Читать книгу The Man Who Changed His Plea - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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Inspector Charlesworth brushed away from his desk the papers he had been studying, drew his chair a little forward, and welcomed his visitor with, for him, a reasonable amount of cordiality.

"How are you, young fellow?" he asked. "I thought it was about time you brought us in a report."

The other nodded.

"Not much doing in the world of crime, Inspector," he observed in a depressed tone. "I answered your enquiries about Lady Diana Malladene's bottle party, didn't I?"

"You seem to think that she's kept within the bounds of the law."

"Everything was correct while I was there, at any rate, and I stayed late," was the reassuring reply. "It's the Law that's so stupid about these places. Why does it allow men or women to pitch upon an unlicensed room and, because they bring the stuff in, open a drinking-den? It's absolutely easy to keep it legal, but why does the law that makes it legal exist?"

"So long as there are a certain class of people who want that sort of thing," his superior officer pointed out, "it will continue to exist. Our prisons aren't large enough to receive all the men and women in the West End, young and old, who want to dance and drink a glass of wine after hours. Anyway, it's not our job to purify the city. It's the people who make the laws who must do that. Our job, the laws being established, is to keep people inside the boundary as well as we can."

Martin nodded and passed over a sheet of paper to his chief.

"There are three other cases," he announced, "which should be looked into, and there is a disorderly house in Smith Street which is an open scandal. They boast that they are sheltered by the police, and I should advise you to have a certain Superintendent Crisp watched and deprived of his post, as he certainly should be."

"Nephew of the Deputy Commissioner," the Inspector muttered. "That comes of employing new brooms, you sweep too damn clean sometimes."

"I leave it to you, sir," Martin rejoined dryly. "I haven't made a formal report myself. I simply tell you what you can find out if you care to. I am still working on the case which is my special hobby in my spare time."

The Inspector looked thoughtfully across those few feet of space between him and his visitor.

"You're a persistent man, aren't you?" he observed, and it seemed as if there was almost a faint note of uneasiness in his voice.

"Well, sir," Martin replied, "Scotland Yard has its list of famous criminals, most of whom have been brought to book and passed on. There is one amongst them, however, the most infamous of all from my point of view, who has not yet received his deserts and whom I believe to be still alive. That's why I stick to the Lebur tragedy."

"You never find a shred of encouragement anywhere?" the Inspector enquired.

Martin leaned a little further back in his chair, his eyes passed over the Inspector's head, he seemed to be looking intently at a blank space in the wall.

"Perhaps not, sir," he admitted, "and yet I have my fancies. Every now and then there comes a whisper in my ear from someone, the whisper of someone or other I come across. The whisper seems entirely a reluctant one, the man or the woman who has grudgingly vouchsafed it gets out of my sight as soon as they can—and yet, I am convinced that there is a purpose in every one of them."

"Go on," the Inspector invited.

"They try to lead me down blind alleys," Martin confided. "They are all out for getting me worked up on some false clue, and if I were to follow it right out to the end I should find something there which would probably mean the end of me and the man for whom I am working would die in his prison after all. It's the obvious falseness of these clues, if you understand me, sir," the visitor concluded, "which intrigues me. I may be wrong, but they seem to me as though they were meant for pitfalls."

"Well, be careful," Inspector Charlesworth advised. "If you'd only settle down to your work you might easily become one of the most important men in this establishment, Martin. It's just because you fasten upon a case like this and refuse to accept a reasonable verdict about it that your progress gets blocked now and then. If I were you I should leave your hobby alone. We have a man working here on the premises with two secretaries and all the help we can give him, who is compiling a history of the famous crimes which have been committed during the last ten years. I had a chat with him only a few nights ago, and he told me that so far as he had gone—and he is nearing the end of his task—there is not a single one of the famous criminals who deserves one grain of sympathy. There is not one case in which a reasonable doubt exists as to the actual guilt of the man or woman who has been found guilty. He is calling it 'The Inevitability of the Law,' or something of that sort. Go and talk with him some time. He's up in room No. 18 when he works here, which is three days a week, and the rest of the time he works at his own home in Lincoln's Inn. Professor John P. Mason is his name, his records are kept even more scientifically than ours, because he has a study of the motive as well as a copy of the evidence. You'd find him interesting, I'm sure."

Martin picked up his hat.

"I'll look him up some day," he promised. "Meanwhile, I'll report whenever you send for me, Inspector."

That night Martin kept his engagement and dined with Diana Malladene. The young lady, who possessed intuition as well as good taste, appeared in a perfectly plain black frock which followed the lines of her figure with almost indecent accuracy. She wore no jewellery, only a narrow band of black velvet at her throat. She watched Martin's eyes as she approached almost anxiously and breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed a glint of approval.

"Such trouble with my frock," she confided, as she strolled down the broad steps by his side towards the corner which he had selected. "Madame Léonie came round herself to insist upon some alterations, but I wouldn't have them."

"So far as mere man might criticize," he replied, "I should say that you have achieved perfection."

She breathed a little sigh of content.

"Madame had the impertinence to tell me that, so far as my gown went, although I designed it myself, I was offering a perfect replica of the Shaftesbury Avenue street-walker."

"Léonie is not always to be relied upon," he observed. "I remember a green dress she made for you once that was as near perfection as any dress could be, but she forgot altogether in blending the shades of the material that little glint of the snake in your eyes. She couldn't see it; she never would see it until I sent her to the Leicester Galleries to study McEvoy's picture of you. Then she tried to get the dress back, but she was too late."

She looked at him in amazement.

"Martin," she exclaimed, "you're incredible, you're absolutely impossible. She made me that dress eight years ago and you have lived through hurricanes since then. Why should you remember anything about a particular dress of mine?"

"It's odd," he admitted, taking up the menu, "what queer things lurk in the corners of one's memory."

She shivered a little and almost snatched her vodka from the salver which the waiter was offering.

"It's uncanny," she muttered. "How many things like that do you remember, I wonder?"

"I have never learned," he said calmly, as he toyed with his own wineglass, "the gift of forgetfulness. Mind you, it is a wonderful gift, Diana. Of course, I think the most important thing for anyone to search for in this life would be happiness; but if I were fool enough ever to set myself the definite task of attaining happiness, I should first of all demand that the cells of memory were closed in my mind."

"But this is horrible!" she exclaimed. "I can't live up to my part, Martin, if you're going to talk in that fashion all the evening. I know nothing of psychology, I don't care a bit how the world is run or by whom; all I ask is that things should turn out as I want them. I was flattered, although I was tremendously puzzled, when you asked me to dine tonight. There is no one in the world I'm prouder to be seen with, and I have another failing that I shall never mention to you as long as I live and that you will never know about—but if you're going to talk like that I shall say let's make it an early evening. I can't live up to it, Martin—not a hope. Everyone calls me clever, don't they? Well, I'm not. I'm cunning and it doesn't get me very far. I haven't the brains for your sort of mental philandering."

"Well, you've put me nicely in my place to start the evening," Martin observed. "Whom do you think I had a little conversation with last night?"

"That's better. Let's talk about our old pals."

"I don't know whether you'd call this one exactly a pal," Martin reflected. "It was old Joe, of the Embankment coffee-stall."

"That old mummy." She laughed. "Is he still alive?"

"I should say he was."

"What were you doing at the coffee-stall?" she asked curiously.

"Wait," he begged. "We haven't ordered dinner."

"Well," she remarked, carefully studying the menu, "there are none of your disclosures which could spoil my appetite. I am beginning to get quite used to the idea, Martin, that you are back in London and that one is likely to run up against you at any of these places. As regards our dinner, since we've anticipated with the vodka, I think we'd better have just a little caviare."

"And afterwards," he suggested, "a sole Marguery and a quail. A soufflé or maybe strawberries to finish with."

She sighed with content.

"I must say you know how to feed a greedy girl, Martin," she observed. "You always did."

"Only," he remarked suavely, "I hadn't always the money, had I? I lost a good many picturesque acquaintances through being poor."

"I often wonder," she speculated, "why you had so few friends."

"Friends are scarcely worth having," he rejoined. "They always disappoint one."

"Cynic," she scoffed.

"If ever you take to yourself a friend you lay up for yourself disappointment. Did I tell you why I went down to see Joe?"

She shook her head a little distastefully.

"Why bring in that old horror? It makes me sick even to think of his foul fingernails and broken teeth."

"And yet there were times," he reminded her, "when you sat on his stool and munched his sandwiches, drank his coffee and turned up your nose at a banquet like this. Just through that split piece of his canvas we used to watch for the line of daylight."

"One had slight reactions towards vulgarity sometimes," she remarked. "Life gets too finely drawn. It doesn't last long; one comes back to the æsthetic almost automatically. Now tell me, why did you go?"

"I went to ask him if he could tell me what had become of Sarah Rose."

The strains of the Merry Widow Waltz floated across to where they were seated. The girl wondered long afterwards whether it was a fit of kindness or simply an effort of good taste which made him suddenly absorbed in the music. He hummed it softly, his eyes upon the conductor. A harsh voice across the table almost startled him.

"Who was Sarah Rose?" she asked.

"Just a woman of the streets," he admitted, "concerning whose fate I had some slight curiosity."

"Why?" she demanded.

"It isn't a pleasant story," he told her gently. "I don't know why I mentioned the girl's name."

"Well, was your curiosity satisfied?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Not in the least. Perhaps he was telling the truth, perhaps he was lying through fear, or perhaps he was bribed to lie. At any rate, I came away no wiser than I went."

"Come and dance and forget all about the sort of girl who hangs about Joe's stall," she begged.

"Dance," he echoed. "Listen to the music, Diana. We'll dance the Merry Widow—and that will be wonderful."

They strolled to the dance-floor like any other couple, Diana Malladene recovered from her momentary fit of nerves, Martin Brockenhurst, as always, imperturbable. With set mien and full of courteous deference to his partner, he led her to her place afterwards, but she did not immediately sink into her chair.

"Martin," she begged, looking across at him, "please—"

He nodded and patted her hand with a little smile of reassurance.

"You make me feel like the barbarous barrister," he declared. "Quite right, Diana, I've been a brute. Finish your dinner in peace and comfort and let's talk about the people who have some importance in the world—your father, for instance. They tell me that he's certainly for the Woolsack. Fancy having a father who is Lord High Chancellor of England and who is beloved by everybody!"

"Father is desperately popular," she murmured, with a glint of affection in her eyes. "Don't you think he's broad-minded, Martin, to let me run a night-club as a hobby?"

"I do, indeed," he agreed. "I wonder what it feels like," he went on, smiling, "to be loved by everyone. That's a state I shall never arrive at."

"You can't be sure," she told him. "You could be if you changed a little—you're too broody, you know, Martin. You're so aloof, you're like Hamlet, all the time making speeches about things that don't really matter."

"Shades of Bernard Shaw," he muttered, "what about that soufflé?"

"You know me," Diana sighed, "the right soufflé is a thing I've never refused in my life. You know, I was popular once, Martin," she went on. "They used to call me the girl everyone loved—that is, my friends."

"We all love you now," he assured her. "I do, especially."

There was the slightest possible tremble in her lips. He noticed it and wondered.

"There was another nice lad in my days; he must be quite grown up now, Ginger Brown they used to call him. He was a gunner."

"Oh, Ginger," she sighed. "Didn't you know, Martin? I married him."

"Of course I didn't know," he assured her. "I'm sorry, Diana. Have I made a faux pas?"

"Not at all," she replied. "There was never very much sentiment about it, I'm afraid. He lost his head one night and I liked him just well enough. Our divorce case was quite a distinguished affair: no lurid details that anyone could grumble at, a quiet elopement for love's sake on the part of Ginger. A solemn case; I wore black and white, and I have a very nice little sum of pocket-money coming every quarter, which pays for my cigarettes at any rate."

A party of young people suddenly surrounded their table. There was a volley of incoherent introductions, everyone began talking very fast, speaking about vague absentees, every one of whom they called by their Christian names or nicknames. A few of them remembered Brockenhurst in a vague sort of manner.

"Africa, wasn't it, you disappeared to?" one man asked.

"Yes, I have been in Africa for some time," Brockenhurst assented.

"I thought it was the Far East," a girl remarked. "Surely a cousin of mine met you in Singapore?"

"Yes, I have also been in Singapore. I was there last March," Martin admitted.

He felt a touch on his arm. A little dark woman, almost old enough to have been the chaperone of the party, looked up at him, smiling.

"At least," she asked, "you remember me, I trust, Mr. Brockenhurst?"

"My dear Comtesse," he replied, bowing over her fingers, "I believe we are almost related, are we not?"

"You look so horribly young," she answered, "that I am ashamed to confess it, but I am your godmother."

"Don't I know it," he replied. "You were at the château near Mougins when I was born and you came there when I was a kid."

"And afterwards," she told him, "I visited you at that preparatory school for Eton where you were."

He offered her his chair, but she shook her head.

"I have this young crowd to look after," she explained. "Lady Julia comes of age in three days' time and she's going to be married then. You know her future husband, of course—Dick Foljambes, in the Lancers."

"Too much my junior, I'm afraid."

"We may meet later on," the woman remarked pleasantly. "I think these children mean to make a night of it. Au revoir."

The little party drifted away. Diana Malladene watched their disappearance with speculative eyes.

"Some of them will turn up at my place later on, I expect," she remarked hopefully.

He nodded.

"They look as though they were out for a night of it. Be careful, Diana; keep within the law. I can't see how you can possibly make enough out of it to run the risks you do."

"It isn't only the drink, Martin," she confessed. "I get a hundred per cent. for that, of course, but that isn't all."

He looked at her curiously.

"You don't serve many dinners," he remarked. "Those tiny little suppers can't bring you in much profit."

"I lose money by them," she assured him.

"Then how else do you make money out of the place?" he asked bluntly.

She shook her head.

"I'm afraid of you, Martin," she told him, lowering her voice a little. "You're such a mysterious person. You wouldn't get me into trouble wilfully, I'm sure. But—"

"Well, get on with it, Diana."

"I can't," she admitted. "I look at you, I remember who you are, and I am afraid."

"Afraid of me?"

She nodded.

"Of you."

"Quite right," he said, looking at her steadily. "I've changed my ideas since the old times. You'd better tell me if you're outstepping the bounds and I'll help to put you back again."

"Allah preserve me from being such a fool," she mocked. "All that I say, Martin, is keep away from the 'Evening Star.' It isn't the place for you. If I get into trouble, it's my own account. I've gone too far to turn back and I don't want serious people like you about the place."

"It isn't necessary for me to remind you, I suppose," he went on after a moment's pause, "that the days of the ordinary dress-coated detective from Scotland Yard, whose shirt bulged and who even stooped sometimes to a made-up tie, are over."

She laughed scornfully.

"I have three door-men, as I call them," she confided, "and I never knew one of them make a mistake yet. Do you mind, Martin?" she added, as she shut her bag with a little click, glanced at her watch, and rose to her feet. "I've loved our dinner. I'd give anything in the world," she went on, as her hand rested for a moment in his, "for a few really kind words from you, for even a glint of that old light in your eyes, and for just a little less mystery. It's no good hoping, I'm afraid."

He stood still for a moment. It seemed as though he was really considering the idea of taking her seriously. His reply when he made it, however, was quite indefinite.

"The mystery," he reminded her, "comes from you. Only the advice from me. And," he concluded impressively, "the advice is—chuck it."