Читать книгу The Rogue's March - E. W. Hornung - Страница 8

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The half-pay officer was a thick-set, youngish man, with a smooth, sly, yellow face, and hair like spun steel. He walked with a chronic limp and a stout, gold-headed cane, and was seldom without the genial, flattering smile that had tempted Tom Erichsen, and other young flies before him, into a parlour from which no pocket returned intact.

But since then Tom fancied Blaydes had found a richer dupe; he looked a much more prosperous scamp. The coach-lamps struck sparks from a very brilliant pin in his high satin stock. The coachman must have been handsomely paid off, to depart as he did, with benedictions. And the Captain himself had evidently recovered a temper notoriously serene; for a soft hand fell like a feather upon Tom’s square shoulder; and he heard once more the soothing accents of the gentlest rascal of his time.

“Come now, my good fellow,” said his normal voice, “what the deuce is all this? You have treated me very cavalierly, and I you very obligingly, I think, for the elder man. What is it you want, Mr.—Mr.—upon my soul I’ve forgotten your name!”

“You’re a liar, Blaydes,” replied Tom, as quietly. “You always were one; but it won’t do you much good to-night!”

“You trade upon our different stations,” murmured the other. “I have shot a man for less than that; but you are only a boy. Have the goodness to say what you want.”

“My thirty-five pounds!”

“Your thirty-five pounds? Yours? Look here, I begin to remember you. Your name is Eric—Eric something or other. And I was fool enough to play with you, Eric. I remember that too. You were going off to the Cape, or somewhere; you begin to take shape in my mind; but thirty-five pounds! I recall nothing of the kind. My impression was that we settled up and parted friends.”

“We did,” said Tom. He had allowed the other to lead him along the turnpike road, back towards the city. The moon sailed high on their left, and the sky was full of stars. On either hand the hedgerows were dusted with pale, bursting buds, like spray; and no figure but these two broke the long, still parallels, or blotted the white road between.

“You admit it?” cried Blaydes, stopping in his walk. “Then why on earth come to me?”

“You know why! You settled with a cheque not worth the paper it was written on. Your name was unknown at the bank! It was a cheque for thirty-five pounds, and I want the money.”

“Have you got that cheque?”

“It is in my pocket.”

“I should like to see it.”

“No doubt you would!”

“You distrust me,” observed Blaydes, calmly. “I see now that you have some reason to do so. At least you won’t mind telling me whether it was drawn on Stuckey’s Bank?”

“It was.”

“Exactly!” cried the Captain. “It’s as plain as a pikestaff now. My dear young fellow, I apologise from the very bottom of my heart, for it has been my mistake after all. What do you think I did? Wrote out my cheque in Dick Vale’s cheque-book— you recollect Dick Vale? He banks at Stuckey’s. That’s it, of course; and no wonder you thought me a thundering rogue! Now I’ll be frank with you, Erichsen. Of course I knew you well enough; but I wasn’t over-anxious to renew acquaintance with the man who had written threatening letters to my club. Especially as I couldn’t understand ‘em! But I do now, and ‘pon my soul I’m sorry; here’s my hand!”

“I prefer your money.”

“What! you dare to doubt my word?”

“Until I see your money—most certainly.”

“Well, you shall see it tomorrow. I don’t carry thirty-five pounds about in my evening clothes.”

“Then suppose we turn back to your rooms, and you pay me there and now!”

“And where are my rooms, pray?”—

“In the village of West End.”

Blaydes swore a puzzled oath, and thumped his cane upon the ground. “You know a lot!” he snarled. “What you don’t know is when to leave well alone. I have told you I am sorry about that mistake. I have told you I can let you have the money tomorrow; yet you have the insolence to doubt my word! Very well—have your way; I shall waste no more time upon you. I am going. You know where to find me when you come to your senses!”

“Better still, I know where you’re going, and I’m coming too. I don’t lose sight of you to-night!”

“We shall see about that.”

“We shall!”

And they stepped out with no more words, though Blaydes ground his teeth and gripped his cane and tried his best to drop a foot or two behind. But Tom’s eye was on him. So he stopped at a stile; whereupon Tom stopped too; and, as they stood, there passed a labourer who stared and wished them good-night.

“See here, Erichsen!” exclaimed the Captain. “I object to discussing private matters on a turnpike road. Here’s a path that’s a short cut back into town; suppose I come a part of the way with you, and talk this thing over without fear of being heard? What do you say?”

“As you like; your way is mine.”

Blaydes shrugged his broad shoulders, tucked his cane under one arm, and laboriously crossed the stile. Tom then followed him into a sloping field, with a beaten right-of-way running uphill through the dewy grass. They climbed this path with the young moon in their eyes, but not a word upon their lips, and Tom’s thick stick grasped tight by the knob. The ascent brought them to a second hedge, backed by a row of horse-chestnuts all hazy with tiny leaves, and to a hollow beech beside the second stile. Here the Captain dropped his cane in the grass, and limping pitiably, begged the other to pick it up. But Tom merely shifted it with his foot, keeping a strange eye on Blaydes as he did so. The cane in the grass had no gold knob, and the Captain’s right hand was tucked inside his cloak.

“Very prettily planned,” said Tom, with a sneer; “but I should like to see the rest of that sword-stick!”

The other laughed.

“I only drew it in case of need—you are such a violent young blood! Ah! you will have it, will you? There, then—and there—and there!”

The yard of thin, tempered steel had been casually produced, and Tom had instantly struck at it with his stick. Next moment the point was within an inch of his body, but Tom retreated nimbly, hitting high up the blade with all his might. It snapped at the third blow, whizzed in the air, and came down sticking in the grass. Only the gold head and three inches of blade were left in the Captain’s tingling hand.

“Chuck it away,” said Tom, “and I drop my stick. That’s better; now about that money. You didn’t bring me up here to run me through the body, of course! What was your object?”

“To settle with you—fairly,” said Blaydes, with a lurch in his low voice. “I am overdue elsewhere, as you have found out—the Lord knows how! If I had the money on me, it should be yours this minute. As I haven’t it, I propose this compromise: wait till tomorrow and I’ll make it fifty—and give you an I O U on the spot!”

“No, no, Blaydes. Once bit—once bit! Very sorry, but it can’t be done.”

Blaydes muttered an oath as he took out his watch, pressed the spring, and it struck ten, and then the three-quarters, like fairy bells. He did not put the watch away again, but stood with it in his hands and presently detached the chain from his waistcoat. He had already turned his face to the moon, and he now glanced over his shoulder and beckoned to Tom.

“Just have a look at this,” said he. “No, take it in your hands and examine it properly.”

The watch was a repeater of a type even then old-fashioned. It was very handsome and heavy and fat, with a yellow dial and a back like a golden saucer. Tom turned it over, and the moon shone on the Captain’s monogram.

“Well, but what have I got to do with this?”

“Pawn it!”

“Pawn your watch?”

“And send me the ticket, and never pester me again! It won’t be the first time it’s been in. I’ve had forty pounds for it before today, and never less than thirty. You may get what you can; all I want is the pawn-ticket, and your undertaking to leave me alone from this day on!”

“Leave you alone! I shall get a berth of some sort aboard an Indiaman that sails on Monday. Do you mean it, Blaydes? Do you mean what you say?”

“Mean it? Of course I mean it; put the watch in your pocket, and give me a pencil.”

“And the chain?”

“And the chain.”

It was made of long gold links and short silver ones, with a huge bunch of seals at one end. Tom pocketed the lot without compunction, and then produced his stump of lead-pencil.

“Here you are.”

“Got any paper?”

“Not a scrap.”

“Well, well, then we must make this do;” and Blaydes produced a small sheaf of blue paper tied with pink tape, leant upon the stile, and, without untying the tape, wrote for a little on the outside sheet, moistening the pencil with his tongue.

“Sign that,” said he, and handed the packet to Tom, who held it to the light and read as follows:—

“Received from J. Montgomery Blaydes (late Captain Coldstream Guards), his watch and chain, etc., in settlement of all claims, and in consideration of which I undertake to return pawn-ticket for same to said J. M. Blaydes, Ivy Cottage, West End, within three days from this date.—(Signed),—, April 27th, 1837.”

Tom read this terse deed twice through; looked again at the watch and chain; weighed them in his hand; took a third look at the paper, and signed his name in the blank space without a word.

“Good!” said Blaydes, pocketing the roll. “Now I think you’ll have no objection to giving me back that worthless cheque? Come, perhaps it wasn’t such a pure accident after all. But I was cursedly hard up at the time. And I honestly regret it—I do indeed.”

Still without a word, Tom handed him the cheque, whereupon Blaydes twisted it up, struck a lucifer, and ignited the paper at one end. And as it burnt he picked off and powdered the charred bits between finger and thumb, while the yellow flame made his smooth face yellower than ever. When the last particle was demolished, he snapped his burnt fingers and turned to Tom.

“You will now, I think, allow me to proceed on my way alone? If you stick to this right-of-way, it will take you to Haverstock Hill, which is the straightest way back to the City from this. Good-bye, Erichsen. I have been a bad friend to you —I know it. Yet I have always liked you, and never better than for your grit and nerve to-night. Get all you can for the old warming-pan. I needn’t remind you to send on the ticket, for you were always as straight as a die. So was I once, Erichsen! Even now I’m not as bad as you think me; and upon my soul, it was only your infernal bludgeon that made me draw cold steel. Give me your hand, boy; we may never meet again; but if we do—I’m thinking of marrying— and you shall find me another man, so help me God!”

Refusal was impossible. Their hands met across the stile. And as Tom saw it last, by clean moonlight, there was a certain wistfulness in the yellow, sapless face, drained and stained though it was by a hateful life; a sort of pathos in the glistening white head, from which the low-crowned hat was lifted, as if the creature’s prayer had been indeed sincere.