Читать книгу The Calendar - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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The Calendar usually arrived on Monday morning, when Garry was living in the country. It was addressed to his house in Knightsbridge, and his housekeeper was a little dilatory about sending on his correspondence.

He tore open the cover and looked at the first page. There was the announcement.

“The Stewards of the Jockey Club held an inquiry into the running of Ediphos at Hurst Park, and, having heard the evidence, warned Mr. P. H. G. Hipplewayne off Newmarket Heath and the courses under the jurisdiction of the Jockey Club.”

Garry put down The Calendar with a sigh.

“What a fool!”

This meant social death to Peter, resignation from his clubs, ostracism. It was a final and dreadful pronouncement; there was no appeal against it.

Wenda was in Italy. He had had a note from Molly that had amused him. Molly was a shrewd observer, had a quaint knack of description. He was fond of her—he realised this in moments when the One Woman did not occupy his thoughts. Sometimes he remembered that it was Molly who had christened her the One Woman, and wondered if Molly was being friendly or sarcastic.

With Wenda in Italy he could breathe a little more freely. He hated himself for his disloyalty. It had been an act of hysteria on her part—pique at some folly of Willie’s. She couldn’t have meant it—not Wenda.

He had never been in love with her; had grown up with her beauty and her friendship, and had not resented her marriage with Willie Panniford. Willie was one of the catches of the season, by common agreement. Only his lawyer and his agent knew how little of a catch he was. People who disliked Wenda, and there were a few, said she was a bitterly disappointed woman when she discovered that the Scottish baronet had little more than a few thousands a year, and that his many acres were heavily mortgaged. If she were, she had never expressed her chagrin.

Garry was satisfied that the marriage was born of a love match. He did not understand how anybody could love Willie, but he was enough of a philosopher to realise that if men and women did not marry until they found mates that were approved by their mutual friends, there would be few marriages in this world.

Willie drank a lot, blustered a lot, was a good and amusing fellow in the club smoking-room, thunderously hearty at a hunt breakfast, a good man to hounds, a champion player of squash rackets—and a bore. Every morning he religiously read the leading articles of the Morning Post, and the views and opinions there expressed became his views and opinions for the day, and were delivered as such. He believed that industrial troubles could be settled if Labour leaders were put against the wall and shot—this was his infallible solution for all political difficulties. Sometimes it was hard for Garry to believe that Molly was his sister—she was, in point of fact, his half-sister, for his father had married twice.

Wenda he had placed upon a pedestal; he worshipped her, was dominated by her views and opinions, and was absurdly hurt if she ever failed to fulfil his exalted ideas of her.

Many things had happened when Wenda was in Italy. The old general’s will had been read, and Garry’s forecast as to the distribution of the Anson property was justified. He had been left two thousand pounds and a small cottage in Devonshire. The bulk of the property had gone to Garry’s cousin, Jack Anson, a struggling naval officer with a pretty wife and an astonishing number of small children. It was like Garry that he should be delighted.

When, a week following the publication of the will, Garry’s horse Rangemore won the Newbury Cup, it was a little annoying, as well as a little amusing, that the newspapers should confuse his name with his cousin’s, and, in announcing the victory of Rangemore, should put up the headline: “Luck of Garry Anson,” and make copious references to his mythical inheritance. He did not even trouble to correct the misconception.

Another rather alarming letter came from Rome. Willie was being even more trying; matters were “impossible.” Wenda’s letter was written in a fever, almost indecipherably. It left Garry Anson a very troubled man.

The scandal of the divorce did not worry him at all. The prospect of being victimised aroused no sense of resentment. He owed something to Wenda—a life’s friendship had its obligations. And he adored her.... He frowned at the thought. He could not see himself her husband. The thing had to be faced, if Wenda really meant half she had written. It would mean retirement from England for a year, and a revolution in his plans. Minor matters would have to be readjusted. Hillcott, for example.... He hated the thought of losing Hillcott; hated worse the idea of giving up Daneham Lodge. Obviously he could not live next door to Willie Panniford.

He had to talk to somebody. John Dory was in town, but would hardly be sympathetic. Oddly enough, Hillcott became the recipient of his veiled confidences. It was whilst that irrepressible Cockney was laying out his clothes one morning that Garry spoke.

“Hillcott ... I suppose you realise that one of these days I shall be married?”

Hillcott looked at him sideways.

“It happens to the best of us,” he said smugly.

He had never confessed to having a wife, but Garry would not have been shocked to learn that he had several.

“In which case I shall dispense with your invaluable services.”

“As soon as you like,” said Hillcott, unmoved. And then: “Is it likely to be soon, sir?”

It was ridiculous, but Garry found it an effort to nod.

“Congratulations!” said Hillcott in his blandest and friendliest tone. “I’ve always thought that was a match, if I might be so bold as to say so.”

Garry looked at him stonily.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“The young lady, sir,” said Hillcott, patting the crease in a pair of trousers. “The young lady you’re going to marry—Miss Molly.”

Garry felt a sudden wrench at his heart, and knew something that he had known for so long without realising his knowledge. Molly!

Garry Anson was irritated, worried, felt a curiously illogical resentment towards Molly. He did not dare think of Wenda.

His days were fully occupied in the weeks that followed. Almost every other morning he left Daneham Lodge before six and was on the Salisbury downs at eight, watching his horses at exercise. Chief interest now centred upon Rangemore, a long-striding bay who had two good races to his credit.

He sat on his hack, watching the horses coming across the downs, and Wray, his trainer, rode at his side. At one moment the downs were empty; then, over the crest of a distant rise, four little specks came into sight, increasing in size as they flew towards where he was sitting. They thundered past, Rangemore leading. Wray grinned his approval.

“You’ve got the Ascot Stakes in your pocket, Mr. Anson,” he said.

Garry nodded. He had carried other races in his pocket to many courses—and found his pocket picked by a better horse.

“Isn’t there an animal called Silver Queen?” he asked.

The trainer rubbed his nose irritably.

“Silver Queen! She won’t see the way this one goes.”

Garry smiled.

“You’re a little optimistic, aren’t you? She’s a flier.”

Mr. Wray pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Yes. Anyway, it’s not certain that she runs. She’s being got ready for a race in France. Her owner is a Frenchman or Belgian, and he’s out of the country just now and won’t be back till Christmas.”

“They’ll run her at Ascot all right,” said Garry.

He turned his hack homeward and cantered over the downs, riding stirrup to stirrup with Wray, and that shrewd trainer was thoughtful.

“I always try to forget that there is such an horse as Silver Queen,” he confessed, when they were sitting at breakfast in his airy dining-room. “She is a smasher, there’s no doubt. But then, so is Rangemore. I wonder if she’s entered in any races before Ascot?”

He sent his servant for The Calendar. The two men searched the entries together.

The Calendar, or, to give it its full title, The Racing Calendar, is a sober sheet, which few but racing men ever see. It has the staid appearance of a church newspaper, its price is a prohibitive and an eccentric one, for it is published weekly at one shilling and ninepence. To the non-racing man or woman it is a dull publication, containing column upon column mainly made up of the names of horses and their owners, and unrelieved by any light speculation. To the follower of the turf it is the oracle which dominates, guides and records the doings of a world within a world. Wars may be waged; political parties may rise and fall; dreadful crimes may be enacted—you search the pages of The Calendar, year after year, decade after decade, and find no reference to any such unimportant happenings.

Horses have been named; colours have been registered; partnerships have been entered into; the Jockey Club has amended its rules; entries are open for races which will be run in three years’ time by horses that are not born. That is the beginning and the end of world events for the editors and readers of The Calendar.

John Dory came to dine with him that night. Dory was very practical. He was a bald, severe man, who might have been a Chancery lawyer or a successful doctor, but was in truth one of the biggest bookmakers on the turf.

“I hate to see a man betting as you’re betting, Garry,” he said. “You can’t keep it up. This is the game where even millionaires go broke.”

“I’ll not go broke,” smiled Garry. “When I reach the limit——”

He snapped his fingers.

“You’ll get out.” John’s lips curled.

“Don’t sneer, John; it doesn’t become your gentle nature! Yes, I’ll get out. I’ll hate to, but there you are.”

John Dory chose a peach with great care, and peeled it, not raising his eyes from the plate.

“You’re a mug,” he said, “and mugs always get into trouble.”

“I’m an experienced and knowledgeable owner,” said Garry complacently.

“That is the delusion most owners have,” replied Dory; “but I won’t depress you. How is Lady Panniford?”

“Wenda is very bright. She is coming home next week.”

“For Ascot? Good.”

There was no enthusiasm in Dory’s tone.

“You don’t like Wenda?”

“Your Wenda and I are Mr. John Dory and Lady Panniford to one another—she has an amazingly effective habit of keeping me in my place.”

Garry laughed.

“You don’t understand her,” he said. “There’s nobody in the world like Wenda! Nobody with her sense of humour, her straight outlook. How she came to marry Willie, heaven knows!”

Dory raised his eyes.

“Don’t you know?”

Garry stared at him.

“I? Why should I know?”

Dory shrugged his broad shoulders and returned his attention to the peach.

“People wonder why you didn’t marry her yourself.”

Garry Anson felt himself changing colour. The conversation was drifting dangerously, and for some reason he wished to combat the gossip which linked his name with Wenda’s.

He leaned over the table, his face serious.

“You don’t understand friendships of this kind, John. I’ve known Wenda as long as I’ve known anybody. We grew up together, were children together, played under the same oak. Between her and me there is something stronger, something greater than the bond of marriage or the bond which philandering weaves——”

“Poetical,” murmured John.

“Don’t be a fool! Of course I’m not poetical. That would have spoilt everything—marriage, I mean. And probably she would never have forgiven me if I’d asked her.”

John Dory said nothing; he had few enthusiasms, and none of them was for Wenda Panniford.

He finished his peach, dipped his fingers in the bowl and wiped them, and, going over to the side-table, rescued The Calendar from under a heap of papers. For a long time he studied its pages in silence, and when he did speak it was not of racing.

“Do you know the most beautiful girl I’ve seen for years?” he asked.

Garry looked up from the book of form he was studying.

“No—have I met her?”

“Molly Panniford,” said John, and went back to his Calendar.

Was it a conspiracy—an ill-conceived joke to thrust Molly upon him?

“Why the devil do you say that?”

Hillcott came in at that moment.

“The Pannifords are coming home next week, sir. I’ve just been over to their house—Lady Panniford’s had a new safe put in the wall.”

“How do you know?” asked Garry.

“Seen it,” replied Hillcott, as he began to clear the table. “What a safe!”

“You’re an authority, aren’t you?” Garry returned to the study of his book.

“In a way,” said Hillcott. Then, after a long pause: “I’ll be glad to see Miss Molly back. That’s a nice young lady if you like.”

Garry Anson looked up and leaned back in his chair. John was watching him from out of the corner of his eye.

“Of course she’s a nice young lady!”

His tone was a little sharp.