Читать книгу The Magnificent Hoax - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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It was Captain Jan Henderson’s oft repeated and passionately related story, during the next few weeks, that after leaving the Green Man he set his course steadily towards the wharf, boarded the Henrietta Anne and made his way into his cabin. He then procured a jug of hot water from David, the cabin steward, and mixed himself a grog. After that things became a little hazy. He remembered at last turning the bottle upside down and finding it empty. He greeted his realisation of the fact with a roar of laughter. He felt lighthearted and gay. Suddenly he thought of Judy. The thought was like a devouring fire. He rose to his feet, put on his cap and made his way by some circuitous route to Bunter’s Buildings. He must have had an electric torch in his pocket, for he remembered searching every door for some indication as to the name of its tenant. He remembered finding it—Judy—upon a glistening ivory visiting card. He knocked at the door and found it locked. Then, for the first time, his good nature began to fade away. He was angry. He knocked again. There was no response. He put his knee to the door and, with its crash inwards, that extraordinary lapse of memory of his commenced. He had an idea that Judy was there but he was never sure. 45 He had an idea that he was carrying her up those stairs, struggling and lighting, towards the fire escape. Then came the blank wall. Not another gleam of recollection. Until this awakening in utterly unfamiliar surroundings.

He was lying, for the first time in his life it may be presumed, upon a silken coverlet spread over a small canopied bedstead. There were springs to the bed—a luxury to which he was unaccustomed—and there was a gleam of whiter linen than any he had ever seen before. Gradually he raised himself to a sitting posture and looked around. He was in his day clothes—even his shoes were not unlaced. The appointments and furniture of the room were such as he had encountered many times during a life of wanderings culminating in nocturnal adventures. There were dingy fans attached to the walls. There was a weary plant of some sort upon a tumble-down table. There were photographs of unimaginable-looking people in battered frames. There was a bare chest of drawers of pine wood, two rickety chairs and a strip of carpet. He sat up and held his head and asked himself the question: Where the hell am I?

Reason returned in laggard fashion to the still half-drunken man. Slowly he began to patch things together. He remembered leaving the Henrietta Anne. He remembered making his way in a state of considerable emotion and excitement to the tenement house known as Bunter’s Buildings. He remembered 46 peering at the cards upon the doors until he came to the one with the single name printed upon it—Judy. He remembered trying the handle softly and finding the door locked. He remembered letting go with his knee, and a crash. And that was just everything he did remember. The room was empty now. There was no trace of any other occupant. Judy’s hat and coat hung in their accustomed place, but of Judy there was neither sign nor, at the moment, any definite memory. Only—he gripped onto the side of the bed. A further haunting vision was floating before his mind. The room began to turn around him. He fancied that he remembered carrying something that tore at him and struggled up that last flight of steps. The vision grew more horrible. The inquest. The open door and that fire escape. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, breathing hard, with sweat running down his face. Then he staggered to his feet, pushed the door away from its solitary hinge and stood upon the threshold. Looking up he could just see the top storey, he could just see the iron door leading out into eternity—open. . . . Somehow or other he made his way back to the bed and he did then what he had never done in his life before. He fainted.

It was an hour later when he staggered down the stairs, passed out into the street and set his face towards the wharves. The cold rain, falling now heavily, washed his cheeks and seemed to bring him 47 back to a measure of sanity. With every step he felt his physical strength returning. His memory, however, was encumbered only by a clogged panorama of horrors. If he had done—an evil thing—he had done it in that fit of unconsciousness. Wouldn’t do him much good in court, he thought, with a shiver of horror. He turned to the right. He reached the gate. He unlocked it and made his way to the edge of the quay.

“Henrietta Anne ahoy!” he shouted in a voice which he utterly failed to remember or recognise.

David, the cabin steward, a bundle of crumpled clothes upon the deck,—a pimply-faced, ragged-haired, long-legged youth,—rose wearily to his feet, came limping along, and pushed down a gangway. Henderson mounted. The youth made a clumsy attempt at a salute. The captain took him by the shoulders.

“Look here, my lad,” he said, “see this?”

He drew from his pocket a half-crown. The youth stared at it in amazement.

“Listen to me carefully,” his master enjoined. “You can earn this half-crown.”

“What do you want me to do now, Captain?” was the anxious enquiry. “Anything you say.”

“You know where Bunter’s Alley is, just below the buildings?”

“Don’t I?” the lad answered, a certain fearsomeness in his tone.

“You go straight there,” Henderson went on, steadily enough, although his breath was coming 48 a little shorter. “You go to the spot where that body was found. You look round. You tell me whether there’s anything unusual to be seen—if there’s any crowd there or people hanging around of any sort. You understand?”

The youth shook his head.

“I’ll go, guv’nor,” he said, with a shiver which seemed to shake his whole body. “I don’t understand, but I’ll go.”

“Never mind understanding,” the captain groaned. “I slept out last night and I had a dream. I dreamt that there was another body lying in the same place. I just can’t get it out of my head. I’ve got to have someone go and look. You go—you look—you bring me back word and you get the half-crown. You get five shillings if there’s no commotion there, if—if nothing’s happened.”

“I get the half-crown either way, Captain?”

“You get the half-crown either way.”

The cabin steward went off with long loping strides, a queer ungainly figure, with thin shoulders and unwholesome-looking face. Henderson watched him until he disappeared, then he began to walk the deck. He walked it a dozen times with quick irregular footsteps. He peered out across the river—no damned police boats about this morning—then he staggered to the companionway, pushed open the door of his own cabin, and entered. He took down a bottle of brandy from the cupboard, poured out a liberal allowance into a tumbler and drank it. It tasted like raw fire. Suddenly 49 he realised that his throat was burning. He poured out water and drank a great jugful. It was that bottle of whisky the night before. There it was—the empty bottle—lying upon the carpet. . . . He crept up once more on deck. This time the strength seemed to have gone from his knees. He walked unsteadily. Once or twice he had to hold onto the rail or some stationary object—and always his eyes were fixed upon the pathway on the other side of the gate. It seemed an eternity of time; but the moment came when the youth re-appeared. There was nothing to be gathered from his walk. He came along with the usual spiritless slouch, which it seemed that nothing could ever change. He crossed the quay without looking up. It was only when he was mounting the gangway that he recognised the captain holding onto the rail. He grinned at him feebly.

“I’ve been,” he reported. “I want the five bob.”

Somehow or other the captain produced it. The youth gripped it hard in his dirty bony fingers.

“There weren’t nobody in the alley but a baker’s boy and a milkman,” he reported. “There wasn’t nothing there and nothing ’ad ’appened. Reckon you had the nightmares.”

“Say it again, David,” the captain implored him, in an unfamiliar voice.

“There wasn’t anything in the alley worth speaking about except what I’ve told you. There was a couple of lads playing tig and that there baker and milkman. Not a thing ’ad ’appened 50 there, s’help me God. You must have ’ad the nightmares—’ad ’em proper. I see that empty bottle this morning.”

Captain Henderson turned around. Somehow or other he reached the companionway. Somehow or other he staggered into his cabin. He sank into his chair. His head fell forward onto his folded arms. He felt himself crying like a child.