Читать книгу The Double - Edgar Wallace - Страница 3

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When Dick Staines left the University of Cambridge, he was confronted with several alternatives, all more or less unalluring. On the strength of his Honours degree in science he might have taken a mastership at a preparatory school; alternatively, he could have gone into a great motor works for three years at a salary of thirty shillings a week, with no sure prospect at the end of his apprenticeship; or he could have been appointed to a commission in His Majesty’s army, where he would have received sufficient pay and allowances to discharge his monthly mess bill; or, had he had influence, he might have entered that branch of the Civil Service whence one starts forth on a diplomatic career.

He had no influence, he had no money, except the rags of a thousand-pound legacy which had taken him through Cambridge.

He returned one night to the furnished room in Gower Street which he had taken on his arrival in London and set out before him the four definite offers he had received. He had discovered that even a mastership at a preparatory school was not a post easy to secure. The final offer of a motor car company he tore up and threw into the fire. From his pocket he took a printed blank, and this he filled up with some care and posted. Three days later he was invited to make a call at Scotland Yard, and within six months Mr. Richard Staines, Bachelor of Arts (Camb.) was patrolling the Finchley Road in the uniform of the Metropolitan Constabulary.

Many things had contributed to his rapid promotion. A bit of luck, as he confessed, the left hook to the jaw which sent Peter Lanbradi sprawling to the floor just as his finger was pressing the trigger of a pistol malignantly directed toward an under secretary of state; his skill as a runner, and, last and most important, his command of Continental languages. He spoke four perfectly, two well, and three others well enough. Four years after he had joined the force, he was a sergeant in the C. I. D., earmarked for further promotion.

That promotion came. He was Detective Inspector Staines when he went to Brighton with Lord Weald, whom he and most people addressed familiarly as “Tommy.” They had been together at Cambridge, were members of the same college, had been arrested together in the same rag.

“It’s the queerest thing in the world, old thing,” bleated Tommy, as he sent his swift Rolls dodging between two farm carts. “Only yesterday it seems you and I were being dragged down Petty Cury by a Robert—and now you’re a Robert!”

He chuckled joyously at the thought.

He was a round-faced man who looked much younger than his years, and though he was by no means a pigmy he was half a foot shorter than the bareheaded, brown-faced man who sat by his side. Good looks were an asset to Dick Staines, though he found no profit in them. He had the build and eager face of an athlete; the gray, smiling eyes of one who found life rather amusing. Tommy and he had not seen each other for years. Lord Weald had just returned from a trip to South Africa, and they had met accidentally in town—somewhat inconveniently for Dick Staines, who was going to Scotland for a fortnight’s fishing, the guest of a plutocratic assistant commissioner. Since his finances were by no means assured, he had let his pretty little Chelsea flat for a month—an arrangement which looked like being very inconvenient, as he explained to his companion.

“Why I’m sky-hooting down to Brighton for two days, heaven knows!”

“You’re sky-hooting to Brighton, old boy,” said Tommy, “because it would have been deuced uncivil if you hadn’t accepted an old pal’s urgent invitation. You told me yourself that your commissioner, or whatever he calls himself, will not be in Scotland till the end of the week. Besides, I’ve got a lot to tell you. I’ve had tremendous adventures—lion chasing, everything!”

“Who did the chasing—you or the lions?”

“We took it in turns,” said Tommy calmly. “Sometimes I was in front and sometimes they were. And besides, Brighton’s good for the liver—and there’s somebody in Brighton, the prettiest thing you ever met. Never seen anything like her, old boy.”

“A lioness?”

Lord Weald turned pained eyes upon him.

“She’s a nurse, old boy. A stunner.”

“If you imagine,” said Dick Staines sternly, “that I’m coming to Brighton to further your low amours you’ve got another guess coming, Tommy.”

By the time Tommy Weald had recovered from his indignation and incoherence they had reached the hotel. They were going up the steps of the broad entrance when a man came out—a man with a large red face and a short, bristling black moustache. He stared at Tommy and waved a cheery hand.

“Dashed amusin’ feller,” said Tommy. “Know him?”

Dick shook his head.

“Walter Derrick,” explained his lordship. “Lives next door to me in Lowndes Square. Big house, pots of money, but dashed amusin’. My poor, dear old governor used to say that his father was the most dashed unpleasant man he’d ever met, but this feller is—is——”

“Dashed amusin’?” suggested Dick.

Going up in the elevator, Tommy, whose mind could never hold two ideas at once, expatiated upon the dashed amusingness of his neighbour. So far as Dick Staines could gather Mr. Derrick’s chief claim to the title of good fellow was that he laughed at all Tommy’s jokes.

Dick knew the gentleman very well by name; indeed, he had recognized his big yellow Rolls standing outside the hotel. The only thing he had heard in his disfavour was that on one occasion, when a poor cousin, his sole relative, had called at the house to secure his help in a time of domestic trouble, Mr. Derrick had sent for the police and had the importunate relative removed. Which was curiously unlike the big genial soul. His father had been the most notorious miser in London. He had carried his meanness to such lengths that, according to legend, he had quarrelled with Walter Derrick over the purchase of a bicycle, and for years the pair had been estranged, Walter Derrick working abroad as a common labourer.

Nothing of those seven or eight years’ exile had soured the man. From the shy, furtive lad that very few people had seen and nobody had known intimately, he returned a year before the old man died, one who saw all the humour there was in life.

“He’s dashed glad to be alive—he told me so,” said Tommy.

This little extra holiday was a pleasant break to Dick Staines. After dinner, the evening being warm and the light still holding, the two men strolled along the front, and Tommy, who had hardly stopped speaking since he reached England, related with great force and vigour and with a wealth of illustrative gesture the adventures (tame enough they sounded, even embellished as they were) that had come his way.

They had reached a less populated part of the parade when Dick felt his arm clutched.

“There she is!”

Dick Staines turned his head. A girl in severe nurse’s costume was walking slowly toward them. Until they were nearly abreast he could not see her face.

There is a beauty which instantly appeals; more critical examination brings disappointment. There is another type which impresses more slowly and more lastingly, and a third, and the rarest of all, an instant discovery of loveliness which brings with it the illusion of familiarity.

Seeing her for the first time, Dick Staines was certain that a long acquaintance must have built up his knowledge and appreciation of her beauty. In less than a second he had seen and she had passed.

“Well, what do you think, old boy?” Tommy was anxiously awaiting his verdict.

“She’s very pretty,” said the cautious Dick Staines, and felt a brute at his churlish lack of enthusiasm.

“She’s a nurse, old boy,” said Tommy unnecessarily. “Pushes a dithering old johnny all over the place in a perambulator—well, she doesn’t exactly push him, but she’s on the spot. Ain’t she a stunner?”

“She’s certainly a stunner,” admitted Dick. “What is her name?”

“Mary Dane. You wouldn’t guess that I’d find that out,” said Tommy triumphantly, “but I have! Mary Dane—sounds like something off the screen, doesn’t it?”

“How do you know her name is Mary Dane?”

“Because I asked at the boarding house,” said the shameless Tommy. “That’s an idea that wouldn’t have occurred to you—some of us fellers have got more initiative than Roberts. And I’ll tell you something else: the old gentleman she pulls about is a man named Cornfort. They dodge up and down the coast, looking for the right kind of air. I spoke to her once—said ‘Good-morning.’ ”

“What did she say?” asked Dick, amused at this sudden romance.

“She said ‘Good-morning’ too,” said Tommy. “But she so took me back answering me at all that I couldn’t think of anything more to say! She’s a lady, old boy—got a voice like custard—you know, kind of soft and creamy ...” He floundered, seeking an illustration.

They walked back, hoping to see her again, but were disappointed. That night, as they sat in the smoke room, discussing a final whisky and soda, Mr. Walter Derrick strolled in. He was in evening dress, a fine, happy-looking figure of a man. He glanced round the room and presently his eyes rested on Lord Weald, and he walked slowly across to where they were sitting.

“Hullo, Weald! Siamese twins, you and I, eh? They lived next door in London and in Brighton they were not divided!” He chuckled at this as he sat down.

He smiled at Dick, his eyes gleaming good-humouredly behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

“And what terrible crime brings you to Brighton, Mr. Inspector?” he said, to Dick’s surprise. “Oh, yes, I know you—saw you giving evidence in court—criminal cases are a hobby of mine. I’ve got the best library in London.”

“Dick’s a friend of mine.” Tommy hastened to explain his guest’s position. “We were at Varsity together—then he became a Robert, and there you are!”

Evidently Mr. Derrick had no great interest in Dick’s social position.

“It’s queer I should have met you. I was only talking with somebody the other night, and your name cropped up. We were discussing the Slough shooting case. You remember, the cashier of some company—I don’t remember what it was—was shot dead and the pay roll taken. I was in Africa at the time, and my impression was that they’d caught the man, but my friend tells me that he was never captured. That’s probably before you went into the force.”

“On the very day I entered the force,” said Dick quietly. “No, he was never captured. We have, of course, a clue.”

Mr. Derrick nodded.

“A fingerprint found on the barrel of the automatic. Yes, I know that part of it. The only thing I didn’t know was whether this fellow was ever caught. If you’re living about a thousand miles from everywhere and your weekly newspapers have a trick of going astray—I lost six mails through flooded rivers—you miss the end of these stories.”

“The end is not written yet,” smiled Dick.

Mr. Derrick pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Then I’ve lost,” he said. “I could have sworn that the man was arrested and tried. I must have confused him with somebody else.”

He was one of the loquacious kind that gives little opportunity for conversation.

“I had a sort of personal interest in the matter—my father, who had, I am sorry to confess, very few endearing qualities, made a collection of fingerprints. The poor old chap all his life was keen on proving that everybody else was wrong but he!” He made a little grimace. “I suffered from that little hobby, but I’m not complaining. And he was perfectly convinced that the police theory that a man’s fingerprints have no exact duplicate in the world was wrong, and he made an extraordinary collection—used to give prizes—though the Lord knows he hated spending money—to schools and factories for fingerprint collections.”

“He must have been disappointed,” smiled Dick.

The big man shook his head.

“I don’t know. I’m not so sure that there wasn’t something in his theory. After all, how many fingerprints have you got at Scotland Yard? Suppose you’ve got a quarter of a million: that represents an infinitesimally small fractional part of the population. The only people you examine are members of the criminal classes, and it is the same in France and America and wherever the fingerprint system is in force. It doesn’t prove, because there are no two criminals alike, that there are no two honest men alike!”

“Are you continuing the good work?” asked Dick.

Mr. Derrick shook his head.

“Rather not,” he said. “The first thing I did after my father’s death was to go around and, collecting these beastly things, put them in the fire.”

Then abruptly he turned to Tommy, asked him how he had enjoyed his shooting trip, whom he had met, where he had been. Evidently part of the country that Tommy had crossed was familiar to Mr. Derrick. His exile had been spent a few miles south of the southern arm of Tanganyika.

“Early to bed and early to rise,” he yawned as he rose. “That is what makes millionaires!” He laughed at the joke, turned to go, and came back solemnly to tap Dick’s shoulder. “A better way is to have a frugal father who makes it for you,” he said.

“Cheerful bird,” said Tommy when the jovial man had gone, “and such a sense of humour! The other day I told him a yarn about——”

“I’m going to bed,” said Dick. “If it is the story about what you said to the railway guard on the Beira railway I don’t think I could stand it again.”

He was up early the next morning and had a bit of luck. He saw the nurse in some difficulties with her Bath chair: they were hauling it up a steep incline, and Dick brought his weight to the back of the vehicle. This little exertion resulted in a loss—Tommy had given him a gold pencil with a large red lacquer top. After the Bath chair had gone he missed this and went down the slope to the beach. But his search was vain. He may have dropped it from his waistcoat pocket as he was bending over the chair.

When he saw the nurse again it was in such dramatic circumstances that he forgot to ask.

It was ten minutes to one; he was sitting on a rail, watching the ceaseless weaving of cars, when he saw something in the middle of the road that brought his heart to his mouth....

If Mr. Derrick’s big Rolls had collided with the yellow Bath chair, this story would not have been written. He came flying round along the parade at a speed beyond legal limits, saw the Bath chair, the nurse, and the bowed chairman only just in time to apply his brakes, and the car skidded awkwardly to the left, until its wheels bumped against the curb, bounded back again, and half turned in its own length.

In an instant Dick was in the roadway, tugging the chair to safety.

“My friend,” said Dick solemnly, “you have had a very lucky escape—by rights you ought to be in heaven!”

He addressed the nurse.

She really was beautiful and owed nothing to her picturesque attire—if a woman cannot look pretty in a nurse’s uniform she is plain beyond rescue.

She looked at him quickly, recognized the man who had earlier in the morning helped push the Bath chair, and smiled. The grizzled chairman stood apathetically by; the invalid dozed in his voluminous wrappings, unconcerned.

“It was funny, wasn’t it?” she said.

She had the voice of a lady, soft yet distinct; for the moment it was rich with the quality of laughter.

“It didn’t amuse me terribly,” he said truthfully. “I congratulate you on your sense of humour. The only satisfaction you could have got out of the tragedy would have been the knowledge that you had been killed—and of course you wouldn’t have known that—by a very rich and jovial man.”

The nurse looked across the road. Mr. Derrick was talking to a policeman. The policeman looked rather stern and had a notebook in his hand.

“Mr. Derrick, isn’t it? He is staying at the Metropole—I’ve often seen his car. He was travelling at an awful rate.”

“And awfully is he being rated by that guardian of the law,” said Dick.

She laughed at this.

The apathetic Bath chairman did not move; the invalid still slumbered.

“You are at the Metropole too,” she nodded.

“The merest guest of a guest,” said Dick. “My purse does not run to Metropoles.”

He felt greatly complimented. This was no fly-by-night young lady to whom the formalities of an introduction were unnecessary. She offered as much as she demanded. He knew that if he asked her to dine with him that night she would be shockingly surprised. She knew (he was aware of this) that he was incapable of any such invitation. It was just one of those curious understandings which occur between two people who have a similar code of behaviour.

“Then you’re seeing life,” she smiled, and signalled the chairman.

Dick watched the little party regretfully as they moved along the front.

She was lovely; those eyes of her, as clear and gray as a spring sky, haunted him.