Читать книгу The Northing Tramp - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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The wedding party had melted down to four. The Reverend Stevens had gone on the tail of guests—wanted and unwanted. His responsibility had been a heavy one, he both felt and said. And yet—might he not to-morrow find himself a controversial subject, with legions for him as well as sour battalions against? Might he not anticipate pictures of himself across two or even three columns, with captions beneath?

He had been human before he had become evangelical: it was difficult to be wholly inhuman. Brethren of his cloth, who cared less for captions and controversy, would arise in their wrath and denounce him. Mothers of marriageable daughters, fearing the imitative qualities of youth, would condemn him unreservedly. The broad-minded, who invariably champion the less decent protagonist of all controversies, would say that there was something to be said for him.

He stole away, shaking his head. When the reporters came to him in the morning he would have twelve photographs of himself spread on the parlour table for their inspection. He preferred the one taken at Potsdam in the early days of his ministry. It was in profile, and he had rather a striking profile. He thought about October as he hurried homewards, but imagination was not his strong point. She had committed a folly in her petulance; she would probably have run away from her tramp husband before now. Honestly he expected to learn in the morning that she had returned to Four Beech Farm—was there already, he supposed, as he disrobed for the night.

Andy Elmer sat rigidly by the table that served as an altar. Mrs. Elmer was weeping, more in anger than in sorrow, in her rocker. Mr. Lee Wasser sat on the sofa, his arm about a dazed and sickly Sam.

“Nobody can blame me,” said Mr. Elmer disjointedly. “The crazy little cat! ... High school an’ college ... ideas....”

Mr. Wasser glared at him malignantly.

“Look fine in the newspapers, hey? My boy thrown over for a dirty old hobo, hey?”

He had said this so often in the last ten minutes that Andrew Elmer scarcely heard him.

“She’s got no clothes ... nothin’!” wailed Mrs. Elmer. “Only the blue ... what folks’ll say....”

Andy’s upper lip went up and down furiously.

“She done it for spite——” he began.

The hired man appeared in the doorway.

“There’s a feller wants to see you, Mr. Elmer. English, I guess ... didn’t understand half he was sayin’.”

Mr. Elmer blinked at him. The Grand Cham of China could not have made a more inopportune appearance at that hour and in those circumstances than an unintelligible Englishman. He glanced at his wife. Mrs. Elmer dabbed her eyes and made an awkward exit. Sam was not in a state that permitted any kind of exit. There was a challenge in Lee Wasser’s eye: he, at any rate, had nothing to be ashamed of. Already Sam was a victim of dire machinations.

He had been drugged by this infamous man with the black eye and the swollen face—or hypnotised, or something that had no fumes of whisky in it. And, thus incapacitated, had been bereft of his wife. Sam drooped more limply; uttered discordant sounds. Mr. Elmer was alarmed.

“Can’t you get him into the kitchen, Lee?” he almost pleaded. “Mrs. Elmer’s awful particular——”

“He’s singing.” Mr. Wasser’s tone was ferocious. “There’s a whole lot back of this business. If it costs me a thousand dollars I’m going to get right down to the bottom of it!”

The hired man ran his fingers between the hateful stiff collar of ceremony and his scrawny neck, a gesture of impatience. There was a little group of excited people on the back porch all talking at once. He had his own view to expose and felt that he was missing something.

“Say, Mr. Elmer, he said he wanted to see you.”

Behind him there appeared a tall figure in a long dust coat. He wore an eyeglass and bright brown gauntlets. Mr. Elmer saw that over enamelled shoes were fawn-coloured spats.

“Sorry to bother you—er——”

He was a good-looking fellow with a wax-like complexion, a small, brown, silky moustache and a permanent smile. At least it seemed permanent. His voice was soft and rather musical.

“I heard a rumpus outside, but couldn’t make head or tail of what these—er—people were saying. Something about a tramp ... I hope you will forgive me—er—butting in.”

He said “butting in” a little self-consciously, as an Englishman speaks a foreign language. He had (his manner said) no right to flounder in strange colloquialisms, but desired to make himself understood.

“Uh huh. That’s right. There was a tramp up here boozed ... that’s so.”

Mr. Elmer was called upon without notice to put into words his version of the happening. And it must be put into words sooner or later. In two or three days he would be facing a Farmers’ Convention—he shuddered at the thought.

“Well—say....”

The presence of Mr. Lee Wasser and the condition of the heir to the Wasser fortune largely determined the colour and shape of his narrative. That the monocled Englishman was a curious intruder, to be asked what’n thunder the affair had to do with him, did not occur to Mr. Elmer. The stranger was The World; he represented in his person millions of people sitting at breakfast reading their morning newspapers and saying: “That’s a queer affair over in Littleburg—tramp married a college girl....”

Moreover, he was the forerunner of an army of reporters and photographers.

“My niece—well, her mother was a sort of sister-in-law ... this young lady ... October Jones was her name.... She got some mighty queer notions about ... everything....”

“Extraordinary!” murmured the stranger. It was merely a polite or a sardonic interjection, but it gave Mr. Elmer a guiding line.

“Extr’ordin’ry ... you’ve said it! Well, this young lady was gettin’ married. Everything fixed. Reverend Stevens—well, everything!” A wave of his hand indicated certain festive preparations: the Englishman in the dust coat examined the flowers earnestly.

“And then, this tramp sort of ... well, he came. Right there where you’re standing.”

“An’ Sam was doped. No doubt about that.” Mr. Wasser entered the conversation loudly. “This bum fixed him that way. Maybe gave him somep’n’ to smell. He’s onconscious now.”

Andrew nodded.

“That’s about it,” he said, “and October was crazy. She said ‘I’ll marry him.’ I just couldn’t speak. I was standin’ here, or maybe there”—he indicated the alternative spots with meticulous exactness. “I just couldn’t so much as holler.”

“Doped,” murmured Mr. Wasser helpfully.

Andrew considered this explanation and regretfully decided upon its rejection.

“Paralysed,” he substituted. “Couldn’t believe I was awake.”

The stranger was staring at him. He was as near to being without a smile as ever Mr. Elmer saw him.

“Married?” he said sharply. “Who was married?”

Mr. Elmer groaned at the man’s stupidity.

“October—her crazy idea ... she took the ring out of poor Sam’s pocket. Just bent down an took the ring. ‘Here it is,’ she says. ‘What’s your name?’ An’ this hobo says ... What did he say, Lee?”

Mr. Wasser had forgotten. His angry gesture told the Englishman how very unimportant was the question of a tramp’s name.

“I don’t quite understand. This girl—October, is that her name?—wanted to marry a tramp?”

“He was drunk,” said Mr. Wasser, in a tone that suggested a reason for October’s strange behaviour.

“She wanted—and she did,” said Mr. Elmer.

The stranger’s mouth opened; his eyeglass dropped.

“Married ... not really married?”

Messieurs Elmer and Wasser nodded. Sam’s nod was involuntary.

“Good God!”

The heart of Andrew Elmer sank. If this simple statement produced such an effect upon a stranger, and obviously an unemotional stranger, what would follow the general publication of the news?

“I want to say right here, that October is peculiar ... she’s crazy, that’s all. She’d jump into a well, yes, sir. She said so! ‘You touch me,’ she says, ‘an’ I’ll jump right in.’ Yes, sir——”

“To-night? Did she jump into the well?”

There was unmistakable hope in the stranger’s voice.

“No, sir: I’m talkin’ about last fall——”

“She married this tramp—actually married him?” And, when they nodded gravely: “My God!” Then before Mr. Elmer could speak: “Where is he?”

“October——” began Mr. Elmer.

“Never mind about October.” He was smiling, but wickedly. “I suppose she is here. Where did the tramp go?”

Lee Wasser pointed dramatically to the door.

“They went out—there! Both of ’um.”

The man in the dust coat turned his head.

“Both of ’um!” he repeated absently and with sudden animation. “How long since? Which way did they go?”

Mr. Elmer lugged out his big watch.

“About half an hour ago,” he said.

The watch had no value at all to indicate the passage of time. This event belonged to eternity: the dial should have been divided into æons.

“About half an hour—they went out there.”

The door then was a starting point, the black night a destination. The stranger walked from the house. At the gate four men were talking.

“... say, listen ... this bird was loaded. Didn’t know what he was doin’. Sam an’ Ed got him up in the wood an’ Pete back-heeled him and got him on the floor. ‘You son of a gun,’ says Ed, ‘you gotta drink....’”

Dust coat went past them and they stopped discussing the great happening to speculate upon his identity.

“English. He’s got a big machine. Joe Prideaux at the garage reckons it’s worth ten thousand dollars an’ more....”

The machine was waiting a little way along the road and Mr. Alan Loamer leapt into the driver’s seat and drove at an increasing speed towards Littleburg. He came through the town more cautiously because he could not afford to be held up by the unimaginative police. Clear of the power plant, he let the big car roar and switched on his powerful head-lamps. He was watching the road carefully. Presently he saw somebody jump a fence from the road and brought his machine to a stop.

“Byrne!” he called.

A shape came out of the gloom and then another.

“Have you seen him?”

“No. Lenny and me’s been hanging around here. He’s got to come this way unless he works back. Lenny reckoned he might be in the woods the other side of town.”

The man at the wheel said something under his breath that Red Beard could not hear.

“I wanted to locate you,” he said. “Stay here: I’ll go back and make inquiries. He has a girl with him.”

“You don’t say!” Red Beard was frankly astonished.

“Yes—that may make things difficult for you.” Mr. Loamer was fretful. His audience did not know that inside him and behind his calmness was a boiling, bubbling rage. “Is there a side road here? I want to turn my car.” He pronounced the word strangely.

“Wants to turn his ‘caw,’ does he?” said Red Beard, watching the manœuvres of the big machine from a distance. “Gussie’s rattled all right, Lenny.”

“What’s the idea—this girl? Never heard anything about her,” demanded the fat man.

The machine had turned by now and was flying back ... it boomed past them on its way to Littleburg.

“You heard him: did he tell me anything? A girl. First I’ve heard of a girl. That bird’s nutty. I keep tellin’ you, Lenny.”

Mr. Loamer came back to Littleburg to find it alive. He saw groups at odd corners, and once he passed two men carrying shot guns and addressing each other noisily. On the corner of Main and Union Street he saw a policeman.

The policeman knew nothing except that there had been some sort of trouble up at Mr. Elmer’s farm. The chief was dealing with the consequence, whatever it was. He asked Mr. Loamer if he had seen two men, one with a red beard and one rather fat and short. Mr. Loamer said that he had not.

“They’re not in town, I guess,” said the policeman, and expressed the view that the storm would just miss Littleburg.

It was an hour after midnight when the watcher on the road saw the unmistakable head-lamps of the big car and woke his companion, who was sleeping with his back against the rail of the fence.

“There is a search party looking for these people,” said Mr. Loamer. “They are going through the woods on the far side of the town, but somebody suggested he would make for the Swede’s house. They say it is haunted. Where is it?”

“Swede’s house—know that, Lenny?”

The sleepy-eyed Lenny thought that he had heard of such a place, but he had never seen it. Evidently he had a nodding acquaintance with the district.

“It’s somewhere on the high ground back of Elmer’s place,” he said. “Never been there, but the woods are not big....”

He indicated the route they would follow. Mr. Loamer said he would return to the town for the latest news and would join them.

“This time—get him!” he said emphatically. “The girl ... ?” He smoothed his moustache with his gloved hand. “I don’t know what to do about her.” He was silent for a very long time. Evidently ‘the girl’ was the subject of his cogitation, for, when he spoke: “She doesn’t matter ... really,” he said.

As he stepped into the driver’s seat he remarked casually:

“A policeman asked me if I had seen you fellows and of course I told him that I hadn’t.”

“That was certainly kind of you.” Red Beard was good-humouredly sarcastic.

When the car was out of sight he clapped his companion on the shoulder.

“Let’s go,” he said. “That old Swede’s house is haunted, eh? Maybe we can deal it a new spook.”