Читать книгу The Strange Countess - Edgar Wallace - Страница 10

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All her life, Lois Reddle could never recall what happened that morning. She went about her work mechanically, like one in a dream; and that she did not commit the most appalling blunders was due to the natural orderliness of her mind. She went out with Lizzy to lunch at a neighbouring restaurant, and this was usually the meal of the day. But she could eat nothing, and her room-mate was genuinely alarmed.

"Was it fierce, dear?" asked Lizzy anxiously.

Lois roused herself from her thoughts with an effort.

"Was what fierce?" she asked.

"The fight you had with his nibs?"

At first Lois did not comprehend what the girl was talking about.

"Oh, you mean Mr. Dorn? No, it wasn't fierce at all. It was a very—mild encounter."

"Did you tell him about his nerve?" asked Lizzy.

"He seemed to know all about that!" said Lois with a smile.

"I'll bet he was upset and asked for mercy. Did he go on his knees?"

She was anxious for details, but Lois shook her head.

"Nothing sensational happened. He was a little bit penitent, but only a little bit. I am scared."

"Scared?" said Lizzy indignantly. "What have you got to be scared about? I'll go and see him."

"No, you'll do nothing of the kind. He's not likely to worry us again," said Lois Reddle hastily.

"But what happened? Didn't you ask him what he meant by it?" said her disappointed friend.

"Yes, I asked him something of the sort." Lois was anxious to get off the subject, but Lizzy was insistent.

"Of course, if you were properly engaged and you were ill, and you'd had a tiff, it would have been all right his coming," she began.

"We aren't engaged, properly or improperly, and I am in disgustingly good health, and we haven't had a tiff, so it wasn't all right. He'll not trouble us again, Lizzy."

"I've been trying all morning to get a word with you," said the disgruntled typist, "but you've been going about all blah and woozy, and naturally I thought you'd been raising hell—if you'll excuse the unladylike expression—and that there had been an awful scene, but I did think you'd tell me when we came out to grub."

But Lois was adamantine, and the meal passed in what was to Lizzy a wholly unsatisfactory discussion of her friend's plans.

The one happy result of the morning's interview was that, neither that day nor the next, did she so much as catch a glimpse of Michael Dorn and his long black car. But, as the days passed, this relief was not as pleasant as she had anticipated, and on the Saturday afternoon she found herself wishing that she had an excuse for meeting him.

What did he know about her mother? Had he known all the time, and was that the reason he was taking so great an interest in her? That he could have been associated, even remotely, with the case was impossible. His age, she guessed, was in the neighbourhood of thirty; possibly he was younger; and he must have been a child when Mary Pinder stood her trial.

Lois remembered with a start that her own name must be Pinder, though the question of names did not matter very much.

On the Monday morning she packed her two boxes, and, with Lizzy's assistance, carried them down into the street to the waiting cab. Lizzy was inclined to be tearful. Old Mr. Mackenzie, in his black velvet coat, hovered anxiously in the background, though he did not emerge from the house which had been his voluntary prison for twenty-five years.

"What's he shoving his nose in for?" demanded Lizzy viciously. "I'll bet he'll play 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' when you drive away!"

But it was to no such accompaniment that Lois left her old lodgings, and she came to the chaste atmosphere of Chester Square without any of the mishaps which Lizzy had so gloomily prophesied. The door was opened by a liveried footman, and she was apparently expected, for he led her up the broad, carpeted stairs to a wide and lofty room looking out on to the square.

Lady Moron was sitting at her small writing-table when the girl was announced, and rose magnificently to meet her. She was arrayed in a bright emerald velvet gown, which no other woman could have worn. On her ample bosom sparkled and flashed a great diamond plaque which was suspended from her neck by a chain of pearls. Her face was powdered dead white, against which her jet-black eyebrows seemed startlingly prominent. Lois noticed, now that she had time to inspect her new employer, that, though the blackness of her hair was natural, both eyebrows and eyelashes had been treated, and the scarlet lips were patently doctored.

"The maid will show you your room, Miss Reddle," said the countess in her deliberate way. "I hope you will be happy with us. We are extremely unpretentious people, and you will not be called upon to perform any duties that would be repugnant to a lady."

Lois inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of this promise, and a few minutes later was viewing her new bedroom with pleasant surprise. It was a big room at the top of the house, overlooking the square. There was here everything for comfort, and, for some reason which she could not define, she compared the furnishings with those she had seen of Mr. Michael Dorn's and decided that they were in the same category of luxury.

She changed and came down to the drawing-room, which was also, she learnt, Lady Moron's "work-room." She opened the door and stopped. Two men were there; the first of these she recognised as the weak-kneed holder of the title. The second man was shorter and more sturdily built. His fleshy red face was eloquent of his love of good living, and when he smiled, as he did frequently, he showed two lines of large white teeth, that in some manner reminded the girl of a tiger's, though there was certainly nothing tigerish about this gentleman, with his plump body and his curly red hair that ran back from a rather high forehead. "Let me introduce Mr. Chesney Praye," said her ladyship, and Lois found her hand engulfed in a large moist palm.

"Glad to meet you, Miss Reddle." His voice was pleasantly husky. His keen eyes looked at her with undisguised admiration.

"You know Lord Moron?"

His lordship nodded and muttered something indistinguishable.

"Miss Reddle is my new secretary," said her ladyship. She pronounced the four syllables of the word as though they were separated. "You may see a great deal of her, Chesney—Mr. Praye is my financial adviser."

He certainly did not look like one who could offer any other advice than on the correct cut of a morning coat or the set of a cravat. He himself was perfectly dressed. Lois had often read the phrase "well-groomed" and now for the first time realised all that it signified, for Mr. Chesney Praye looked as though he had come from the hands of an ardent, hissing hostler, who had brushed and smoothed him until he was speckless and shining.

"A pretty nice pitch for you this, Miss Reddle," said Praye. "If you don't get on with her ladyship, I'm a Dutchman! Ever been on the stage?"

"No I haven't," she said, with a faint smile, as she recalled old Mackenzie's warning.

"A pity. You ought to have done well on the stage," he prattled on. "You've got the style and the figure and the voice and all that sort of thing. I've played for a few years in comedy—it's a dog's life for a man and not much better for a woman."

He laughed uproariously, as though at some secret joke, and Lois was surprised that the majestic countess did not chide him for the free and easy attitude which seemed hardly compatible with that of a trusted financial adviser.

"I'd like to go on the stage."

It was the silent Lord Moron, and his tone had a note of sulkiness which was surprising. It was as though he were a small boy asking for something which had already been refused.

The countess turned her dark, unfriendly eyes upon her son. "You will never go on the stage, Selwyn," she said firmly. "Please get that nonsense out of your head."

Lord Moron played with his watch-guard, and moved his feet uncomfortably. He was, she judged, between thirty and forty years of age, and she guessed he was not married, and had more than a suspicion that he was mentally deficient. She was to learn later that he was a weakling, entirely under the domination of his mother, a quiet and harmless man with simple, almost childish, tastes.

"Not for you, my boy," said Mr. Chesney Praye, as he slapped the other on the shoulder, and Lord Moron winced at the vigour of this form of encouragement. "There is plenty of occupation for you, eh, countess?"

She did not answer him. She was standing by the long French windows looking down into the square, and now she turned, and fixing a pair of horn-rimmed lorgnettes, lifted them to her eyes.

"Who is that man?" she asked.

Chesney Praye looked past her, and Lois, who was watching at the time, saw his mouth twitch and the geniality fade from his face.

"Damn him!" he said under his breath, and the countess turned slowly and surveyed him with a stare.

"Who is he?" she asked.

"He's the cleverest 'busy' in London—that's who he is. Detective, I mean. I'd give a thousand for the privilege of going to his funeral. He's got a grudge against me——"

He stopped, as though he realised he was saying too much. Lois looked over his shoulder at the man in the street. He was walking slowly on the opposite pavement.

It was Michael Dorn!