Читать книгу The Treasure House of Martin Hews - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 11

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Either owing to purposeful avoidance of me, or by a series of coincidences, I saw nothing whatever of Beatrice Essiter during the unsettled but comparatively calm days that followed. In common with several other members of the household, I seemed to spend the greater part of the time at Bringford, the nearest county town. I was mercifully spared any direct question as to the cause of Miles’ death, and heard the open verdict returned without any particular qualm of conscience. The three members of the gang whom we had handed over to the police were duly committed for trial, notwithstanding the fact that a famous lawyer from London, who had come down specially for their defence, had fought their cause gallantly. In the end, however, the verdict of murder was returned against the three of them, and they were removed to different quarters, to await their trial on the more serious issue.

During the remainder of the time things proceeded uneventfully at Breezeley Mansion. My meals were served alone. I saw nothing of my employer except that always after my return from Bringford he sent for me and questioned me closely as to what had taken place. I was quickly convalescent from my various injuries, and although I never recovered from my first almost superstitious aversion to the whole neighbourhood, I fell into the habit of taking an evening walk about four o’clock as far as the river. It was on my third excursion of this sort that I encountered Beatrice Essiter.

She was half a mile away when I first saw her, the only human being in sight upon that dreary stretch of marshland. I stood in the wet grass, with my back to the river, and watched her swinging her way along the top of the raised path—the swamp on one side, the miserable apology for a road on the other. As she drew near, I advanced to meet her.

“Is there anything wrong?” I asked. “Am I wanted at the Mansion?”

She shook her head.

“What else is there to go wrong?” she rejoined. “I had no idea that you were out, even. I wanted to walk somewhere, so I came to have a look at the river.”

We stood side by side on the edge of that garbage sink of desolation, beneath our feet the cinders, around us the feebly growing marsh grass. Up the grey bosom of the sullen river a great lighter, surrounded by screaming tugs, was making its cautious way, followed by other craft—a few coasting steamers, a Norwegian barque laden with timber, a coaling barge, a dredger passing on its dreary errand to vanish in the grey mist which hung over the distant bend. She turned away with a little shiver.

“What a neighbourhood for any sane person to live in!” she exclaimed bitterly, as we commenced our homeward walk. “Isn’t it rather like my uncle’s distorted attitude towards life to bring the beautiful things of the world to such a place?”

“I can’t imagine why you stay with him,” I told her bluntly. “It must be hideously depressing.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“It doesn’t really matter very much,” she remarked indifferently. “Certainly you can’t have found the last few days monotonous.”

We were well on our homeward way now. Behind us the sirens from the steamers hurrying up the river to catch the tide shrieked out their warnings. In the distance ahead, we could see the lights from the signal posts along the railway; nearer still, the black outline of the Mansion, stark and ugly, with its unnatural blaze of illumination.

“Monotonous?” I reflected. “Two inquests—one of them resulting in a verdict of wilful murder—a police enquiry, two scraps in one night! No, it hasn’t been monotonous. Has any one from Bringford been over this afternoon?”

She shook her head.

“I think now that our three desperadoes have been committed for trial, they’ll leave us alone for a time,” she replied. “The Chief Constable told my uncle that they’d been putting them through a sort of third degree to try to get some information about Joseph.”

“Any luck?”

“Not the slightest. I believe they’d all three go to the scaffold sooner than give him away.”

“I don’t suppose I should be any good at that sort of a job,” I said, “but if your uncle has no work for me soon, I should rather like to potter about in the East End for a week or so. I know the district these fellows come from, and a man can’t be at the head of a gang of nearly a hundred of the worst criminals in London and keep for ever in the background.”

“Ridiculous!” she scoffed. “Any one of them would know you in a minute down there. Besides, I don’t think Joseph will ever be found in the East End.”

“Where then? Park Lane?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“How do you account for Rachel then?”

She shrugged her shoulders again.

“Men have queer playthings,” she remarked. “She is pretty enough too. I wish some one could get her to talk.”

“Why?”

“Because she is just the one person who knows all about Joseph, and we shall have no peace here whilst he is at liberty.”

We were drawing nearer and nearer to our gaunt palace of desolation. They were trying out a new searchlight from the tower, and we had to turn our backs for a moment to escape being blinded by the quivering beam of fierce illumination. Within its narrow orbit, we could distinguish every stick and stone and puddle all the way to the river.

“It’s a queer business, all this,” I muttered, half to myself.

“It’s all right for you,” she rejoined bitterly. “You can get away when you want to, but it’s my daily life and I can’t escape from it. Ever since I can remember him, my uncle seems to have had the desperadoes of the world for either his friends or his enemies. He gets rid of his enemies generally, but fresh ones come. I don’t think he has ever been so bitter against any one as Joseph, though.”

Miles’ successor admitted us—a middle-aged man named Johnson, apparently as well trained and well mannered as his unfortunate predecessor. He delivered what seemed to be an urgent message to my companion, whose face darkened as she listened. She left me without a word and made her way to the lift. I turned into my own apartments and found, to my surprise, Rachel, unceremoniously curled up in my easy-chair.

“Hullo, young lady! Who gave you permission to come in here?” I asked.

She leaned over, struck a match, and lit a fresh cigarette.

“I’ve had a quarter of an hour with the old ogre,” she confided, “and I’ve given my—what is it you soldiers call it?—parole. I’ve promised not to attempt to wander back home on my lonesome. I’m going to wait until Jo comes for me.”

“Well, he came for you the other night,” I reminded her, “and you are still here.”

She looked at me with a crooked little smile.

“That’s like a man—that speech,” she said reproachfully. “I shouldn’t have been here if I’d let Ned pot you.”

I hastened to apologise.

“Quite right, young lady,” I admitted. “I was rather a beast to say that. Jolly sporting effort of yours it was. Don’t think I’ve forgotten it. I haven’t, and I’m never likely to.”

“Then be a bit more pally,” she begged. “I’m for the gang, of course, and my own boys, but I can’t stand dirty fighting. Besides, it was Ned’s fault, really. They’d had you all for mugs, with their sham uniforms and ambulance: they’d got our wounded chaps away and all the swag they were told to collect, and yet he must stay for that picture. I bet he’ll cop it when he gets out.”

“I don’t think that will trouble him much,” I remarked. “He’ll get seven years at least, even if they bring it in manslaughter, and I don’t think Joseph will be at the prison gate then to meet him—not outside, at any rate.”

“He’ll get something extra, I dare say,” she reflected, “for personating the police. A bit green you folks were, you know. I knew those weren’t real cops the moment I set eyes on them.”

“I dare say you’ve a larger experience of the Force,” I retorted. “Besides, you must remember we were all pretty well done in and dazed, and we were expecting the police. May I ask for how long you’re going to give me the pleasure of your company? I have some letters to write.”

She settled herself down a little more comfortably.

“I am going to stay just as long as I like,” she declared. “I could have been clear away from this place and you’d have been buried by now if it hadn’t been for me. Just you remember it and be a bit decent.”

I felt suddenly a qualm of self-reproach. The girl spoke the truth.

“All right, I won’t bother about the letters,” I decided, filling my pipe and drawing up a chair. “You can stay and have a cocktail with me, if you like.”

“It’s a pal to talk to I want,” she confided, smiling at me graciously. “The maid who waits on me is a mute, and there’s lots of things I want to know. How many of the gang had to be sent to hospital?”

“We don’t know ourselves,” I explained. “When the sham inspector and police came and made such idiots of us, they brought an ambulance of their own and took away all the wounded. No one on our side was seriously hurt except poor Jenkins, the electrician, and Miles.”

“Serve the butler right,” she remarked complacently. “He was the man who squealed.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” I remonstrated.

“I jolly well am!” she contradicted. “Why, I’ve seen him with his old soapy face down our way when the gang was meeting time after time. It was from him Joseph got a plan of your secret staircase, a set of keys to the house, and a list of the valuables in the study. That’s why they knew just what to take and what to leave, besides being able to get into the house and find their way about. It was him as gave ’em a key to the electric tower, so that they could do in your electrician and muck up your plant. He deserved all he got, that chap did, and Joseph won’t worry either. He don’t like ’em any better when they peach for him than when they peach against.”

I listened to her story of Miles’ misdeeds with satisfaction, and afterwards found myself studying her thoughtfully. There were times when she was a wild-looking creature enough, but this morning she was neatly, even primly dressed. She was still wearing her gown of vivid red, but her black hair showed signs of careful arrangement, her fringe was cut shorter, and the fierceness had gone from her eyes. Her expression was almost childlike, her tone at times wistful.

“You seemed very unconcerned the other night,” I remarked. “Supposing we hadn’t chipped in; were you going with those men willingly?”

Her face clouded over. Her red lips were pursed. She was apparently considering the matter.

“Well,” she confided, “I don’t know as I’m stuck for life or death on Jo. He’s got more brains than any of you people—I will say that for him—but he gets kind of sarcastic sometimes, and he plays the toff too much to be exactly my fancy. All the same, what’s a girl to do? I couldn’t live cooped up here for long with you frozen faces. I’ve got to have a man, and dancing, and all I want to smoke and all I want to drink, and the pictures whenever I want to go to them.”

“But doesn’t it matter what man?” I ventured.

“Not much,” she admitted frankly, “so long as I take a fancy to him. You’d do all right, if you set your mind to it.”

“I’ll think of it seriously,” I promised her.

She laughed across at me with a touch of her usual devilry. There was invitation both subtle and obvious in her eyes.

“You’d better look sharp,” she warned me. “I am here now, but Joseph wants me bad. He gets tired of the classy West End dolls. He’ll be after me again before long.”

“The sooner the better. We’re ready for him.”

She laughed scornfully.

“Likely to get him, aren’t you? You may be something of a fighter—I won’t say you haven’t pluck—but brains—lordy, the day that Jo makes up his mind to walk in here and take me away, he’ll do it, and I shouldn’t be surprised, Mister,” she went on, “if it wasn’t soon. I bet after the other night you’ve got him on the raw. I was his girl first, before Jim took me away. He swore he’d get me back. You’ve got me now, although you don’t seem to have much idea what to do with me, but somebody’s got to pay for that night, and pretty badly too. That’s why, if I were you, I’d be looking for another job. If you’re going to sit down here and wait, your number’s up, my big man, for all your muscles.”

There was a knock at the door. The new butler presented himself, with a card upon a silver salver. I picked it up and read it:

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR BLOOR

“The gentleman would like a few words with you, sir,” he announced.

Whatever the object of his visit, the Inspector evidently intended to give me no time to prepare for it, for almost simultaneously he entered the room. Rachel jumped from her chair and fled, throwing a kiss to me from the door. Johnson followed her with a glance of stately disapproval.

“Take a chair, please,” I invited. “What can I do for you?”

The Inspector accepted my invitation, but declined the cigarette I offered. He was in plain clothes, a man of medium height, with exceptionally full eyelids which gave him at times a rather sleepy expression. His other features were undistinguished, but his mouth was firm and straight. His complexion was sandy, and his hair of the same colour, although closely cropped, was so thick that it stood up in all directions. His voice when he spoke was unexpectedly pleasant, his speech cautious and well-balanced. The impression he produced upon me was curiously favourable, although at the same time I felt instinctively the need for great circumspection.

“Major Owston,” he confided, “I am here in a sense professionally, but I have another reason for visiting you. Captain Joyce is an intimate friend of mine.”

“Leonard Joyce,” I repeated. “One of my oldest pals. It was he who gave me the letter to Mr. Martin Hews.”

“So I gathered. I saw a good deal of Captain Joyce at one time. He was in the Intelligence Department—M.1. 7A, I think you called it—and we had several little affairs to straighten out together. A very good fellow.”

“One of the best,” I agreed.

I fancied that I was being subjected to a very close scrutiny from underneath those heavy eyelids, but it was almost impossible to tell.

“You may have gathered from my card, Major,” he continued, “that I am in the Detective Service at Scotland Yard. You will not object if I ask a few questions concerning recent happenings.”

“Go ahead!” I invited. “I have been through it all with the Essex police, but you can have it all over again if you want to.”

“You occupy some post in the household here, I believe. May I ask what it is?”

“Well, I am not quite sure that I know myself,” I confessed. “We never put it into actual words. A sort of secretary, I should imagine.”

“Secretary?” my companion repeated, in his soft, pleasant voice, which at times was almost a drawl. “Typing letters, and that sort of thing?”

“Nothing of that sort at all,” I assured him. “To tell you the truth, I have only been here for ten days, and we’ve been rather upset most of the time, as you doubtless know. I expect my duties will be more clearly defined later on. Up till now, life seems to have been a hotchpotch of scraps and inquests and police court proceedings.”

“You took rather a prominent part in the defence of the household the other night, I understand. Mr. Hews speaks very warmly of your services.”

“I did my bit, naturally.”

My visitor reflected for a few minutes.

“I should perhaps tell you, Major Owston,” he went on, “that my visit is made at the instigation of the Chief Commissioner, who is particularly interested in recent events here. I want to suggest to you that in your own interests as well as in the interests of the law, you are quite frank with me.”

“Why not?” I rejoined. “Ask me anything you want to, by all means.”

“Capital! I am sure that you have nothing to conceal, and a little extra frankness on your part may perhaps help us to solve certain curious problems which have arisen. To begin with, then, hasn’t it struck you that your engagement here is of a very singular nature?”

I hesitated.

“To tell you the truth,” I confided, “even if that idea has sometimes cropped up in my mind, I haven’t allowed myself to think of it. I’ve been out of a job for nearly two years. I came with Joyce’s letter, having precisely ninepence in my pocket. Mr. Martin Hews offered me a position in the household and promised to explain the nature of my duties more clearly later on. A man who has been rescued from starvation, or from borrowing from his friends—which is a trifle worse—isn’t very particular what he does, so long as it’s on the level. When this scrap came along, I was only too thankful to be of any assistance.”

The Inspector nodded sympathetically.

“Very natural—very natural indeed. Still,” he went on, “it seems unreasonable, Major, that you shouldn’t have asked yourself ‘what manner of a job is this I’m taking on? What am I expected to do to earn my money?’ ”

“Under ordinary conditions, I dare say you’re right,” I agreed, “but you must remember that first of all I was too grateful to get any sort of job at all to worry much about what my duties would be, and secondly this scrap has disorganised the whole household and driven everything else out of my thoughts. I imagine that presently Mr. Hews will take me a little further into his confidence. Then I shall have a clearer idea of what he expects from me.”

“Quite reasonable,” my questioner admitted. “Quite reasonable. You were never in the Intelligence Department yourself, were you, during the war?”

“Never,” I told him. “I never had any staff appointment of any sort. My soldiering was nearly all regimental work.”

“Nevertheless,” the Inspector continued, “Captain Joyce always spoke of you—your name cropped up often in our conversation—as a person of common sense. I put it to you, as they say in the law courts, that you must have been struck by certain mysterious things concerning this household.”

“In a sense, of course, that is true,” I agreed. “On the other hand, a soldier gets into the habit of minding his own business. If I see things I don’t understand, I don’t worry about them.”

“This—er—network of secret passages, doors that only open by electricity, and searchlights which are played around the countryside?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Mr. Martin Hews himself,” I pointed out, “is a very exceptional person. He is a cripple, and he has here an immensely valuable collection of curios. I should take it for granted that he was justified in any means he adopted to protect himself.”

“But all these contrivances,” my visitor persisted gently, in his silky, pleasant voice, “are really not so much use, after all, as a means of protection. They failed him, for instance, the other night.”

“That was because the whole show was given away by a member of the household who was in league with the burglars,” I pointed out—“Miles, the butler, the fellow who got shot.”

“Quite true. Nevertheless, I understand that the whole system is being reinstalled, and a successor to the unfortunate electrician who was murdered already appointed. Now I should like to ask you this question, Major. Remember that I am speaking on behalf of the custodians of the law of this country, and that you too are one of the king’s servants. I ask you, has it never occurred to you that there is something mysterious about this whole house? I suggest that there might be something going on here which may be—I am speaking quite frankly—of a criminal nature?”

“There are possibilities of every sort, of course,” I acknowledged. “I am not of an imaginative turn of mind, however, and so far as I have thought about the matter at all, I have remembered that Mr. Hews, like a great many deformed people, is probably of a freakish turn of mind. These devices appeal to him and he is rich enough to install them if he wishes. Nothing in connection with them which has come under my notice could in any way be considered an offence against the law.”

“Five footmen,” my visitor murmured.

“I don’t see anything in that at all,” I declared. “There is surely no reason why a wealthy man, who can perfectly well afford it, shouldn’t keep a few extra servants to help him guard his treasures?”

The Inspector listened to me without change of countenance. I was telling the truth, but I had no idea whether he believed me or not.

“There is a young lady, at present an inmate of the household, who was mentioned as being one of the causes of the attack. Why does Mr. Hews protect her?” he enquired. “She was, as I dare say you know, the companion of Donkin, the leader of the rival gang of hooligans, until a few days ago.”

“Mr. Hews is upstairs,” I replied. “Why not ask him such a question for yourself? He has not taken me into his confidence.”

“But it was you,” my vis-à-vis persisted softly, “who aided Donkin to escape. You knew, I presume, that he was a criminal?”

“I knew nothing about it at all,” I insisted. “I hadn’t been in this house more than an hour when Donkin arrived. I saw him into a motor boat. That was all.”

“Aiding and abetting a criminal to escape!”

“How was I to know that he was a criminal?”

“You were merely an agent, without a doubt,” the Inspector allowed, “but Mr. Martin Hews knew all about it. Now one is driven to ask oneself, why did a gentleman in Mr. Martin Hews’ position take such an interest in Jim Donkin as to assist him to escape from justice and give shelter to his lady companion?”

“From what I heard of the conversation, Inspector,” I told him—a little maliciously, I confess—“I gathered that it was Joseph from whom Donkin was anxious to escape. He didn’t expect the police for about a week.”

“Touché!” my visitor admitted with a smile. “But you must remember those fellows naturally knew more about one another’s movements than we did. I am afraid I am wearying you a little, Major. I am sorry, but we are up against a very ugly problem at Scotland Yard, and somehow or other it has to be solved. We want Joseph—we want him very badly.”

“You can’t want him out of the way any worse than Mr. Martin Hews does,” I confided.

“That statement of yours, Major,” the Inspector declared, stretching out his hand for his hat, “opens up the way for a suggestion on my part. I propose that we should work together. You are still a soldier of the king, and I am the representative of the law. We are equally concerned in the war against crime. And, believe me,” he added, rising to his feet, and suddenly looking at me with wide-open eyes which I discovered to be unexpectedly blue and bright, “Joseph and his men will be discovered in time, discovered and brought to justice. Pay me a visit some time at Scotland Yard. I will show you some of the statistics. It is an amazing thing how seldom a criminal in the long run escapes. The law wins, Major Owston. Try to bear that in mind, and let us have that call from you at Scotland Yard whenever you feel inclined. It will give me pleasure to find myself working with a friend of Captain Joyce.”

We shook hands. The fellow had an indescribably attractive manner, and somehow or other, although his questions embarrassed me all the time, I felt that it was impossible to dislike him. I had a grim foreboding that before long I might find myself between two stools.