Читать книгу The Amazing Partnership - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 5

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Stephen Pryde, with five hundred pounds in the bank, started life afresh. He began by returning to his regular routine, temporarily interfered with by the loss of his money. He played golf on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, fenced on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and played auction bridge during those afternoons at his club. On Saturdays he took a holiday. After about a month, however, he became conscious of a distinct slackening of interest in these pursuits. His late plunge into the more adventurous life had unsettled him. He began to hang about the police courts, to scrape acquaintance with the smaller fry amongst the detectives. He developed theories of his own about criminology. He visited prisons and talked with suspected men. He became a voluminous reader of a certain type of literature. He even haunted the neighbourhood in which famous crimes had been committed. He began also about the same time to haunt Grace Burton’s rooms, but on the third occasion of his presenting himself there uninvited she spoke to him very firmly and very plainly.

“I have no work to suggest to you just now, Mr. Pryde. I am engaged myself on a purely feminine and unimportant investigation. When anything turns up, I shall send for you at once.”

“But I am bored to death,” Pryde protested. “I am sick of golf and cricket and bridge. I can’t settle down to anything.”

“That,” she answered composedly, “is without doubt the price which you must pay for having led an idle life.”

“Come and dine with me somewhere this evening and do a theatre,” he begged.

She looked at him with the faintest possible uplifting of her smooth young forehead. The brown eyes, too, seemed a little surprised.

“Thank you, no,” she replied coldly.

“Why not?” he persisted.

“Mr. Pryde,” she said, “to be perfectly frank with you, you must not expect that sort of companionship from me.”

Pryde felt unreasonably disappointed. He looked at her for a moment steadfastly. She had pushed her chair a little away from the desk, and was leaning back in it. Her simple black dress was not even fashionably made. Her fluffy hair was brushed severely back. Her feet—and she had, without doubt, pretty feet—were encased in too thick shoes. There was not a bow or ribbon anywhere about her.

“I don’t see why you choose to keep to yourself so much,” he continued, a little doggedly.

“You must let my wishes be sufficient reason,” she declared. “I am accustomed to going about by myself. I prefer it.”

“At any moment,” he pointed out, “we might be working together. It would be an advantage to both of us to be better acquainted.”

“That may come by degrees,” she replied. “You will excuse me now, please. I am busy.”

Pryde went away, dissatisfied, and walked into the arms of adventure. He had barely issued from the doorway of the building in which he and Grace Burton both lived before he was conscious that the street was in some sort of commotion. From out of sight round the corner of New Oxford Street he could hear the blowing of whistles, a hoarse tumult of voices. Along the main thoroughfare traffic had stopped. Everyone seemed to have come to a standstill in their places, watching. A taxicab driver had sprung from his cab and was running forward as though to intercept someone. Pryde saw him sent head over heels into the gutter by an unseen hand. Then round the corner appeared a man, running. He had left the more crowded thoroughfare, with a sudden turn, and he came straight towards Pryde.

The man ran as one who runs for his life. He was about fifty yards away when he turned the corner, and he approached with incredible swiftness. As he drew nearer, Pryde gained a vivid but lightning-like impression of his appearance. His face was long, his cheeks lean and narrow, his eyes protuberant. His mouth was open; the breath was coming in short, quick gasps between his teeth. He was hatless, but otherwise his attire seemed to be like that of a clerk or some person in a moderate position. Foremost amongst his pursuers, and gaining upon him rapidly, was a tall, fair-haired man. He, too, was hatless, and he had apparently thrown away his coat during the chase. A thin stream of blood was trickling down his face from a wound upon his forehead. His cheeks were deathly pale, his eyes were blazing. He had outstripped the policeman by several yards, and already his hand was stealing out as though to make a spring towards his quarry. Pryde had a matter of ten seconds during which to make up his mind as to his course of action. He was something of an athlete and it would have been perfectly easy for him to have tripped or held up the flying man. To do so was his first impulse. He changed his mind through some inexplicable instinct. He stepped backwards and the man fled past him. They were so close that the man’s coat brushed his as he flashed by. Suddenly he was conscious that something heavy had been dropped into his overcoat pocket. It was all over in a moment. The chase was ended. Pursuer and pursued lay together upon the pavement. A dozen yards farther on a man in a dark overcoat and bowler hat was looking, not at the tragedy at his feet, but at Pryde.

A crowd collected almost at once. Pryde, with his fingers clasped around something cold and strange and heavy in his pocket, remained upon the outskirts. The tall, fair man was with difficulty induced to release his clutch from the other’s throat. He was dragged away like a dog. The man upon whom he had sprung lay white and still. A policeman was kneeling by his side.

“Who are they? What’s it all about?” Pryde asked a loiterer who was elbowing his way towards the front.

“Big jewellery robbery this afternoon in Hatton Garden,” the man replied. “They say this is one of the Human Four gang. The chap who caught him was robbed of fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of jewels last year by them.”

The figure on the pavement remained motionless. There was a little murmur. Soon an ambulance arrived. A whisper went round that he was dead. Pryde slowly backed out from the throng and re-entered the block of buildings from which he had just issued. A man who had been standing within a few paces of him followed. Pryde made his way up three flights of stairs and knocked at the door of Grace Burton’s rooms. She moved away from the window as she saw him upon the threshold.

“You have been looking out, then?” he exclaimed. “You saw?”

She nodded.

“I saw everything.”

“Who are the Human Four?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“Just a gang of murderers,” she told him. “They have terrorised half London by their melodramatic tricks. Was this man downstairs really one of them?”

“No one seemed to know for certain,” Pryde replied. “They spoke of a big jewel robbery in Hatton Garden.”

The girl listened for a moment. She held out her finger. Then with swift footsteps she crossed the room and softly turned the key in the lock.

“What is it?” he asked.

She came up to his side before she answered.

“I think,” she whispered, “that someone followed you up the stairs. I think that there is someone outside now. Tell me, what was it that that man slipped into your overcoat pocket as you stood down there?”

He started. “You saw that?”

“I was at the window,” she assented. “I heard the policemen’s whistles.”

He drew the object from his overcoat pocket.

“My God!” he exclaimed. “Look! Look at it!”

The girl was silent. It seemed to be a little idol which he held for a moment in his hand and then set down on the table opposite to them. It was the image of a man squatting upon the ground—a man with long, low forehead, small features, and great eyes. His lips were parted in a hideous smile. There was a strange leer upon the chiselled features.

“What a hateful-looking object!” Pryde muttered.

The girl’s eyes were fixed steadily upon it. There was little expression in her face, but he could see that she was interested.

“Look at its hand,” she murmured. “See how he holds it out, four fingers in front of his face—the Human Four!”

“You think it has something to do with those fellows?” he exclaimed.

“I am sure of it,” she answered. “Listen.”

They both turned their heads towards the door. She held up her finger. From outside came the sound of soft footsteps passing backwards and forwards. Each time they passed the door they hesitated.

“Step outside and see who is there,” she whispered.

He obeyed. This block of flats in which both of them had chanced to have taken up their temporary abode was entirely unpretentious in character. The stairs and landing were of cemented stone, the balustrade of iron. Pryde stood upon the threshold and looked out. There were four doors opposite to him, all closed; three doors on the same side, also closed. He listened. There was no sound of departing footsteps above or below. A little uneasily he closed the door and came back into the room.

“There is no one in sight,” he announced.

She beckoned him closer to her. Her finger was upon a column in the newspaper which she had been studying. He looked over her shoulder and read:

“There are many extraordinary rumours concerning a fetish in the shape of a genuine West African Juju, which these men are supposed to regard with wonderful reverence. It was brought by one of the gang, who is believed to be a Portuguese, from the west coast of Africa.”

She glanced up at him.

“Your idol,” she remarked, “without a doubt.”

Pryde nodded a little doubtfully.

“I think, perhaps,” he said, “the best thing I can do is to get rid of it. What do you say if I put it in my pocket and walk round to the nearest police station?”

She shook her head. Stretching out her hand, she took the idol up and held it at arm’s length. Pryde shivered.

“Beastly thing!” he muttered. “I never saw anything so repulsive.”

Grace made no reply. She seemed, indeed, oblivious to his words. She was holding the idol as far as possible from her face, her eyes fixed upon it. Pryde was suddenly conscious of a vague, smouldering excitement in her manner. Her lips had parted, her brown eyes were glowing, a slight flush of colour had stolen through the transparency of her skin.

“This is their mascot,” she whispered. “Can’t you understand it? Criminals—men who plan crimes on a great scale—are nearly always superstitious.”

“Then the sooner we get rid of the thing the better,” Pryde decided.

She looked unwillingly away from the idol. Her lips had curled a little; there was a shade of contempt in her tone.

“Get rid of the thing, indeed!” she repeated scornfully. “Can’t you see that this is the chance of our lives? We will keep the idol and wait. They will find out where it is. They will try to get it back again. Don’t you know that the police have been months searching for these men? We will succeed where they have failed. We have the lure here. Depend upon it, they will come.”

Pryde made no effort to affect an enthusiasm which at that time he certainly did not feel.

“Frankly,” he said, “I cannot conceive that the coming of any one of these gentlemen could possibly be an occasion for rejoicing. In the last six weeks alone they have committed four murders. All their exploits are conducted in the same manner. The moment they are in the slightest danger they shoot to kill.”

“Are you afraid?” she asked him calmly.

“Without going so far as that,” he replied, “I scarcely see how we can look forward to a series of visits of this nature with altogether pleasurable anticipations.”

She pointed to the door.

“Our partnership,” she declared, “is at an end.”

He shook his head.

“Not on your life!” he exclaimed. “If you want to invite these gentlemen to visit us, I am not going to object. I was only just pointing out the possible result. Don’t you value your own life?”

“I suppose I do,” she replied, “but, on the other hand, I have never known what fear is. I believe that I am what is called a fatalist. In the seeking of adventures fear is at all times a terrible handicap, a most unworthy consideration. If we are to be successful, my partner must share my ideas.”

Pryde for a moment hesitated. No one had ever doubted his courage, but, after all, he was human. The taste for life had crept back to him during the last few days. Then he looked into the eyes of the girl who was standing patiently by his side, and he suddenly yielded. He knew that if indeed he passed outside the door this new thing which was making life so desirable would be left behind.

“Very well,” he decided, “we will try and take these fellows ourselves, one by one, if you think that it is possible.”

“I do,” she admitted. “Somehow or other I think you will find that the risk is not quite so great as it seems. Of course, my whole idea may be wrong. They may not come at all. On the other hand, I was looking out of the window, and I saw at least three men who were watching from different points. I believe that they all know that the idol is here. I have an idea that they will risk everything to regain possession of it.”

Pryde thrust his hands into his pockets and looked at the copper image. Even he could not get away from the idea of menace in that wicked face.

“If I had it,” he declared heartily, “I should either beat it to pieces with a poker or take it out and throw it into the Serpentine. For sheer and brutal, vicious ugliness, I never in my whole life——”

She laid her hand upon his arm. They both of them turned quickly around.

There was a soft but insistent knocking upon the outside door which led directly into the apartment.

“Already!” she murmured. “Open the door.”

Pryde, with the faintest possible shrug of the shoulders, turned away. The girl watched him as he crossed the room. He walked unfalteringly, and her eyes filled with an approbation which it would have done him good to have seen. He opened the door. Standing there was the man whom he had seen a short time ago in the street below, an inoffensive-looking person, with pale, rather narrow face, a fair moustache, and hair turning grey at the extremities. He wore a black bowler hat and a long overcoat. He remained for a moment without speech.

“What do you want?” Pryde inquired.

“A word with you, sir, if you please,” the stranger replied.

He came inside without waiting for an invitation. Pryde ushered him a little farther into the room. Grace, who had been standing by the desk, went softly past them to the door. She tried the catch, and, finding it secure, returned to her place.

“What can I do for you?” Pryde asked.

The new-comer did not answer for a moment. His eyes were fixed upon the little idol. His lips were parted. He seemed to have forgotten for a moment where he was. He pointed towards it.

“Where did you get that?” he demanded.

“I brought it home from Africa,” Pryde asserted coolly. “I collect curios of that sort.”

The man never withdrew his eyes from their intent gaze.

“I, too, am a collector,” he said. “Is that image for sale?”

Pryde shook his head.

“I never sell my curios.”

There was a brief silence. The new-comer looked away at last from the object which seemed to have so greatly fascinated him. His eyes fell upon Grace. She had moved and was sitting before her typewriter, with her shoulder turned towards the two men.

“The young lady is to be trusted?” he asked quietly.

“Without a doubt,” Pryde assured him. “May I add that it is almost time that you explained the real object of your visit?”

“I am prepared to do so,” the new-comer declared. “I was standing below when I saw the man who has just been picked up dead thrust something into your overcoat pocket. I have no doubt that his eyesight was blurred. He failed to recognize you. There were several of his friends about, I amongst others. He mistook you for me. That idol is my property.”

“Then who are you?” Pryde asked.

“It is a foolish question,” the other replied. “If you knew who I was——”

He stopped short.

“We waste time,” he continued. “I recognize the rights of possession. I will give you two hundred pounds for that little figure.”

Pryde shook his head.

“Three!—five!”

Pryde continued to shake his head.

“Five hundred pounds,” his visitor said slowly, “is all the money I have with me. You naturally would not trust me, and I wish to take the idol away. Five hundred pounds, therefore, is my last offer.”

“The idol,” Pryde declared, “is not for sale.”

There was a curious light in the man’s eyes.

“Do not be foolish,” he advised softly. “Believe me, I have not risked my life for nothing. I have the money here—five hundred pounds. You can take it safely. No one but I and my friends will know that you have had the image in your possession.”

“The idol is not for sale,” Pryde repeated.

A sudden fierceness blazed in the man’s face, trembled in his tone.

“Then I shall take it!” he cried. “You have brought this upon yourself.”

His hand went into the pocket of his overcoat. Pryde, who was unarmed, was already poised on his left foot, ready to spring. Then they heard Grace Burton’s voice from her seat before the typewriter. She had swung round in her chair.

“You need not trouble to feel in your overcoat pocket,” she said calmly. “I took your pistol away as you entered. It was spoiling the fit of your coat.”

The man turned sharply round. He looked into the barrel of his own pistol, held with remarkably steady fingers by Miss Grace Burton.

“We are much obliged to you,” she remarked, “for giving us an idea of the value of this little curiosity. Have you anything more to say about it?”

The man glanced from one to the other. His face had become whiter, his eyes shone.

“What is the meaning of all this?” he demanded fiercely. “Who are you both? What do you want?”

“Neither you nor your money,” Grace replied. “You can go as soon as you please.”

The man hesitated. He looked at the idol, and again he hesitated. The girl’s finger remained upon the trigger.

“If you do not go,” she said softly, “if you make a single movement towards the image, you will see that I am in earnest.”

He looked around him with the air of a hunted man. His sense of uneasiness was growing.

“Is it a trap, this?” he muttered.

“You may find it one,” she answered, “if you stay here any longer.”

He swung round and strode across the room. Without a backward glance he opened and closed the door behind him. They heard his footsteps as he ran lightly down the stone stairs. Pryde crossed the room to where the girl was sitting. The telephone bell was ringing softly on her desk. She took up the receiver in her left hand and held it to her ear. Her right hand still clasped the handle of the pistol.

“Are you there?” she said. “Yes, you can have the first folio at once. I believe that the others will come later.... Good-bye!”

She replaced the receiver and turned round to Pryde with a curious expression in her face.

“Shall I follow him?” he asked quickly. “He must be one of the gang.”

She shook her head.

“It is not necessary. He will be arrested within a few moments or so, as soon as he is safely out of sight of this building.”

Pryde gasped. He glanced towards the telephone. She nodded.

“Oh, I am not quite mad!” she assured him. “Nor are we either of us running such a terrible risk as you think. My telephoning was a code, of course.”

“To the police?”

“To the police,” she admitted calmly. “The man who put that image into your pocket down in the street below was one of the Human Four without a doubt. The man who has just left us is another. For him, too, it is over. There are two more. The man who will be arrested below will not return to them. They will think that he has made off with the idol. Then I think that one of them will come here to make sure. The other——”

“What about the other?” Pryde demanded.

She shook her head.

“I do not know,” she said quietly. “He is the man whom they call the professor, the man who has done nearly all the killing, the man whom the police are wild to get hold of. I do not think that he will come at all.”

Pryde was still a little bewildered.

“Are there any more questions you wish to ask me?” she inquired.

“I thought,” he said, “that you were simply looking out for adventures on your own account, the sort of person who liked to help women out of small troubles. In any case, I thought that you acted independently.”

“I started like that,” she told him. “Then I came to be useful to the police. There are some of those in authority who have confidence in me. I have been concerned in one or two important matters. I had not meant to tell you so much just yet, but it is you who have stumbled into this affair to-day, so we move forward a little more rapidly than I had thought. I have a private code and a private wire from here to a certain police-station. I have also an alarm bell under my foot which rings into a single room on the ground floor where the men are waiting who will follow our last visitor. I can summon help by means of it, if necessary. You see, I am not so foolhardy as you thought. All the same, I am glad that you were not afraid.”

He looked at her in wonder. Her tone had been perfectly matter-of-fact. She had taken him into her confidence very much as she might have confessed to a secret liking for golf, or any other wholly harmless pursuit. At that moment she was inspecting the mechanism of the pistol which she had taken from their visitor’s pocket. Her face was exactly like the face of a child examining a new toy.

“Do you see what a beautiful piece of work this is?” she exclaimed, with the enthusiasm of a critic. “I have others here, but nothing so perfectly finished.”

She opened a drawer on her right. There were four pistols there and an open box of cartridges. She slipped her latest acquisition in by their side.

“I always have these where my fingers can reach them in a moment,” she explained, “although I have never used one in my life. It is not a woman’s place to fight. There are other and more delicate methods.”

He shivered. Her face for a moment had been positively cruel.

“I think,” she continued, “that you had better spend the rest of the day with me. It may be interesting. Only I am afraid that you will not be able to go as far, even, as the Café de Lugano for luncheon. Don’t you think that you had better get some cigarettes, and a book, if you want one, from your rooms, and order some luncheon to be sent in here from somewhere?”

Pryde was feeling a little like a man in a dream. He glanced at his watch; it was past one o’clock.

“Yes, I will do that,” he assented. “I wonder, though, if it is safe to leave you?”

“Quite,” she assured him. “They will wait for some time, at any rate, for their friend, who has just left us, to return. When they find that he does not, they will be suspicious, beyond a doubt; but it is my belief that they will risk everything for the sake of that little image.”

He turned and looked at it. Again the same uneasy fascination possessed him. He stretched out his hand, but she stopped him.

“Let it alone,” she begged. “I believe I am superstitious about it myself. When you come back we will examine it together. Somehow, I can’t help fancying that it means something more to these men than as yet we have rightly understood.”