Читать книгу The Amazing Partnership - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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“For you, sir.”

The train was already moving out of Charing Cross Station when a man suddenly thrust his arm in at the carriage window and threw a piece of folded paper on to Pryde’s knee. He was gone in a moment, undistinguishable in the crowd. The message consisted only of a few lines:

The escort of the lady will travel under the name of Mr. de Paton.

The information was useful. Two hours later the boat-train was backed into the harbour station. Pryde sat on a seat and watched. Presently a guard came along with a little handful of labels. When he had finished his task, Pryde strolled along the platform inspecting them. There was a compartment reserved, as he had expected, for Mr. de Paton. It was still half an hour before the boat was due, and there were very few people about. Pryde looked into the carriage and tried the door. It was locked. The guard came by a moment or two later.

“That carriage is engaged, sir,” he remarked. “Plenty of room, if you are going on. Shall I find you a seat, sir?”

Pryde nodded.

“I should like one in the next carriage to this,” he said. “By the by, have you locked the door on the other side of this engaged compartment?”

The guard glanced at his questioner curiously. Pryde slipped five shillings into his hand.

“Don’t!” he begged. “An affair of a young lady. I may get in at the town station.”

The man smiled and touched his hat. “I’ll see to it, sir,” he promised.

Pryde, leaning over the rails a few yards away from the quay, watched the lights of the approaching steamer. There was a strong wind blowing and a little drizzling rain, a flavour of salt in the air, a sense of excitement, stimulating, mysterious. Nearer and nearer the steamer came. The ropes were thrown, she was gradually drawn in to the side of the dock. The gangway was lowered, the little stream of people began to disembark. Pryde stood apart amongst the shadows at the end of the train. He had only the vaguest idea as to what he was to do. He was to abduct a lady forcibly from an escort of two men, probably prepared, possibly even armed. It was useless to make plans; to trust to chance and his quick wits seemed his only alternative. The first thing was to discover her. The boat was crowded, and for some time Pryde was kept on the alert. When, however, they did come off, amongst the last to leave the boat, the little party was easily distinguishable. The woman in brown walked in the middle. A tall, slim man, unmistakably foreign, black-haired, wearing an eye-glass, walked on one side; a shorter, thick-set man in a fur overcoat, with his hands in his pockets, on the other. The woman was closely veiled.

They came into the illumination of a little shaft of light. The thick-set man swung round. His features, coarse, dominant, remarkable, were suddenly disclosed. Pryde was conscious of a catch in his throat, a strange dizziness. The man’s heavy face seemed to be grinning at him through the gloom—Feldemay!

Pryde, a moment later, was perfectly cool. His mind was centred upon his present enterprise. There was Feldemay to outwit—Feldemay, apparently unconscious that an enemy was watching him from there amongst the shadows. The little party of three passed on and stood in a line before the long counter where small baggage was being examined. Nothing was looked at. Once more they moved, this time towards the train. Pryde’s heart was beating fast as he followed. Then the woman dropped the bag which she was carrying. Feldemay walked stolidly on. Her other companion, too, seemed unconscious of what had happened. Pryde slipped into the latter’s place.

“Sit on the right-hand side of the train,” he whispered. “Allow me,” he went on, in a louder tone, stooping and restoring the bag.

Both of her companions swung round, but Pryde had already disappeared. He watched them from the window of his compartment, into which he had slipped unobserved. They all three stood talking upon the platform, Feldemay gesticulating excitedly, the woman immovable, the other man nervous. Pryde sat back in his corner and held a newspaper in front of his face. There was nothing more to be done for the moment.

The train left at last; Pryde rose to his feet as they jolted out of the station. He was alone in the compartment. He stood up. He had preparations to make. Everything depended upon his luck. The train came to a standstill at the town station. He alighted at once and stood waiting. He selected his moment with great care. The train was on the point of starting again, the whistle was already in the guard’s lips. Suddenly Pryde threw open the door of the compartment in which the woman and her two companions were travelling. His accusing finger shot out. He had the appearance of a man beside himself with anger.

“At last!” he shouted. “Feldemay, you blackguard!”

The woman was seated nearest to the window, Feldemay opposite her, the other man on the opposite side of the carriage. Feldemay seemed absolutely paralysed. He cowered back in his place. The woman edged to her feet. She was bewildered, but she kept her eyes fixed upon Pryde.

“I’ve found you at last!” Pryde exclaimed, making as though he would enter the carriage. “You robber!”

Feldemay was slowly coming to himself. The train was moving. The guard was running up from behind.

“Stand away, there!”

Pryde’s hand was upon the woman’s wrist. She jumped just as Feldemay made a grab for her. Pryde banged the door and locked it with a key which he had kept secreted in his pocket. A moment or two later he was surrounded by a little group of porters, a policeman, and the station-master. The train was gliding away from the platform. Two furious men, leaning out of the window, were shouting and gesticulating. Pryde shook his fist at them and addressed the station-master.

“I am sorry to cause any disturbance,” he said calmly. “This is entirely a family matter. The young lady is my sister. I am taking her home.”

They turned to her. She was closely veiled, but she was obviously of an age to speak for herself.

“It is quite true,” she murmured in a low tone. “I am sorry to have given so much trouble. It was not altogether my fault.”

The station-master took down Pryde’s name and address. Pryde, with his hand upon the woman’s arm, hurried away, a few moments later, towards the exit. A hundred yards or so outside the station the train was slowly drawing to a standstill, the alarm signal ringing violently.

“Where are we?” the woman murmured. “What are we going to do?”

“There should be a motor-car here,” Pryde answered quickly. “I hope to Heaven it’s ready!”

They were in the yard. A big car stood only a few yards from the principal entrance, its engine already purring. Pryde almost pushed his companion in. Already there was another disturbance upon the platform. The arrested train was still in sight, a serpent of lights come to a standstill along the line. They could see men running down the bank.

“Quick! Get her started!” Pryde shouted. “Quick!”

It was an admonition entirely unnecessary. The car seemed to slip away into fourth speed almost at a touch. They flew through the town; the streets flashed by. Pryde leaned back in his place with a little breath of relief.

“By Jove, we’ve done it!” he exclaimed.

They were climbing the hill and out of the town. The country loomed up before them, a dim patchwork of fields starred here and there with lights. The woman raised her veil for the first time. She had a quantity of dark brown hair, regular features, and the quality of her voice was delightful. But the frozen look of fear lay like a mask upon her face.

“Can’t we go faster,” she murmured—“much faster? Look behind.”

Pryde obeyed her, but drew in his head again almost immediately. “We are going over thirty miles an hour,” he said, “and we have a start. Nothing will catch us.”

She shivered. “How can one tell? How far is it?”

“To where?”

“To where we are going—to where he waits.”

“I do not know,” he replied.

She looked at him fixedly. “Who are you?”

“No one you ever heard of before,” he assured her. “My name is Pryde. I am only an instrument in this affair.”

“But you know Feldemay! He is the worst of them all. He is the Robespierre of my country!”

“I met him by chance,” Pryde answered. “He robbed me once. It was in the days before he touched politics.”

They rushed on through the darkness, for a time, in silence. The woman leaned back as though weary, her eyes closed. Then the car seemed to jolt and slacken speed. She sprang up, terrified. They had stopped in the road. The chauffeur, on his way to the back of the car, thrust his head for a moment through the open window. He kept his face turned away, although he was entirely unrecognisable through his motor-glasses and cap.

“A puncture,” he announced shortly. “I can fix a wheel in a matter of three minutes.”

“Oh! hurry—please hurry!” the woman prayed.

The man stepped backwards with a low and respectful bow. For several minutes he worked silently. The woman all the time was peering out. The rain had ceased and some faint glimmerings of moonlight lay upon the immediate landscape. The shapes of the hedges were defined, the lights from a distant farmhouse were dimly visible. Suddenly she started.

“Listen!”

The sound of a motor-car driven beyond its proper speed was distinctly audible. The woman gripped the side of the window. “Tell him to go on—to go on, anyhow,” she begged. “Don’t let them catch us!”

The chauffeur was working with furious haste at the side of the car. Pryde sprang out and made his way to the bend of the road round which they had come. The pursuing car, recklessly driven, was close at hand. They could even hear the knocking of its engine. Pryde thrust his hand into his overcoat pocket and drew out the revolver which he had destined to so different a use only a few hours ago. The twin lights of the approaching motor-car were now within twenty paces of him. He took steady aim and fired. There was a crashing of glass, a shout of anger, the jarring of brakes, and then a bump as the car, missing the bend, caught the ditch with its near wheel. His own chauffeur was now blowing his horn furiously. Pryde ran lightly back and sprang into his seat. The woman clutched his arm.

“What have you done?” she cried.

“Shot out their lights,” Pryde answered coolly. “They missed the turn and ran into the hedge. I don’t think any of them are badly hurt. In any case, it had to be done. It’s better than having a scrimmage in the road.”

The woman glanced at him approvingly. Her thin lips quivered, her eyes were soft.

“They chose well when they sent you,” she murmured.

Once more his companion sat back in her place, her hands clasped together, her eyes half closed. Pryde watched the road, glancing occasionally behind. At last came signs that they were approaching the end of their journey. They had turned off the main road and seemed to be making their way through a park. On either side of the open road were rolling slopes, with here and there a gigantic oak-tree. They passed over a bridge, through a wood, and along another winding stretch of avenue. Suddenly a bank of clouds passed away from the face of the moon. They were rapidly approaching a great mansion, from many of the windows of which, notwithstanding the hour, lights were shining.

“We seem to have arrived somewhere,” Pryde said softly.

Her hand touched his shoulder. Then he knew that she had not really been resting. He could feel the fever of her finger-tips.

“Courage,” she whispered, her voice shaking with emotion. “There is history to be made here, if only the fates are kind.”

The car came to a standstill. The door was thrown open long before their approach. A servant in black livery hurried out to receive them. Two others were in the background. On the threshold Mr. John Picardo, with a very strange expression on his face, stood waiting. The woman gave him her hand, which he raised reverently to his lips.

“It is a miracle,” he murmured.

She answered him only with a little gesture of the hand towards Pryde. Then Picardo turned to lead the way. Not a word was spoken. The butler had preceded them up a splendid staircase; their footsteps were noiseless. A curious but an apparent desire for silence was noticeable in all their movements. Arrived on the first floor, they passed along a spacious corridor and entered a dimly lit room. There was a murmur of voices. Someone turned on a flood of electric light. Pryde could scarcely resist a little gasp of amazement. It was like a tableau. There was something unreal and dreamlike about the grouping. Supported on either side by attendants, a middle-aged man had staggered up from a low chair to greet them. His forehead was bandaged, one arm was in a sling. He leaned heavily upon a crutch. By his side was a grey-haired woman in the garb of a Sister of Mercy. A few yards away an English clergyman was sitting with a black bag on his knees. Everyone seemed to be watching the meeting between the man and the woman.

“Mary!” he cried. “My wife!”

His arm was round her. They spoke together a few brief, excited sentences in a tongue which was strange to Pryde.

“Quickly!” the woman sobbed. “Oh, quickly!”

The man spoke to the clergyman, who at once picked up his bag. They turned towards the door. At a gesture from Picardo, Pryde followed.

They descended the stairs and hurried across the hall and along the corridor. The man, whose head and arm were bandaged, and who seemed to be suffering from the result of some terrible accident, moved with difficulty. More than once a sob of pain, half choked, broke from his lips. Once he clutched at the air and seemed about to fall. They would have stopped for his sake, but he only shook his head.

“On!” he ordered. “I can bear it.”

They reached an iron-studded door, which the servant in front unlocked, and passed into a small church, lit by some swinging lamps. Picardo turned the lock after them and took up his stand like a sentry, with his hand in the loose pocket of his coat. The clergyman hurried into the vestry, returning, a moment or two later, surpliced. Picardo beckoned to Pryde.

“Watch the window,” he muttered. “To-night you are our man.”

Pryde nodded and stood in the shadows of the church, his hand closed upon the butt of his revolver. The spirit of the adventurer was upon him. He was for his side. All the time he could hear a faint mumble from the chancel, nothing distinct, no names, nothing but the position of the people to indicate that it was a wedding ceremony.

The dreaded interruption never came. It was all over. The little party came down the aisle. Picardo unlocked the door. The bridegroom was looking ghastly ill and swaying upon his feet. Yet more than once he tried to force a smile. They passed along the corridor and came once more to the hall. A rush of cold wind met them. The front door was open. Feldemay, splashed with mud from head to foot, had just entered. There were others behind him. Picardo stepped promptly forward.

“Feldemay,” he said, “you can go back to those who sent you and tell them what you have seen. You are too late.”

“Too late for what?” Feldemay roared.

The man who seemed to be fighting for his life shook himself free on one side from his attendants. His hand shot out towards Feldemay. He had the air of a king.

“Baron Feldemay,” he said, “you come in time to hear the truth from my lips. You may go back and tell those who sent you what you have seen. The English Church has spoken, and the child of Mary, my wife, shall reign over my kingdom, even though your assassins complete their work upon me.”

Feldemay presented the spectacle of a man livid with passion, speechless with rage. “It is illegal!” he shouted.

“You lie,” Picardo answered. “The ceremony has taken place by special licence. This clergyman is an ordained priest. No Act of Parliament your friends can frame can unhallow a marriage sanctioned now by both Churches.”

Feldemay turned with sudden fierceness towards Pryde. “So you are the pawn whom they have chosen to rob a country of its freedom! It is well that I know you. It is very well indeed!”

The little procession passed on. At the foot of the stairs the woman turned to Pryde.

“You have done more to-night than you understand, sir,” she said. “Some day I hope that a nation may be moved to thank you—as I do now.” She slipped a ring from the finger of the hand which she had offered him to kiss, and gave it to Pryde as she turned away. Picardo hurried him towards the door, where the car was still waiting.

“To London,” he exclaimed, “as fast as you can! You have nothing to fear. Only keep a still tongue in your head. The history which you have seen made to-night is the history of which one does not speak.” He thrust a substantial-looking pocket-book into Pryde’s hands. “The little woman spoke the truth,” he continued in a lower tone. “You were the man we needed.”

“I may not ask——” Pryde began.

Picardo stamped his foot. With both hands he almost pushed his questioner into the car. He stood there bare-headed, his cheeks flushed with excitement, his outstretched hand pointing northward.

“Away with you,” he ordered, “to London.”

Dawn broke, grey and misty, before they reached London. It was half-past eight when Pryde paused for a moment outside the door of the room on the third floor. He knocked. A voice bade him enter. Miss Grace Burton was seated before a round table drawn up near the fire, helping herself to coffee. She saw him enter without the slightest change of countenance.

“You are just in time,” she said composedly, “I will make some more coffee.”

He closed the door behind him and came into the room. It was as though she had been expecting him.

“You succeeded?” she asked calmly.

“I succeeded,” he replied.

She stopped for a moment with the coffee-pot in her hand, and turned slowly round. “The marriage?” she asked.

“Took place last night.”

She nodded gravely. “You must be tired,” she remarked.

“There is one thing greater than my fatigue,” he said, as he took the chair which she pointed out, “and that is my curiosity.”

She shook her head gently. “Curiosity,” she murmured, “leads us so often into trouble.”

“But at least,” he protested, “you could tell me just a little, couldn’t you?”

She poured out his coffee. “You recognised some of the characters in your little adventure, I suppose?” she asked.

“Naturally,” he replied.

“You and all Europe know of the troubles of those two unfortunate people,” she went on. “The king will die. His wound is mortal. He may die at any moment. They would never have allowed him to escape from the country if they had not been assured of it. Last week their Parliament declared that the marriage between the king and the queen, having only been celebrated in the Roman Church, was illegal. There will be a child. It was the scheme of Feldemay to render it illegitimate.”

Pryde drank his coffee and thought he had never tasted anything more delicious. “I have a pocketful of notes,” he remarked, “half of which belong to you.”

She shook her head. “You will please not suggest such a thing,” she said firmly. “But, if you choose, listen to what I have to propose. There are many who seek my help in affairs impossible for me. I have the gift of sometimes seeing into the heart of a mystery, but I cannot always act, because I am a woman, and because there is no man whom I trust. If you care to become my partner——”

Pryde leaned across the table and took her hand. She snatched it away. There seemed to be no change in her face, but her tone was ominous.

“Perhaps it is as well that you should have done that,” she declared. “The arrangement which I am proposing is purely a business one. If you do not feel that you can make up your mind to forget my sex completely, to remember only that we are partners—nothing more or less—in these various issues that may present themselves, then leave me this morning and forget what I have said.”

Pryde was silent for a moment. She sat looking at him, very still, very cold, very fascinating in her queer, childish way. She pushed the fair hair back from her forehead. It was a curiously feminine gesture, but her expression never changed.

“I accept your terms,” Pryde announced.

She nodded graciously. “Then I will give you another cup of coffee. I think you are very wise to accept my offer. The world, even in this little corner of it, even looking at it as we do, is a very wonderful place if only one keeps one’s eyes open. Have you ever wondered how many people you see in the course of an ordinary day?”

Stephen Pryde shook his head. “Never thought of it,” he admitted.

“But, after all,” she went on thoughtfully, “why should you? Numbers do not count for much. Take only my little seat in the restaurant where I so often lunch and dine. There are enough people in that room to make up a human problem. I wonder how many would be content to turn their lives inside out and show us everything. ... Am I talking rubbish, I wonder?” she went on, slowly stirring her coffee. “Yet I should like you to remember this. Interest in your fellow-creatures is a sentiment which, if you only minister to it, may become almost a passion. Our career almost demands that it becomes a passion. It is because I am always looking at people, and placing them in their lives, and wondering, that I think I have gained a little insight.”

“I will be your pupil,” he murmured.

She looked at him doubtfully. His expression, however, was perfectly grave.

“The little I know you will doubtless soon acquire,” she said. “What is chiefly necessary in our partnership, though, is your sex. In an affair like last night’s I should have been useless. There are times when I must plan and you must execute.”

“The rest of my life,” he assured her gravely, “is at your service.”