Читать книгу Grey Shapes - E. Charles Vivian - Страница 6

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The floor boards of the room were old as time, with wide cracks between them, and the floor sloped as, in a past age, the foundations of the house had settled. The furniture was plainly Jacobean, all but the full-length mirror, which, Gees decided, was more probably Tudor, re-silvered. There was a press in which he dared not hang his clothes lest he should never find them again, so vast it was. And, like the floor, the ceiling beams were black with age.

He made a final adjustment of his tie before the mirror: the electric light by which he had dressed was incongruous in such an apartment, and he could hear the engine, by which in all probability the light was provided, pulsing somewhere. Beat, beat—miss—beat—miss—beat, beat, beat. Suction gas plant, he decided, and, opening his door, switched off the light and passed along the corridor until he came to the head of the staircase. There, for a moment or two, he paused.

The staircase itself was magnificent. Wide stairs curved down to the big entrance hall of Dowlandsbar, and there was a balustrade which was pure renaissance, black, like the floor and ceiling beams in his room, with age, and so delicately carved as to appear the work of a Cellini or Da Vinci. The hall into which he gazed as he stood, for the moment unnoticed by the people occupying it, had an oaken floor black and old as the rest of the house's woodwork that he had seen so far, and there were rugs, and little tables, and a great fireplace inside which Tyrrell stood warming himself at a log fire, while, nearly facing him, stood a man and a woman who for the period of this little pause absorbed all Gees' attention.

The man, he decided, was somewhere in the fifties, and stood well over six feet in height. His hair was iron grey, as was the half of moustache that Gees could see—both the man and woman were in profile to him. Of greyhound leanness, and with an almost regal pose, the man accentuated his own height. Tyrrell was tall, as was Gees himself, but this man appeared to stand over him, look down on him—such was the impression Gees gathered in this first view—and the profile was hawk-like, finely, even beautifully molded. An arresting type, this man, and, if his mentality were equal to his appearance, one worth knowing.

And the woman, at a first glance, would be about the same age, for her hair was snow-white, a crown of little ripples that shone softly, like old satin in the lighting of the big hall. Gees saw her more nearly three-quarter face than in profile, and saw that, like the man, she had classically fine features—gazing down from his height, he could not see their eyes—with richly red lips almost too full for such a face, and daintily molded chin over a neck that Praxiteles might have rejoiced to model. She too was of unusual height, almost as tall as Gees himself, and very slenderly-fashioned, with beautiful, ringless hands. "Give her a bow and arrow," said Gees to himself as he began to descend the stairs, "and there's Artemis—in grey crêpe-de- chine or something of the sort. But what a pair!"

But, as he faced her and was introduced to Gyda McCoul, he found his estimate of her age was wrong—the white hair had misled him as he had looked down, for she was obviously still in her twenties. Her eyes were amber and green—he could never determine their real color, or whether they were green-flecked amber or amber-flecked green. Either way, they completed as bizarre an attractiveness as he had ever seen, though, as for a moment he took her hand, he felt a sense of—was it fear? Or was it that faint thrill that comes with the sight and realization of something utterly new, an unhoped experience to be faced? He could not tell, and he turned for his introduction to the man and met the gaze of a pair of eyes as nearly black as any he had seen. Here again was new experience: McCoul's eyes held all the fire and light of youth, while his faintly-lined face was that of one who has known all things—the face of a disillusioned cynic and old, past belief.

These were first impressions, and then Tyrrell spoke:

"Mr. Green has driven all the way from London, so he ought to be the hungriest of us all, if he isn't. But it's poured ready for you, Green." And, with the final statement, he indicated a cocktail glass on the occasional table by the corner of the fireplace—the others, as Gees noted, already had their glasses in their hands.

"I don't know that I'm superlatively hungry," he said as he took up the glass and turned again to face the woman—or girl, perhaps. "At present, I'm rather lost in amazement over this miracle of a house. The little I've seen of it so far, that is. What do you think of it, Miss McCoul? Don't you envy him his collection of antiques?"

"She need not," Tyrrell put in, before she could reply.

"But I do," she said, after a brief pause in which Gees took in Tyrrell's remark and prayed that he himself was not destined to act alone in the matter of the sheep while his host went love- making. And she smiled, revealing perfectly-even, shining white teeth.

"From London in a day," McCoul remarked, and Gees glanced at him to meet the gaze of his uncannily dark eyes—so dark that there was no distinguishing between iris and pupil. "I wonder what the legionaries marching north to the wall would have thought of it?"

"We are not far from the old Roman wall, I suppose?" Gees inquired.

"It's a goodish step," Tyrrell told him. "Mr. Green has come here to help me with my sheep mystery," he explained to the other two. "To put an end to the trouble, I hope. Two more killed last night, Green—"

A voice from the side of the hall announcing that dinner was served interrupted him, and the four of them passed through a doorway under the staircase to a dining-room lighted only by the candles on the table, and, like all the rest that Gees had seen of the house, furnished in a way that would have made an antique- collector choke with jealousy. As they seated themselves, Tyrrell looked at Gees.

"Very plain feeding, you'll find," he observed. "My cook is no Brillat-Savarin. You're in the wilds, here—all primitive."

It was difficult of belief, Gees felt as he glanced at Gyda McCoul's grey dinner frock, and then at her father's perfectly- tailored jacket. A dumpily-built maid waited on them, and evinced good training as she did it. But for the absence of a waiter in tails, they might have been in one of the better class London restaurants, and both soup and fish were as good as the service and table appointments. A remark by Gees set them all talking of place names—Oswaldstwhistle, Odder, Much Hadham, Nether Wallop, Wig-Wig, and other curiosities of naming, provided light chatter through which Gees observed that neither McCoul nor his daughter appeared to appreciate the really good plain cooking of the first two courses. Then the maid placed a dish before Tyrrell, and, removing the cover, revealed a large joint of beef.

"Plain fare, Green, as I warned you," Tyrrell observed. "Also as a warning, it's underdone—very, because—well!" He gave Gyda McCoul a glance which said she would understand and appreciate what he meant.

"Specially for me and my father," she said, with pleasure in her voice. "Oh, but you shouldn't, Mr. Tyrrell! Quite possibly Mr. Green doesn't like it as underdone as we do—do you, Mr. Green?"

"You can save a spot of the outside when it comes my turn, Tyrrell," Gees counseled. In actuality, he hated underdone meat.

Then he watched, and saw red slices—half-raw, they looked to him—laid on the plates of the other two, while Tyrrell reserved a portion of more fully cooked meat for himself and Gees. And there was a hard glitter in McCoul's black eyes as he looked down at the plate set before him: he may not have been hungry at the beginning of the meal, but, if his expression went for anything, he was avid for that red flesh, and the girl, too, seemed to rouse to greater appreciation of her meal. Tyrrell, himself, like Gees, took an outside cut.

"I did remark that I lost two more last night, didn't I?" he asked as he helped himself to vegetables.

"You did," Gees assented. "I suppose you fold them at night since this trouble started? Or do you leave them out and take the risk?"

"Oh, they're folded, of course," Tyrrell answered, as if surprised at the question, "and Cottrill—that's my shepherd— he's kept watch night after night, but nothing happens the nights he's on watch. Then, immediately he relaxes—the very first night he thinks the trouble is over—two more are killed. Always two— it's not the promiscuous harrying and mangling you usually get when a dog takes to sheep-worrying, but just two carcasses, and no trace of what did it. More beef, Mr. McCoul?"

"I will have another slice, thanks," McCoul assented, and Gees took his plate to pass it while Tyrrell carved red, dripping stuff, nauseating to Gees' sight. It was not merely underdone, but almost raw.

"And you, Miss McCoul?" Tyrrell asked, poising his carving knife.

"Yes, thank you, even at the risk of being thought greedy."

Again Tyrrell carved, and Gees got a glimpse of the girl's teeth—beautiful, even teeth, between full, red lips that needed no artificial coloring. She was innocent of make-up of any kind, Gees decided, except for the powder that all women use.

"Always two, eh?" Gees observed, and shook his head as Tyrrell gestured the invitation of a second helping at him. He emptied his glass, and the maid refilled it with a burgundy that bespoke a fine taste in vintages and careful ageing. "Clockwork regularity."

"A fiendish sort of instinct," Tyrrell amended, "as if there were more than instinct in it—some human knowledge behind the mad things that do this. I've sat up all night with a gun, and Mr. McCoul has kept watch with me several times this summer, but— nothing. No sign of trouble, as long as there's anyone about, and Cottrill is getting tired of constantly folding the sheep in fine weather. It's no joke, rounding up the flock on these hills night after night—and to no purpose."

"Except that you might have lost more, if you didn't," Gees said.

"There is that, of course," Tyrrell assented moodily.

"Are you an expert at this sort of thing, Mr. Green?" the girl asked.

"Well, my father has a little place in Shropshire—runs one of the few surviving herds of aurochs on it, and some sheep," Gees explained, though he hated the sight of the general's Shropshire estate. "I would hardly call myself an expert—just cognizant, say."

"General Sir George Green, that is?" McCoul asked interestedly.

"Why, yes—he is ex-service," Gees answered, "though most men of his age are, nowadays. Why, do you know him, sir?"

McCoul shook his head. "The aurochs," he explained. "I had the pleasure of seeing the herd, once. No, I have not met your father."

"Oh, Mr. Green!" Gyda McCoul laughed, and something in the laugh reminded Gees of the sound he had made as a child by tapping pendent glass lusters with a long nail. "A little place, you call it. I was there with my father to see the aurochs, and it's a wonderful estate!"

"That's exactly what the income-tax people think," he conceded without enthusiasm, "which makes my father's life one long strain on two ends that refuse to meet. An estate is the very deuce, and when my turn comes to inherit—heaven keep it away and the old chap alive for years yet—I shall sell it and give the aurochs to the Zoo, or something."

"Then you must be the Mr. Green who calls himself Gees—the one who became famous over the Kestwell case?" McCoul suggested.

Gees gave him a steady stare, and not a friendly one—it was not McCoul he hated at that moment, but himself, for betraying his identity, and Tyrrell for revealing his purpose in being here to these people.

"Quite accidentally," he said. "I didn't do anything, really."

"Enough to make me feel you'd be the man to save the rest of my sheep," Tyrrell put in. "Though there's no similarity in the cases, of course—Anarchists, or whatever you like to call that gang you ran to earth, are not exactly like mad dogs with extra intelligence."

"I fail to see any difference," Gees dissented.

He saw McCoul nod appreciation of his remark. The talk flowed on, and all the while Gees watched and studied this amazing pair. For they were amazing: there was a vitality about McCoul which belonged to a world-beating athlete in his early twenties rather than to a grey-headed man with a grown-up daughter, and the girl herself, equally vital and alive, betrayed ever and again a range of knowledge and worldly-wisdom more characteristic of a middle- aged woman than one of her age. And in the mellow light of the candles, that white hair of hers was like ripples of purest sea- foam on wave crests, and her eyes deepened to a darkness that was more amethyst and emerald than mere amber and green—Gees saw or imagined a wistful tenderness in them, once, as she gazed across at Tyrrell, and felt anew that he must go dog-hunting alone.

"Gyda?" he echoed the name after McCoul had spoken it in addressing her. "What an unusual name—unusually attractive, I mean."

"A corruption of Bridget," McCoul explained as she smiled at Gees. "Or rather, of Brigid, which is the form I prefer."

"And I suppose you trace descent from Finn McCoul?" Gees half- asked, with the very faintest hint of amusement in the query.

"There is no reason why Finn should have been given more prominence than many others," McCoul said with a frown. "We were kings in Ireland before the O'Neills had won to chieftainship."

"Was Eochaid one of the family?" Gees inquired thoughtfully.

"Eochaid?" Gyda fired out the name sharply, almost fearfully.

He gave her a steady look. "Married Etain of the fairy folk," he said, "and had his year. Dalua warned him at the start, I believe—the whole story has been told by Fiona McLeod, which is how I know."

"I see." She relaxed, patently relieved by the explanation, and McCoul gave an audible sigh, as might a man after passing a dangerous moment. Tyrrell offered liqueurs, and a discussion of the relative merits of Cointreau and old liqueur brandy swept away a brief but not less real tension. For a moment, Gees knew, Gyda McCoul had been definitely afraid. Of what, he questioned inwardly?