two beautiful women, he started off quickly lest they should slip away from him.

"The Stone of Desolation is in the wall of the apse at the northern end of the cathedral, and can be seen only from the outside. It commemorates, as you doubtless know, the twelfth of May, fifteen hundred and sixty-two, when Gabriel de Montgomery—" The panel of light upon the floor by the door was hidden for a moment, and a step rang upon the stones, but Mr. Ricardo paid no heed to it. He had his audience. He was in full flight.

"—When Gabriel de Montgomery led the Huguenot forces from Rouen and pillaged the cathedral. But here is something which I think will interest you still more."

He led them to a window high up above a closed door, and pointed up to it. The new-comer had joined the group, but Mr. Ricardo had no eyes for him.

"That is the window which Foulkes Eyton, Esquire, Captain of the Archers, gave to the cathedral when he governed the town for King Henry. You see the figures of St. Catherine, Saint Michael, the Holy Virgin, and Saint George transfixing the dragon. On each side of the window is his escutcheon, a shield in the shape of a fawn's head and underneath his motto: 'Je m'y oblige.' How shall we translate it? 'I bend to my work,' I think."

And suddenly, behind him, a voice low but clear said with a passionate violence:

"Yes, that's what we've all got to think of for these next few days, and of nothing else. We bend to our work, eh?"

Mr. Ricardo turned quickly round. It was actually Major Scott Carruthers who had spoken—the most unlikely person of all that group for so noticeable an outburst. And all in one way or another were affected by it. Lydia Flight was merely surprised. The man at her side, whom Mr. Ricardo was to know as Oliver Ransom, was suddenly troubled. He drew a little closer to Lydia Flight. The greatest change, however, was in Lucrece Bouchette. She had started away from Scott Carruthers, but her eyes were on him, and her lips were a little drawn back from her teeth. She put out a hand and touched the arm of the new-comer. Mr. Ricardo seemed to read fear, defiance, almost hatred in her expression. The only one who remained quite calm, except for a first movement, was this stranger. He said with a trace of an American drawl:

"That's O.K. by me, old man. But I hope I've done with bending and with work for the rest of my natural life."

He was unusually tall, he had a look, with his broad shoulders and long limbs, of tremendous strength, but he was built in so perfect a proportion that one felt it rather than observed it. He had a fine aquiline face, and dark wavy hair, and a neat elegance of person, so that Mr. Ricardo, taking him all in all, decided that he was the handsomest man he had ever seen.

"This is Mr. Guy Stallard," said Lydia. It seemed that the duties of introducing her party were thrust upon her. "Mr. Ricardo."

"Pleased to meet you," said Stallard cordially, as he held out his hand. "I believe that I have heard your name."

"Really? Really?" Mr. Ricardo asked, in something of a twitter of delight. He had been associated twice with a great French detective in cases which had rung through the world. He had been trampled upon and ridiculed; he had lived through ecstasies of horror and through nights of strange adventure; and such recognitions were his only and his ample reward.

"Really, really, you have heard of me?"

"Yes, sir," with an emphasis on the "sir," replied Mr. Guy Stallard. "And now I want to know you. I have rented till the end of the month that little Château-like place round the bend of the river, on the other side. The Château du Caillou. And I'll hope to see you there, sir, before I go away."

Mr. Stallard once more shook Ricardo warmly by the hand. Lucrece Bouchette and Scott Carruthers had moved away and were now close to the door. Stallard joined them and the three went out into the sunlight together. As their shadows disappeared from the stone floor within the doorway, Ricardo heard a deep sigh of relief behind him, and turned about, to see Lydia Flight with her hand beneath her companion's arm.

"I was wondering whether you and your friend," he said, "would have tea with me at my hotel."

"We should love it," said Lydia Flight, and she presented to him Oliver Ransom.

They crossed the cathedral and came out into the little Market Square. Ahead of them, Lucrece Bouchette in a cool dress of light grey, Scott Carruthers and Guy Stallard in flannels, were still visible as they walked down towards the river.

Mr. Ricardo stopped, and uttered a little finical laugh. "I'm afraid I'm very curious by nature," he said, as though his curiosity was a virtue, whereas in others it was a fault. "Two things have interested me this afternoon."

"Yes?"

It was Lydia Flight who spoke, and with a note of suspense. It occurred then to Mr. Ricardo for the first time that the whole party, with the exception of Guy Stallard, had even within these few commonplace moments betrayed signs that they were labouring under a rather grievous strain. Mr. Ricardo tried to put this couple at all events at their ease.

"Matters of interest to a student of the world," he explained modestly. "For instance, I am wondering why I have not enjoyed this summer the pleasure of hearing you sing, Miss Flight."

"That question is easily answered," said she. "Give me some tea and you'll be sorry that you asked."

"And what is the second thing which perplexes you?" asked Oliver Ransom.

Mr. Ricardo pointed a finger towards the disappearing form of Guy Stallard.

"There are two heads to that perplexity," he said, making light of it, but rather heavily. "First, where have I seen Mr. Stallard before? Secondly, why do I feel that his American accent is somehow incongruous?"

They turned down to the right and passed through the Place d'Armee towards Ricardo's hotel. At the corner by the salt granary, Oliver Ransom stopped.

"Perhaps, Mr. Ricardo, you will find the answers to those two questions yourself," he said very gravely. "I hope that you will, and that you will tell me what they are."

"Of course, of course," Mr. Ricardo replied.

He was being made uncomfortable, and he disliked discomfort. He looked at Lydia Flight. She was listening to her companion with a look of apprehension on her face. There was something behind this pleasure-party on the house-boat which had nothing to do with pleasure at all. Mr. Ricardo recalled with relief that he had read in that morning's paper that his friend Hanaud—Inspecteur Principal of the Sûreté Generale—was at Havre, investigating a case of incendiarism in one of the great French liners of that port. And from Caudebec to Havre was a matter of thirty-four miles in a car.