Читать книгу Envoy Extraordinary - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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Nothing but their natural good breeding and a certain sense of stupefaction kept Matresser’s guests, gathered together at a fixed rendezvous within the park, in a sober frame of mind when Mr. Jan van Westrheene joined the group on Thursday morning. He seemed to disentangle himself inch by inch from the interior of the torpedo-shaped racing car which had fetched him from the harbour, until at last the whole six feet seven inches of him stood—a strange and towering figure—amongst the by no means undersized group of men which comprised the house party. His costume and outfit, too, seemed to add to the unusualness of his appearance. He wore a short double-breasted shooting coat with an enormous collar, both trimmed with thick fur, beneath which his legs, clad in tight riding breeches and gaiters, had slowly appeared, their length unduly exaggerated and the gaiters themselves overlapping a pair of wonderful Hessian boots. His hat was a dark green Homburg felt, ornamented with a row of woodcock pinfeathers on the one side and a single cock’s feather on the other. He wore an eyeglass, and his lips assumed their usual fixed contraction—a satyrlike caricature of a smile. He was pleased to see everybody. He had hung a cartridge bag, which must have contained nearly three hundred cartridges, over his shoulder and he had a gun under either arm. He protested smilingly when Humphreys brought up his loader, to whom, however, he was 62 persuaded to transfer all his sporting impedimenta with the exception of his shooting stick. His host was the only one who seemed to take him entirely as a matter of course.

“We are starting with a partridge drive, Van Westrheene,” he announced. “Shoot a high cock pheasant if one comes over. Leave the low hens as they are bound to come out again from the wood.”

“I shoot the hares and rabbits—yes?” Mijnheer Van Westrheene enquired anxiously.

“Rather. We have too many hares. Glad you thought to ask me.”

“Your keeper—he blows a horn, perhaps, when the game rises?”

“He blows a whistle—same thing. The beaters are all waiting now behind those fields of roots. You see the guns on the other side of you? You are number two where your loader is standing and I am number one at the corner there.”

Van Westrheene glanced to the right and to the left, then, as the whistle sounded, he planted his shooting stick in the ground, took up a firm stance in front of it and leaned forward. At the finish of the drive there was no longer anyone inclined to think of him in the least as a figure of fun. Without a tremor, like a perfect machine, he swung his gun and he swept everything on the wing from the skies. Not a smile or a wrinkle on his face betrayed any satisfaction, even when he brought down a woodcock which had been missed all along the line. He took his second gun from the loader with only the slightest movement of the body. His long arms seemed to reach everywhere. Hares were perpetually turning somersaults on either side of him. Matresser, who had 63 shot very little himself at the first, perhaps because he was filled with a certain vague uneasiness as to what was likely to happen, was surrounded at the end of the drive.

“What on earth is this you have brought down to make us look like farmers on a bank holiday shoot?” Bemrose, the Lord Lieutenant asked him. “Is he a trickster or is this his usual performance?”

“Never saw him before three days ago,” Matresser exclaimed. “He brought his little yacht into the harbour and called at the house to pay his respects. Dutch custom, I suppose. I thought I had better ask him to shoot one day but I never expected a circus turn-out like this.”

“The man is a juggler,” Bemrose declared. “I never saw such shooting. He killed everything within fifty yards, including those His Reverence the Dean missed.”

“Sheer butchery I call it,” another man grumbled.

“No, he shot like a sportsman,” Matresser conceded. “For example, I just asked him to leave the low hens alone and he never raised his gun to one.”

“Van Westrheene,” Bemrose reflected. “I seem to know the name. Has he estates in Holland?”

“He told me he had several thousand acres of shooting there,” Matresser replied.

They made their way down towards the woods. Matresser, during their progress to the stands, caught up with his foreign guest.

“My dear fellow,” he exclaimed, “you have completely astonished our local sportsmen. I never saw anyone shoot with such precision in my life.”

Van Westrheene removed from his lips the cigarette which he had lit, and bowed gravely. Notwithstanding the aroma of the tobacco, the odour of his perfumes and his hair tonic still seemed almost nauseous. His hair in the 64 sunlight seemed whiter and his cheeks pinker than ever.

“It is good sport, that,” he declared. “There is plenty of game. I like to kill. If my guns are good and the cartridges are fresh, it is not often that I fail.”

Matresser left him at his stand and passed on to join his sister and Elisabeth Stamier.

“For heaven’s sake,” Ann implored, “tell us who is your picturesque-looking triumph.”

Matresser opened his lips to reply but some nameless impulse kept him silent for a moment and he found himself watching Elisabeth. She was looking away over the tops of the trees. Even his somewhat prolonged pause had no effect.

“The gentleman calls himself Mr. Jan van Westrheene,” he confided. “He brought that little yacht in on Monday night and called to pay his respects the day after.”

“If you all shot like he did,” Ann remarked, “I don’t think I should ever come out with you again.”

“That’s only an idea, Ann,” her brother reproved her quietly. “The most humane way to shoot is to kill.”

She shivered a little.

“I suppose that’s right,” she admitted, “but there was something even about the way he raised his gun which I hated. He dealt out death as though he had some special joy in killing.”

“I expect,” Elisabeth said, “that in real life he is a very kindly person.”

“To me,” Ann persisted, “he looked like a butcher. Nothing would ever convince me that in private life—whatever he may be—he has not the instincts of a butcher.”

She turned to Elisabeth.

“How does he strike you?” she asked.

“I think that you are letting your imagination run away with you,” she said. “I have taken no special notice of Mr. Van Westrheene, but he seems to shoot in the same fashion as the others, only very much better than some of them.”

“Look out!” Matresser warned them. “Here he comes.”

Van Westrheene came swinging down the ride, followed by his loader and with an abject and obsequious underkeeper by his side. He was being conducted to his stand as though he were royalty. He raised his hat with a flourish as he neared the little group.

“Van Westrheene,” Matresser said, “let me present you to my sister, Lady Ann Matresser, and Mademoiselle Elisabeth Stamier.”

Again Van Westrheene, from his great height, bowed stiffly but with an attempt at geniality.

“It is a great pleasure,” he murmured. “I find this, Lady Ann, if I may say so, a most beautiful family property of yours—so near to the sea, such beautiful woods, such entrancing country. It surprises me only that your brother, with such possessions, should be such a great traveller.”

“My brother is turning over a new leaf now,” Ann confided. “He is going to settle down at home and look after us all.”

“It is a decision,” Mr. Van Westrheene said, “taken with excellent taste.”

Another flourish of the hat and he passed on. Matresser turned to Ann.

“If you girls want to see any shooting,” he proposed, “you had better take that ride to the left. Make your way along it for about half a mile without talking and just 66 after you have passed one of the shelters turn to the right and you will come to a five-barred gate. I am going to walk on the outside of the wood down as far as there, and if you open it softly and come and sit on the knoll and wait for me there ought to be something doing, but you would not find it pleasant walking down outside with me. There are two streams to cross and a lot of boggy land.”

Ann nodded and drew her companion away. Matresser, with his loader in attendance, made his way into the meadow. He shot a high pigeon and a few minutes later a snipe, then he had a somewhat profitless walk across some rough country until he reached the bend before the knoll. Here there was a pause while the left wing of the beaters swung round. Matresser tied his handkerchief to the end of his shooting stick and waved it for a moment above his head. Almost immediately, a white gate leading out into the road was opened and a small man came briskly through. He was a stubby, undistinguished-looking little person with one arm and a very quaintly made suit of sporting clothes. Nevertheless, there was something almost like affection in Matresser’s eyes as he watched him approach.

“Any news about Fergus, Yates?” he enquired.

The little man shook his head and Matresser realised that there was tragedy in his face.

“There’s bad news about him, sir,” he confided. “They have just fetched Dr. Andrews from the other side of the wood. The poor fellow had a fit of delirium this morning.”

“Delirium? But I thought he was almost himself again.”

“So the doctor thought, sir. So we all thought. He was 67 to have got up to-day. Mrs. Foulds took him up a bath and found him on the floor. He gave one moan when she came in and fell over. She sent a boy on his bicycle to fetch the doctor but they are afraid that he is dead.”

Matresser was silent for several moments, then he shivered slightly.

“Keep as quiet as you can about this, Yates,” he enjoined. “I should think that you will probably find it is only a relapse. As soon as you can get any news, send a card down to Humphreys’ lodge. I shall get it at luncheontime.”

“There is nothing else I can do, sir?”

“Nothing except keep this quiet,” Matresser insisted earnestly. “Don’t let a soul know what has happened.”

“I understand, sir, perfectly.”

Matresser turned his head. His loader stepped forward.

“You will excuse me, your lordship,” he said. “Humphreys’ whistle went two minutes ago. The birds are coming over the knoll. The young ladies are there beckoning to you.”

Matresser snatched up one of his guns and hurried off. Elisabeth Stamier greeted him with a curious look of apprehension in her eyes.

“Why were you talking to that little man for so long while all these pheasants were getting away?” she asked.

Matresser exercised the privilege of a man with a gun. He went on shooting and remained silent.