Читать книгу The Strange Countess - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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Lois Margeritta! Her own name! And the star-shaped burn on her arm!

Her head was in a whirl; the room seemed to be spinning round drunkenly and it needed all her strength of mind to keep her from crying out.

But it was true. That dignified, stately woman who had marched so calmly in the circle of pain was her mother! Incredible, impossible though it seemed, she knew this was the truth. Her mother!

Obeying a blind impulse, she darted to the door, flung it open, and was half-way along the stone passage before the startled governor had overtaken her.

"Whatever is the matter with you, girl?" he demanded, half astonished and half angry. "Are you ill?"

"Let me go, let me go!" she muttered incoherently. "I must go to her!"

And then she came back to sanity with a gasp, and allowed herself to be led back to the governor's room.

"You sit down there while I give you a slight sedative," said the doctor, as he closed the door with a bang which echoed along the hollow passage.

He opened the medicine chest, deftly mixed the contents of three bottles and added water from a carafe on his table.

"Drink this," he said.

The girl raised the glass to her lips with fingers that shook, and the governor, hearing the glass rattle against her teeth, smiled.

"I think I'm a little mad," she said.

"You're a little hysterical," said the practical doctor, "and it is my fault for letting you see these people. We've broken all the rules by talking about them."

"I'm dreadfully sorry," she muttered, as she put the glass on the table. "I—I—it was so dreadful!"

"Of course it was," he said. "And I was several kinds of an old fool to talk about it."

"Will you tell me one thing, doctor, please? What—what became of the child?"

The doctor was obviously loth to discuss the matter any further.

"I believe she died," he said briefly. "She was taken away by some excellent people, but they failed to rear her. That is the story I have. As a matter of fact it was published in the newspapers—there was a great deal of interest in the case—that the child had died in prison, but that was not the case. She was a healthy little creature when she left here. And now, young lady, I am going to turn you out."

He rang for the wardress, who conducted her to the gatekeeper's lodge, and in another second Lois was standing outside the black door, behind which was—who?

She was mad to have made such a fool of herself. There was so much more she wanted to know, so many opportunities which might have been hers to see the beautiful woman who was—her mother? Her heart raced at the thought. It couldn't be! Her mother was dead; that stout, homely body who had been a mother to her. It was a coincidence. There must be other children in the world called "Lois Margeritta" than she, and it was possible that some had been branded in babyhood.

She shook her head; it was impossible, it was beyond all the bounds of probability that there could be two Lois Margaritas with a star-shaped burn on the left arm.

Climbing painfully into the car, her knees giving under her, her trembling hands manipulated the gears. The car wobbled painfully, and, as she came slowly out on to the little road that runs by the prison, she was conscious of a weakness which almost terrified her. She stopped the car a few inches from the kerb, and at that moment she heard a quick step, and, turning her head, saw the man with whose machine she had collided earlier in the afternoon. There was a look of deep concern on his saturnine face.

"Anything wrong?" he asked sharply.

"No—nothing," she said unsteadily.

He stood surveying her with a critical and speculative eye.

"You nearly drove into that lamp-post. Aren't you feeling well?"

"Not—not very," she said.

In another second he had swung himself into the car by her side, and she made room for him behind the steering wheel.

"I'll take you down to the Lion Hotel and get them to send up for my car."

She was dimly aware that the long machine with the damaged mudguard was parked by the side of the prison wall.

"I shall be quite all right——" she protested.

"Nevertheless, I will drive you back to town," he said, and she made no further demur.

He stopped outside the Lion Hotel long enough to communicate with a little man who seemed to be expecting him; then turned the damaged nose of the Ford towards London; and she was intensely grateful to him that he made no attempt to improve his opportunity. For the rest of the journey was carried out in almost complete silence. From time to time he glanced at her, and once he looked at the crumpled papers which she held tightly gripped in her little hand, the documents which Mr. Shaddles' client had signed, and which were now in a more ruffled condition than most legal documents are supposed to be.

"179 Bedford Row, I think it is?" he said, as they crossed the traffic of Holborn, and she had recovered sufficient of her spirits to answer:

"I think you should know."

One side of his mouth went up in a smile.

"I'm pretty well acquainted with this neighbourhood," he said coolly. And then, as the car came to a standstill behind a big Rolls that stood before the doorway of 179:

"You've been awfully kind to me, Mr. Dorn," she said. "I am very grateful to you indeed."

"What worried you?" he asked. "At the prison, I mean?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing—only it is a rather dreadful shock, seeing so many women."

His eyes narrowed.

"You saw the women, did you? Pretty queer lot, eh?"

She shivered.

"Do you know the prison? Have you been inside, I mean?" she asked.

"Yes, I've been inside once or twice," he answered.

Glancing up at the window behind which was her office, she caught a glimpse of a short, tilted nose and a pair of wide open eyes, and, in spite of herself, laughed helplessly.

"Good-bye, Mr. Dorn."

She held out her hand and he took it.

"I'm afraid I've been an awful nuisance to you. Will you be able to get your car sent up to town, or must you go down to Telsbury for it?"

"Don't bother about my car; it is here," he said, and nodded to the end of the road. To her amazement she saw his black machine come slowly to the side-walk and stop.

She was about to say something, but changed her mind, and, running up the steps, disappeared through the dark portals, the man watching her until she was out of sight.