Читать книгу The Double - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

Table of Contents

He carried the memory back that night to London. Tommy was going on a tour of the South Coast to visit his innumerable relations. He looked forward, he confessed dismally, to a perfectly ghastly three weeks. One provision he made for the comfort of his friend.

“I’ve arranged for you to stay at Lowndes Square to-night. My man’s in full possession, and I’ve ’phoned him to make you up a bed and call you in time for the early morning train. If you want to use one of the cars, old boy, regard it as your own.”

Dick would much rather have gone to a hotel, and said so, but Tommy had been so pathetically efficient and had gone to so much trouble (he confessed that he loathed the telephone) that he had not the heart to refuse.

Dick was met at the station by a troubled butler, who had a respectful tale of woe. He was the only servant in the house; he had misguidedly sent the cook off that morning on her holiday; the housemaids had left a day or two earlier; and he himself was in some distress. That afternoon there had been an interesting event in his family at a Notting Hill maternity home. Dick was mildly interested; he did not know that butlers had children. The butler confessed that it was the first time it had occurred, and he was naturally agitated. He added, fervently, it would be the last time. The main point was this: would Dick mind sleeping in the house alone that night? The butler could come very early, call him, prepare his bath, and get his breakfast.

“Why, of course, my dear fellow. I could even do that myself, or I could breakfast at the station,” said Dick, who wished more than ever that he had decided upon the station hotel.

There was a cold supper waiting for him, and afterward the butler, not without evidence of his impatience to be gone, led him up to the third floor and a beautiful guest room that ran the width of the house. There were three French windows leading out to a stone balcony. Two of them were closed with iron shutters of a type commonly seen covering the windows of suburban shops. They rolled up and they rolled down, explained the butler. He had locked two, but the third he had left open, in case Mr. Staines needed air; and now he wished he had opened one of the others and had closed this particular one, because the retaining cord was broken and the shutter must remain open all night. He showed Dick where he had wedged the shutter to keep it from falling.

“It will be all right so long as you don’t touch it, sir,” were his last words before he backed out of the room.

A pleasant room, with its snug four-poster bed and its old Georgian furniture; great armchairs, chintz-covered; a score of rare etchings on the beflowered walls; it was old-fashioned and restful—Dick felt that he could spend quite a long time as Tommy’s guest if he could have the use of this third floor room.

On the table the butler had left a tiny key.

“In case you want to go out for a stroll, sir,” he explained.

Long after he had gone, when Dick had changed into his pajamas and had put on a thin dressing gown, he slipped the key into his pocket mechanically.

It was a hot and breathless night. Even his thin pajamas clung to his body; he could have well dispensed with the dressing gown, and did so later, when he strolled onto the balcony and, sitting down in a deep chair, lighted a cigarette and surveyed the twinkling lights of the square and the long street which stretched to infinity. It was breathless and hot and stifling. He had serious thoughts of bringing his bed onto the balcony and sleeping there. And then to the south he saw a jagged ribbon of light run across the sky, and there was a reverberating crash of thunder.

“This is where we go to bed,” said Dick, rose and stretched himself.

He was hardly on his feet when there was a second crash, nearer at hand. The lights of the room were suddenly blotted out; the heavy shutter had been wedged, but not wedged well enough. Whether it was the reverberation of the thunder or some other natural cause, the little triangle of wood had slipped from its place and the shutter had fallen.

For a moment Dick was startled, and then he laughed. It would be a simple matter to lift the shutter high enough to get under it. He stooped, felt along the bottom for some staple for his hand to grip. He seemed to remember having seen something of the sort on shop shutters, but there was nothing here. The lower edge of the rolled shutter fitted flush with the stone sill. Using all his strength, he pressed on the ribbed front and tried to pry it up, but it was immovable. And then a great spot of rain fell upon him, and another. He slipped into his dressing gown and searched the street. There was nobody in sight. A few minutes before pedestrians had been plentiful; he had seen a policeman pass; but now nobody was in sight. The saunterers had hurried to places of shelter against the coming storm. He saw a big car come up to the corner of the block and stop, but it was too far away.

He tried the shutter again, but with no better success. Adventure was the breath of his nostrils; but an adventure which took the shape of an all-night vigil on an inaccessible balcony, perched high above a West End street and exposed to the full blast of a storm, was not the kind that appealed to him.

And then, a few feet away, he saw the edge of another balcony, and craning over espied a French window—unshuttered. Who lived next door? he wondered, and then remembered suddenly. This was Walter Derrick’s house, that genial man. And it was empty.

At the moment of the discovery his hand was in his dressing gown pocket and he had touched the key. It would be a simple matter to reach the other balcony, make his way into the house—he might even be compelled to break a window, but he could explain, apologize, and pay for the damage. He was a police officer and above suspicion.

He threw one pajamaed leg over the edge of the balcony and looked down. Ordinarily, he was not a nervous man, but beneath, the ground seemed miles away, and in the flickering blaze of lightning he saw row upon row of cruel upturned spikes, and a very hard-looking area into which, if he slipped, he would most certainly fall.

The rain was pelting down now. A high wind howled and shrieked demoniacally through the square. He could hear the rustle and creek of the trees in the centre gardens, saw their giant branches tossed hither and thither by the force of the gale, and found it necessary to hold tight to the parapet to prevent his being blown to eternity.

He gripped the stonework with a firm hand, reached out one foot gingerly and felt the next balcony. After what seemed hours of testing, he leaped, grasped the parapet, and drew himself to safety. There were three windows and none was shuttered. Behind each, heavy white shades were drawn. There was no time for finesse: even if he had the necessary instrument, he would not have stopped to cut his way through the glass. Putting his shoulder to the window he pressed. The glass doors gave creakingly, and then, with a sharp snap, opened. He drew aside the blind and, stepping into the room, felt along the wall until he found a switch and turned it on. It was not a bedroom, but rather had the appearance of an office.

There were a little desk, two large bookcases, and a sofa. In the fireplace was a cheap-looking electric stove. There were one or two old pictures hanging on the walls, and near to the desk a large calendar. The presence of a typewriter on the desk suggested to him that this was probably the office of Mr. Derrick’s secretary.

He tried the door; it opened readily. Having extinguished the light in the room, he stepped out onto a thickly carpeted landing. He could find his way with little help, for the lightning was almost incessant; and the pealing of thunder so continuous that the house seemed to be shaking from roof to basement.

The stairs were very broad. He remembered now that this was a corner house, much larger than Tommy’s. The butler had pointed it out to him as they had drawn up to the door.

He came to the second landing, and now he could walk with less caution. The landing windows were larger; those on the second and first floors were of stained glass. He saw the beauty of a design that came to him in a flash of lightning, and he saw too the pale ghost of a marble statuette gleam whitely into view and vanish.

His plan was a simple one: it was to go out by the front door and into Tommy’s front door and put in as much sleep as the storm would allow him.

The hall was in darkness. Only the reflection of the lightning came here, and he had to walk with circumspection. It was a vast hall with a tiled floor, and there were big cabinets, he guessed, on either side. Happily, there was a fanlight, which gave him direction.

He turned the handle, but the door did not move. He tried again, felt for the restraining catch, but unsuccessfully. He grinned in the darkness, and wondered what Tommy would say and what the jovial Mr. Derrick would say, and what solution Mary Dane, with her glorious eyes and her sane, friendly understanding, would offer to his predicament. It was curious he should think of Mary at that moment. There was nothing in his surroundings to suggest the serenity and fragrance of her. But he realized, with a sense of guilt, that her image had occupied his mind ever since he had left Brighton, that when he had leaned out of the window of the railway carriage ostensibly to wave farewell to Tommy it was her face he hoped to see. He believed in miracles.

He felt round for the switch control, and, after a great deal of trouble, found it. A pale yellow light shone in an antique lantern suspended from the high roof of the hall. He made an examination of the lock and was quick to understand what had baffled him. The door had been double locked, and without a key it was impossible to open it. Dick Staines scratched his chin. He was wet through, his dressing gown was a sodden rag that dripped an irregular circle of water about him.

There was nothing for it: he must try the basement kitchen. There would certainly be a tradesman’s door. Leaving the light burning to facilitate his passage, he explored the back part of the house and began slowly to descend a narrower flight of stairs. There was a scent of ancient cooking to guide him, and, to his surprise, when he reached the foot of the stairs, he saw a light burning in a wall bracket. It was dim and yellow and dusty and had the appearance of having been forgotten by a careless servant. From the stone hall in which he stood, two doors opened; that before him, he guessed, was most likely to lead to the tradesman’s entrance. He turned the handle and stepped in. Two strides he made and stood stock still.

A light was burning here, too. It was evidently the kitchen, for the table had been pulled aside, and lying full length on the ground was a man bound hand and foot, his eyes tightly bandaged.

That alone would have startled him; but, bending over the man and searching his pockets with feverish haste was a girl in a dark blue evening dress. On a near-by chair a richly lined cloak had been thrown, and as her hands went in and out of the man’s pockets he saw the flash and sparkle of diamond rings.

She had not heard him enter. He took a step—and she looked up.

“Good God!” gasped Dick Staines.

For the beautiful woman whose hand went straight out to the automatic pistol that lay by her side raised a face to his that was a vision of loveliness—and it was the loveliness of Mary Dane!