Читать книгу The Squealer - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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SHE STARTED at him wide-eyed, white-faced, incredulous.

“John Leslie an ex-convict?”

He nodded slowly.

“Sit down, Beryl,” he said quietly, and she obeyed. “Darling, how long have you and I known each other?”

The unexpectedness of the question for the moment startled her.

“Why, all our lives. I don’t remember any other father.”

“Do you know——” He had begun to pace up and down the room, his pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes on the carpet. After a while he stopped before her. “Do you know how you came into my care, kiddie?”

“Why, yes!” she said, surprised. “You were his partner, Uncle Lew, and you took charge of me after he died.”

He was looking at her earnestly.

“That’s true,” he said at last. “Your father and I were partners—we worked together—we robbed the same bank.”

She could only gaze at him, open-mouthed, too startled to be articulate.

“That’s shocking, isn’t it? But it’s God’s truth! You had to know some time or other, I didn’t want you some day to get an idea that you’d like to find out all about your parents, and I made up my mind to tell you. Bill Stedman and I were bank robbers in South Africa. Your mother died of a broken heart when she found that out—the doctors called it something else, but she just didn’t have the will to live. She died five years after poor Billy was shot when he and I were smashing the Standard Bank in Port Elizabeth. He was killed; I went down to the Breakwater for five years. When I came out, your mother had been dead a week. She left me a note asking me to look after you; you were just four and a half years old.”

She had been stunned, and now she was looking wildly about the handsome apartment, and, as though he read her thoughts, he said quickly:

“Every penny I got honestly, Beryl. I peddled laces in Johannesburg, made a little money racing, and got into Prenner Diamonds—five hundred of them, when they were thirty shillings; bought others on margin when they rose, and cleared two hundred thousand pounds by the time I’d sold out.”

“Why—why do you tell me this now?” she asked breathlessly. “And what has this to do with—with John Leslie? Oh, Uncle Lew, I can’t believe——”

“Could you believe that I’d ever been a thief, that your father was a burglar?” he asked, and she shook her head silently.

“This kind of thing is incredible, I know. Yet John Leslie is an old lag. Frank took him into his office to give him a chance. He’d been recommended by some prison governor that Frank got acquainted with.”

“But he must have been innocent——”

Lew shook his head.

“A man can be convicted once innocently, but not three times,” he said, with deadly logic. “Leslie’s not a bad lad—I like him, and there’s good in him, I’ll swear. But, Beryl, I don’t want you to get any romantic ideas into your head about John Leslie. Frank’s a good fellow, one in a thousand; not so fascinating as Mr. John, but a good fellow; everybody loves him. And I thank God on my bended knees that we ever took that trip to Madeira and met him on the boat.”

She said nothing to this: she liked Frank well enough, but for the moment, by some odd trick of mind, she seemed to find her fate affiliated more with this jailbird man than with the handsome young merchant she was to marry.

“On my bended knees, I thank God for that,” said Lew, with great earnestness. “I want to see you married and settled with a decent man, beyond any fear that some bright gadabout should ever catch your fancy and break your heart. I’ve lived for you, Beryl—given up all the things that used to make life attractive for me. I’ve not even married, though I’ll take no credit for that, because I’m bachelor-minded——”

She interrupted him now.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it—that a man like that——”

He laughed harshly, though not entirely without good humour.

“How like a woman!” he growled. “You’re not thinking of your poor father; you’re not even thinking of poor old Lew and his five years on the Breakwater. But your mind’s on that flibbertigibbet!”

She went red as the truth of the accusation struck her.

“I suppose I am rather a pig,” she confessed. And then, quickly: “Does Frank know?”

“About your father and me? No. And he need never know. He knows all about Leslie, of course.”

“Of course,” she repeated mechanically. “When—how did they come to meet?”

“Frank sent him a letter when he was in prison—in Wandsworth, I think it was—saying that he’d heard he was a smart business man, and asking him if he’d come along when he was released and take charge of a department. Leslie arrived, and Frank tried him out, found he was a very good organizer. When Frank’s last manager went wrong—Frank’s the unluckiest man in the world with his staff—he put Leslie in the position, and was very generous with him.”

She had to flog her enthusiasm, and hated herself because she could not feel all that she said.

“I like Frank: you know that, Lew.” As often as not she called him by his name without a prefix. “He’s a dear, and although I’m not very keen on marriage, I’d as soon marry Frank as any man I’ve ever met.” She hesitated. “I think,” she added.

She forced a smile.

“You’re very pleased with the thought of my marrying him, aren’t you?”

He slipped his arm round her shoulders and pressed her to his side.

“My dear, he’s the man I chose for you,” he said simply. “I gave Frank his chance, advanced him the money to make his business. There’s no secret about that. And I said to myself: ‘My boy, if you make good, I’ve got the wife for you.’ And, Beryl, he made good. There isn’t a business in London that’s made the progress of Frank’s in the six years that it’s been running. Yes?” This to the servant who had come in.

“There’s a gentleman wishes to see you.”

“See me, at this time of night?” frowned Lew. “Who is he?”

He took the card from the tray and read it short-sightedly.

“Mr. Joshua Collie, Post-Courier. Who the devil is Mr. Joshua Collie of the Post-Courier?” he asked wonderingly of the girl.

But she could offer no solution to the mystery of the reporter’s visit.

Lew strode out into the hall and found the amiable Mr. Collie contemplating an etching above the hall fireplace with every evidence of interest—indeed, of rapture.

“That is a Zohns, is it not?” he said, in an awe-stricken voice. “What colour! What movement! A veritable master!”

He looked blandly at Mr. Friedman, as though he expected, not only approval, but an exposition of the owner’s views.

“Yes, yes,” said Lew patiently; “but you haven’t come to discuss etchings, have you?”

Mr. Collie’s jaw dropped.

“Dear me, no! Of course I haven’t! How extraordinary! I forgot everything in the contemplation of that majestic line! I called to ask if you knew, or were in any way acquainted with, a gentleman named——” He scratched his chin, frowned, dug down into his waistcoat pocket, and presently produced a much-folded slip of paper—“Mr. John Leslie.”

He had a quick, birdlike trick of moving his gaze from one object to another, and now he looked up so quickly from the paper and met Mr. Friedman’s eyes so unexpectedly that the South African was momentarily taken aback.

“I know him—I’ve met him, that is to say,” he corrected himself. “Why?”

“I wonder if you could tell me something about him?” Joshua’s voice was gentle; the very droop of his head was a plea.

“I know very little of him. Mr. Sutton, no doubt, will make you acquainted with all he knows. Leslie is Mr. Sutton’s manager.”

“I knew that,” murmured Joshua, emphasizing the pronoun. “After persistent inquiry that fact emerged. Now, as to Mr. Leslie’s past?”

“I know nothing about it,” said Friedman resentfully. His early training brought him up in arms against the suggestion that he should be manœuvred into the position of an informer. “Thou shalt not blab” is the oldest and most consistent of the thieves’ commandments, and his reformation did not release him from his obligations.

“I’m sorry.” Joshua was all apologies. “I thought it possible you might be able to tell me something. Inspector Barrabal, whom I cannot claim as a friend but rather as a vocal acquaintance—that is rather good—thought possibly that you might be able to assist me.”

“Barrabal, eh?” said Lew grimly. “That’s the fly—the detective who is getting himself talked about just now? You can tell Barrabal, with my compliments, that I know nothing whatever about Leslie, and that if I knew I should not tell him.”

“Is it something about Mr. Leslie?”

Beryl was at the door of the library.

“This reporter wants to know something about him.” He looked keenly at Joshua. “You’re rather old for a reporter, aren’t you, Mr.—um—Collie?”

Mr. Collie did not resent the cruelty of the question, but favoured the girl with one of his cherubic smiles.

“Old and artful,” he said. “That is one of the great advantages which the years bring—an increase of cunning and a superabundance of artifice!”

“What did you want to know about Mr. Leslie?” challenged Beryl.

“Everything.” Joshua made a comprehensive sweep of his hand. It was a gesture embracing the universe, and demanded the breaking of all seals of knowledge. “The truth is,” he said, “there has been an unfortunate occurrence in Mortimer Street. A gentleman named Graeme has been found—um—rather the worse for wear. And naturally we are gathering particulars of persons who might be able to assist us in our search for the miscreant or miscreants who perpetrated this foul deed.”

Despite the melodrama of his words, his tone was very simple and unexaggerated. He was rather like a child reciting Anthony’s gruesome speech above the body of Cæsar.

“Is Captain Leslie——” she began, but Lew stopped her with a look.

“We know nothing about Leslie here,” he said brusquely, “and you’ve had your journey for nothing.”

“Not entirely for nothing,” said Joshua, with a gallant little bow in the direction of the girl. And on this complimentary note he made his exit.

As he walked down the little drive to the common where his cab was waiting, Joshua shook his head and muttered chidingly to himself:

“You have spent fourteen shillings and fourpence on cabs, Joshua! And when you make your return to the office of your expenses, and you put against that fourteen shillings and fourpence the item ‘To examining Mr. Lew Friedman’s finger nails,’ you will be severely sat upon, especially when it is learned that the very finger nail you wished to examine on Mr. Lew Friedman’s left hand was carefully hidden in a finger stall!”

Joshua got into the cab, poked his head out of the window, and gave the driver instructions.

“Go back by way of Barnes and Hammersmith,” he said. “I think I shall save sixpence if you take that route.”