Читать книгу The Grassleyes Mystery - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Doctors, gendarmes, the Sub-Commissioner of Police from Nice, the matron of a neighbouring hospital, nurses in the garb of Sisters of Mercy, the Curé from the church which stood in the grounds—all finished with at last. It seemed to David Granet that he had explained his visit to a dozen different people, but there were still statements to be made and questions to be answered. At last he managed to escape and make his way to the spot where he had left his car. He was about to press the self-starter when he heard the sudden fluttering of skirts. He turned unwillingly around. He was confronted by a young woman who had apparently issued hurriedly from the house. In her distracted state, with the horror still in her eyes, he scarcely realized for a moment that she had been one of the little gathering of people who had been questioned by the Sub-Commissioner. Then he remembered his first start when in answer to a question she had admitted that she was Lady Grassleyes' niece. She was a young woman of a very different type, and she was very beautiful.

"Mr. Granet, if you please," she begged, "do not go away for a moment. May I speak to you?"

"Certainly," he answered. "I was only hurrying off because I thought there was nothing left for me to do—"

"Is it true," she interrupted breathlessly, "that you came to see about taking one of the bungalows?"

"Well, it was rather my idea," he admitted. "I was going to look at one, at any rate."

The girl shivered.

"Please come back into the house for a moment or two."

"Certainly."

She led him back into the hall, down the long corridor and into a small apartment which seemed to be behind the room into which he had originally been shown, and from which it was separated by two steps and a closed door. It was evidently her own sanctum. The most modern thing he had seen in the place, a typewriter, stood on a prim little writing-table in the window recess, and opposite was a small-sized grand piano. There were flowers everywhere in abundance. She forgot to ask him to sit down. Immediately she had secured the door she began to talk to him. There was subdued excitement in her tone, speculation in her eyes.

"Mr. Granet," she asked, "what really made you come here to-day?"

"My dear young lady, I have told you already," he declared. "I have been wandering about France in my car and I thought I would find a very quiet spot in which to work for a time. I am one of those people, you see, who appreciate tranquillity."

The girl looked at him curiously. Their eyes met. She was still under the stress of emotion, her breasts rising and falling as though she had been hurrying. Her puzzled but tortured eyes seemed to be asking him a question.

"Tranquillity," she murmured. "It is a hard thing to find. I thought that I should find it here—and now—this."

"Your aunt's sudden death must have been a great shock to you, of course," he said sympathetically.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Anything like that is always terrible," he went on quietly. "I think I heard you tell the doctor that you had never known her ill."

"Never," she replied. "On the contrary she has had, for the last few years, wonderful health. She took great care of herself, lived according to a régime of her own, concocted her own medicines all from herbs of her own growing, and never saw a doctor."

"Is she the only relative you have out here?"

"The only one."

"Are any of the occupants of the bungalows your special friends?"

"I scarcely know their names. Lately there have been many changes and I have only been out here a little more than two years."

Granet looked at her gravely.

"It seems to me," he ventured, "—forgive me if I am impertinent—that you are rather young to be left alone after a shock like this."

She shook her head.

"I am not so young as I seem," she confided. "And it is not only the shock. I am afraid."

"Afraid?"

"Why I am telling you this I don't know," she said, restlessly rolling and unrolling her handkerchief. "But I am afraid."

He smiled reassuringly.

"You will get over that. I understand the feeling perfectly. Whatever any one may say, sudden death, when we come face to face with it, is terrible."

The girl's fingers were still tearing at her handkerchief. Granet leaned forward and took it from her. She allowed him to do so quite meekly.

"Can't you understand," she faltered, "she doesn't look in the least like a dead person to me? I have seen several and they were not—like that."

"But you must remember," he pointed out, "that she has been examined by two doctors. They both of them pronounced life extinct."

"I know," she confessed, "but I cannot help it. I know she had lost all her colour—I know that she did not seem to be breathing—and yet—I do not believe it."

"You must really try to fight those nerves," he insisted. "There are many means of testing whether a person is actually dead or not and your aunt's regular medical attendant is with her now. I wish you would take my advice and go and lie down quite quietly and put these last hours out of your mind. One of the Sisters of Mercy who helped to move your aunt looks a kind sort of person. Would you like her to come and talk to you?"

"I should hate it. If you really want to help me you can do it another way."

"Of course I want to help you," he assured her quite truthfully. "You have only to tell me how."

"You came to look at a bungalow," she said eagerly. "Let me show it to you. My aunt would have sent me with Pooralli to go over it with you. Please come and see it."

Granet smiled at her kindly.

"Of course I will do that. Whether the place is kept on or not there is not the slightest harm in my looking at the bungalow."

The girl drew a long breath of relief. She clutched him by the arm and led him out through the front door into the avenue. She pointed across the park.

"The one my aunt would have offered you is called 'The Lamps of Fire.' You will find there are always fire-flies there at night."

"Picturesque, at any rate," he remarked. "What about that butler fellow who let me in? He is standing over there looking as though he wanted to come with us."

She glanced across in the direction her companion had indicated but she only shook her head.

"It is not necessary for him to come," she declared. "I have all the keys. I can tell you the price my aunt would have asked and give you all the particulars."

Granet hesitated.

"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be better for me to come up sometime to-morrow? Your butler is looking a little disappointed."

She laid her fingers upon his arm.

"Pooralli does not understand," she confided. "Please do as I wish. It is only a few minutes' walk. It will take you no time at all. The bungalow is just behind the acacia trees ... it is a bachelor bungalow ... you are not married?"

"No, I am not married."

"How do you manage about your domestic arrangements?" she asked as they started off together.

"I permit myself generally," he admitted, "the luxury of a servant. Sometimes I have fits of economy and do everything for myself. Is this the place?"

"Yes, this is it," she replied. "It is almost my favourite amongst the bungalows."

They had turned the corner round a little coppice of closely growing acacia trees whose blossoms lay like snow upon the ground and whose sweetness filled the air. In front of them, surrounded by a rustic paling, was a low building fashioned of the stone of the neighbourhood, with ancient red tiles and windows opening outwards. A small garage stood by its side. There was no attempt at a formal garden but wild flowers grew almost to the front door.

"It is delightfully situated, at any rate," Granet remarked.

"I do hope you will like it," she murmured, unlocking the front door.

They passed through a small hall, a pleasant lounge-library and a dining-room with plain but massive furniture. Behind the one room there was a simply furnished bedroom; behind the other a kitchen leading to outhouses.

"There is a bathroom beyond the bedroom," the girl told him, "and there is a servant's bedroom in case it is required. There is a telephone with an extension to the Manoir and we have a good cook who supplies things if they are wanted. On the other hand," she went on anxiously, "if you are used to doing things for yourself there is every facility. The kitchen stove is small but modern. The price of the bungalow furnished is eight mille a month. Any service from the Manoir is, of course, extra."

"Isn't it rather a bother sending the food down here, for instance?"

"My aunt has always been very peculiar," she explained. "She never had the tenants near the house if she could help it and yet she insisted upon visiting every bungalow once a month and collecting the rent herself. Pooralli or his brother will serve your meals if you do not bring a servant of your own. They have a funny habit of running wherever they go and you will be surprised how quickly they get over the ground."

"Was Pooralli the butler who opened the door for me?"

"Yes. He is a strange little man but he is a wonderful servant and I believe quite honest. My aunt brought him from Burma, also his younger brother whom you have not seen."

"Supposing I take the bungalow for a month. I think I should like it here."

"I should be very glad if you did," the girl said earnestly. "I should like you to come very much."

Granet was a simple man in some ways and he asked her a blunt question.

"Why is it so important to you that I come here? The rent cannot make very much difference. I should think these bungalows, at the price you are asking, ought to let very easily."

"It is not the money," she assured him. "It is very difficult to tell you."

"Come along, why do you think you would like me for a tenant? I hate mysteries."

There was a sudden flash of that uneasy light in her eyes. It was a warm afternoon but he almost fancied she was shivering.

"If you hate mysteries you had better stay away," she told him with a little tremor in her tone. "You see, I want you to come here but I won't have you come under false pretences."

"Why should there be mysteries?" he asked patiently.

"My aunt's collapse is a mystery," she declared, a note of passion throbbing in her voice. "She was perfectly well a few hours ago. Her life has always been a mystery, though. Sometimes all these people who occupy the bungalows seem like living mysteries to me. I don't know what they came for, I don't know why they stay on. I don't know why my aunt drove round once a month in her old-fashioned carriage to collect the rents when she had an agent. And perhaps the greatest mystery of all is that I don't know whether they loved her or whether they hated her.... There, I have told you a great deal. Will you come or not? Please come!"

Granet drew a card from his pocket and scribbled on the back. He also counted out some mille notes.

"There is my name and a banker's reference," he said. "And eight mille for my first month."

"It is not necessary," she assured him with tears in her eyes.

"I prefer it so," he replied. "And listen, will you please pay a little attention to a word or two of advice from a stranger?"

"I will listen to it from you—yes—but you must not mind my saying this. I do not feel that you are the ordinary sort of stranger at all."

"I am very glad. You know, you are really just a little dazed, aren't you? It is a terrible thing to have happened—to lose any one like that so suddenly. You scarcely believe it yourself. Now, if I were you, when you get back to the Manoir I should go and talk to your aunt's own physician. He will probably explain things to you a little more clearly. Some of the strongest people in the world, you know, have their own special weakness which no one—not even themselves, sometimes—knows anything about. It is not the worst way of quitting this world, after all."

"My aunt's physician is not a very sympathetic person," she told him. "I wonder whether you know him—Dr. Bertoldi?"

Granet shook his head.

"I have never stayed long enough in these parts to need a doctor."

"Dr. Bertoldi and my aunt were never very good friends," she confided. "My aunt was very clever with herbs. She has, I believe, some wonderful things in her garden. She has cured quite a number of people of slight ailments. I don't think the doctor likes it."

"Rather dangerous things to meddle with—herbs," he observed.

"That is what Dr. Bertoldi used to say. He was very angry one day when my aunt told him that she could cure more headaches in an hour than he could in a lifetime!"

"A self-respecting practitioner would no doubt find that trying," Granet agreed.

"Well, I shall certainly do as you say. I shall go and talk to him immediately you have left. When are you coming in?"

"The day after to-morrow, if that suits you," he replied. "We all have to come to some sort of enquiry up at the Manoir to-morrow. Perhaps you would rather I put off moving in for a short time."

"If I had a preference at all," she confided, "I should like you to move in to-night."

He hesitated. There was something strangely appealing about that anxious light in her eyes.

"Well, there's really nothing against it so far as I am concerned," he decided. "The only thing is, I haven't made up my mind yet whether to bring a servant or not."

"Come to-night, please!" she cried eagerly. "Do not bother about a servant, but perhaps, just for to-night, you had better have your dinner before you come."

"No difficulty about that," he agreed. "Suit me better, in fact. It will take me some time to pack."

He looked at her curiously. Her whole attention seemed suddenly to have wandered. She had become more tense. She was standing quite still, her head turned away from him, bent as though listening. He, too, heard the same strange sound as he had heard when waiting outside the front door earlier in the afternoon. He glanced out of the window. A curious figure was approaching the bungalow in a curious manner. It was Pooralli, wearing his white coat, black trousers and small patent-leather shoes—Pooralli, running steadily but without any sign of effort.

"Heavens, does he always do this?" Granet exclaimed.

"Ever since I've known him," the girl answered. "I have never been East myself but my aunt always told me that he came from a tribe, half Chinese, half Malayan, called 'The Running Footmen.'"

Pooralli came to a standstill just outside. Granet, anticipating his companion's intention, pushed open the window for her.

"Pooralli," she announced, "this gentleman has taken the bungalow we are in."

The man bowed politely.

"Gentleman has made good choice," he said. "We shall do our best to make him comfortable."

"He will move in to-night," the girl went on.

"A wise thing is well done quickly," Pooralli murmured. "I will send down the necessary articles. Meanwhile, Miss Grassleyes, the doctor wishes to see you before he leaves. He ask many questions."

"I'll come at once."

Pooralli turned round after a little bow to Granet and at exactly the same pace commenced his run back to the Manoir. His short legs, with their peculiar action, covered the ground with amazing speed. Granet looked after him in wonder.

"You certainly possess the most original butler in the world, Miss Grassleyes," he declared.

She smiled. Pooralli had already disappeared, as they crossed the strip of park land and came in sight of the house.

"He is a very remarkable creature," she agreed. "My aunt was very fond of him."

They walked side by side to where Granet had left his car.

"How long has Pooralli been in Lady Grassleyes' employ?"

"Eighteen or twenty years."

"An old servant," Granet reflected. "He has probably lost a mistress with whom he has been since a boy, yet how callous he seems! Don't you think so, too?"

"He is more than callous," she said quietly. "I do not think he has ever felt anything in his life. Even my aunt used to say of him that he had no vices, no virtues, no love in his nature and no hate. There are very few left of his race. In Burma or Siam they command higher wages than a European can ask. They say that if you wish for a perfectly run household you must seek for one of 'The Running Footmen.'"

Granet installed himself in the driving seat of his car. His finger lingered for a moment on the self-starter. She leaned towards him. For the first time he realized how suddenly and completely a woman's expression can change. The strained look was gone; her lips had grown softer; her eyes had lost their fear.

"I have said so little," she whispered. "I can say no more. But will you remember, please, that I am grateful? You are the first person who has ever done just what I asked out of simple kindness. I shall never forget, and I shall tell you now—ask no questions, please, but perhaps you will understand a little later—there is something about the place—somebody—some people who terrify me. There is something going on behind my back which I do not understand. With you near I shall have no more fear."

She stepped back and for once in his life Granet was entirely wordless. She waved her hand, he touched his hat and drove off. As he turned into the main road from the avenue he slackened speed and looked back over his shoulder. She was still standing where he had left her—a slim, motionless figure watching his retreating car.

"It seems to me," he muttered as his foot sought the accelerator once more, "that I'm probably doing a damned silly thing and that I'm certainly a damned silly fool to feel so glad about it!"