Читать книгу The Light Beyond - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 7

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After the first shock of finding his charge alive, Mark was conscious of an immense sense of relief. The drama of his ghastly drive was lightened. He realised the idiocy of having accepted the frantic story of a terrified man and girl as to what had happened, to have been satisfied without a doctor’s verdict of the death of the man. Nevertheless, the first few seconds were extraordinarily thrilling. He stepped back to the tree and stood leaning down with his hand upon its trunk, looking at the recumbent figure. The commencement of the conversation naturally presented some difficulties.

“So you’re not dead?” he ventured a little clumsily.

“I am one of those who take much killing,” was the weary reply. “Who are you? A friend or an enemy? You mean to finish what he began? Why? I have not done you any harm.”

“I am certainly not your enemy, or any man’s that I know of,” Mark assured him. “You are perfectly safe with me. If you can lift your arms, put them round my neck, and I will carry you back to the car.”

The man obeyed feebly, and Mark made him as comfortable as he could amongst the cushions. He was still ghastly pale, and the wound on his head had recommenced to bleed slightly. Mark tied it up with his handkerchief.

“We’ll stop at the first pub,” he promised, “and I’ll get you some brandy.”

“And—afterwards?”

“I’m damned if I know. Where do you live? Where do you want to be taken?”

There was no reply. The man had closed his eyes again and appeared to be only partially conscious. Mark drove slowly back through the Park and out into the streets until he came to the lights of a public house. The man drank the brandy which he procured, drowsily, a few drops at a time.

“Soon I shall be all right,” he murmured. “God! My head!”

They made their laboured way back through Hammersmith and Kensington. After they reached Hyde Park the fog was less dense, and progress comparatively easy. Mark pulled up by the side of the road.

“Look here,” he suggested, “shall I take you to a hospital?”

His companion shook his head.

“Home then? Tell me your name and where you are staying?”

There was still no reply. The man seemed to have relapsed again into a comatose state. Mark glanced thoughtfully across towards the Hospital and remembered the questions he would probably have to answer. He started the car again, drove on to Curzon Street, and pulled up before the door of his own little maisonnette.

“Andrews,” he told his servant, who admitted him, “I have a gentleman in the car who has met with an accident in the fog. Help me in with him. We’ll get him upstairs and then telephone for a doctor.”

It all seemed perfectly natural. Within a few minutes the injured man was comfortably in bed, and shortly afterwards, in response to the telephone call, the doctor made his appearance.

“I picked this poor fellow up in the street,” Mark explained. “I fancy he had been having a row with someone.”

The doctor nodded.

“Any quantity of accidents a day like this,” he remarked beginning his examination. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“A complete stranger,” Mark admitted. “I suppose I ought to have taken him to a hospital.”

“Good thing you didn’t. They’re all chock full. He’s had a terrible knock here.”

“Serious?”

“He’ll be all right in time. Touch and go, though. Better let me send in a nurse, if you don’t mind, to dress this. She’ll take all the responsibility.”

“Fine,” Mark exclaimed. “And, doctor.”

“Well?”

“There’s no need for me to make any report, is there, about having found him? If he has any complaint to lodge against anyone he can make it himself when he recovers.”

“No need for you to do anything of the sort,” was the prompt reply. “So far as I’m concerned an accident in the fog is all I want to know. You weren’t the aggressor, I suppose?”

“I can assure you that I wasn’t,” Mark declared. “I couldn’t hit anything that size.”

The doctor paused to write out a prescription.

“I’ll send a nurse in half an hour,” he promised, “and I’ll be round in the morning. Don’t bother about the fee now. I’m busy. There’ll be plenty of time for that. He’ll do nicely. I shouldn’t be surprised if he slept.”

The doctor took his leave and Mark, having rung for a servant to sit with the unconscious man, made his way downstairs into his own little library and threw himself into an easy chair. Presently Andrews entered noiselessly, carrying a tray upon which were glasses and a cocktail shaker.

“A good strong Martini,” his master ordered. “Tell me, what time is it?”

“Half-past six, sir. You’ll excuse my reminding you that you’re dining at the American Embassy. One of the secretaries rang up about an hour ago to ask you to be there punctually....”

Mark drank his cocktail and took off the telephone receiver from the instrument by his side.

“1000 Y Gerrard,” he demanded.

A strange voice answered the call.

“Van Stratton speaking,” Mark announced. “Are Mr. or Miss Dukane there?”

“Mr. and Miss Dukane have both left.”

“Where are they? Where can I find them?”

“We have no information.”

“But the matter is important,” Mark ventured.

“We have no information as to the whereabouts of either Mr. or Miss Dukane when they are not here.”

“But I have information of the utmost importance for Mr. Dukane. You must tell me where to get at him,” Mark persisted.

“Mr. Dukane has a private wire for his own use during the occasional hour or so a day which he spends here,” was the uncompromising reply. “Apart from that his instructions are absolutely final. He is very much engaged and troubled with too much correspondence. He does not allow messages or his address to be given. Please ring off.”

Mark abandoned his effort and lit a cigarette. Dorchester was announced. The latter flung himself into an easy-chair with the air of one thoroughly at home.

“Your cocktails are better than anyone’s, Mark,” he confided. “I couldn’t help coming round, even in this beastly fog. What did you think of our new friends at close quarters?”

“Well,” Mark answered, “he seems just as disagreeable as he appears and she just as charming.”

Dorchester stretched out his hand and took a cigarette.

“The fellow’s a big pot, you know.”

Mark nodded. He was more in the humour for listening than talking.

“Tell you something I heard about him this afternoon,” Dorchester went on. “Mind you, I don’t know whether it’s true or not. They say that he’s been rather shy of the big things lately, gathering in his money from every quarter of the world. Do you know why?”

“Haven’t the least idea,” Mark acknowledged.

“They say,” Dorchester continued impressively, “that he’s at the bottom of all this speculation against the franc. That’s the gossip in Paris, anyway.”

Mark was thoughtful for a moment.

“I don’t see that there’s money to be made out of that,” he commented.

“That’s because you’re not a financier,” Dorchester declared. “Of course we don’t know what his scheme is, but we do know that we have to be buying currency all the time to pay America, and a low franc suits us all right. I can’t imagine Dukane standing in with our fellows though.”

“Dukane doesn’t cut any figure in international politics, does he?” Mark enquired.

“I don’t imagine so,” Dorchester answered. “I should think he’s out for an enormous coup. They say that even the first of the Rothschilds never had a brain for finance like his.... What about a round of golf to-morrow morning, if the fog lifts?”

Mark shook his head.

“I guess I’m through with that for a bit. Do I strike you as having the necessary qualifications for a diplomat, Henry?”

“No one on God’s earth less so,” was the fervent reply.

“No need to be rude about it,” Mark complained. “Anyway, I’m roped in for the job. They are overworked at the Embassy and I’m going to do the social stunt and any other odd piece of work that turns up. Start to-morrow. Room of my own, official air, lady secretary, edited visiting lists, shake hands with everybody. You know the sort of thing!”

“Keep you out of mischief, anyway.”

“You needn’t be so beastly superior about it all. I was in the Service before the War began. I shall never forget the seven months I spent at a wretched little place in South America. By the by, have you any idea where the Dukanes are staying?”

“Neither I nor anyone else, I should think,” Dorchester replied gloomily. “Not only his business transactions, but his whole private life seems to be one huge camouflage. I wanted to have my people call, but it doesn’t seem possible. I believe they move from hotel to hotel every day. What are you doing to-night?”

“Dining at the Embassy,” Mark answered. “I’ve got to be there to have a talk with Mrs. Widdowes first too.”

Dorchester finished his cocktail and rose to his feet.

“I shall be down at the House until late,” he announced. “What’s the hospital nurse doing on your stairs?”

“One of the maids has influenza,” Mark answered coolly, as he rang the bell. “I think I was rather an ass to take on a house. Service flats save you a lot of trouble. Sure you won’t have another cocktail?”

Dorchester shook his head.

“Must keep my brain clear,” he confided. “The British public needs guiding and something tells me that to-night mine is the voice which will do it.”

“You can’t monopolise the House,” Mark warned him, as they strolled into the hall. “You spoke a few nights ago.”

“The voice of young England——” Dorchester began—“I say, what the devil’s that?”

A door upstairs had been opened and the sound of a deep troubled groan travelled out from the room behind.

“My invalid, I suppose,” Mark answered.

Dorchester stared at him for a moment incredulously, and then shrugged his shoulders.

“Not my business, anyway,” he remarked, as he took his leave. “Pretty deep bass voice that, though, for an invalid maidservant.”