Читать книгу The Forger - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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She found Peter in the library, dozing over a book, and without preamble made her accusation.

"I am probably being very unjust in suspecting you of a meanness which only one of the servants——"

"You need not blame the servants," he said quietly. "Yes, I opened the letter."

A wave of anger swept over her and for a moment left her dumb.

"You opened my letter? Why? Is that one of the privileges that marriage gives you?"

"I haven't noticed any particular privilege attaching to matrimony," he said, with a half-smile which maddened her. (She told herself she loathed Peter in his more confident mood.)

"Will you please explain"—she tried to keep her voice calm—"why you took this extraordinary step? It was not an accident—you would have told me."

"It was not an accident," he said coolly. "Only I object to Basil Hale corresponding with you. I intended telling you this later—I never dreamt he would have the nerve to write to you when you were on your—honeymoon."

She was angry, but she was bewildered too. She had always thought that he and Basil were good friends. And, as if he read her mind, he went on quickly:

"I am not jealous in the vulgar sense of the word. Hale and I are as the poles apart. I mistrust him, and he doesn't like me."

"Why do you mistrust him?"

He shrugged.

"One takes unreasonable dislikes, and he is one of them. I know I have committed an unpardonable fault, but, Jane, I had only your happiness in mind."

The last part of his speech was uttered a little haltingly. She was not convinced. Unless she was prepared to quarrel, the sane course was to let the matter rest where it stood; saner, perhaps, to find an excuse for him in order that the possibilities of a growing friendship might not be disturbed. This last course she took.

"It isn't really important," she said, almost carelessly. "I was a little annoyed. One gives letters a very special value."

"Naturally. I'm terribly sorry."

This incident drove them a little farther apart; by the time Bourke arrived their relations were almost frigid, and she could bless the happy thought that had brought a third party to that unpromising meal.

Mr. Bourke, that stout man, was in his heartiest mood, so that she thawed under his genial influence and found herself taking an interest in criminals.

Apparently there was only one in the world, and that one exceptionally clever.

"I'm a poor man, but I'd give a thousand pounds to put my hand on him," boomed Mr. Bourke.

He had a trick of emphasising his words with imaginary thumps on the table. Every time he raised his huge fist Jane winced, but never once did the expected thud come.

"Here's a man outside of all the criminal categories. He has confederates, yet none have betrayed him. Why? Because they don't know him!"

"In what respect does he differ from other forgers?" she asked.

There was no need for her to simulate an interest in the Clever One; the unknown forger had taken hold of her imagination.

Bourke put his hand in his pocket, took out a thick leather note-case and opened it. From one of its many compartments he extracted an American bill for one hundred dollars.

"Look at that," he said. "You're not an expert, but if you were you'd say the same. It is impossible to distinguish this from a genuine bill. There are plenty of cheap forgeries in circulation. There is a place in Hamburg where you can buy five-pound notes at eighteenpence a time. But a fellow who buys the Clever One's work had got to pay—and he's paying for safety."

Peter, who seemed scarcely interested, broke in with a question.

"What would that hundred-dollar bill cost straight from the hands of the maker?" He leaned forward as he asked the question, his eyes on the detective's face.

"Twenty dollars," replied Bourke promptly; "or rather, that would be the cost from the agent, who would probably make five dollars on the transaction. That is where the Clever One differs from all the others—he charges for peace of mind. You could go through the United States of America with a pocket full of these, and the chance of your being caught is one in ten thousand. Unless you happen to be in Washington or in some town where there was a chance of the Federal authorities taking a casual peek at the money in circulation. There was a banker in Ohio who, in the course of a year, passed three thousand of these hundred-dollar bills into circulation—innocently, of course."

The modus operandi of the Clever One he found difficult to explain. Agents had been arrested in Paris, Berlin and Chicago, and they could give no other information except that at an agreed hour and rendezvous, usually at night, and in some open place where there was no chance of espionage, the forged bills or bank-notes were handed to them and they gave in exchange the price to the last penny. With the forgeries was a typewritten slip telling them where they could write for the next batch. The address was never the same: it was, the police discovered in one case, an "accommodation" provided by a small newsagent. Invariably a chance-found boy was sent to collect the letters, which probably passed through two or three hands before they eventually reached the forger.

"He never makes the mistake of flooding the market. Sometimes he will supply nothing for nine months at a time. But what he turns out is the best. The only thing we're certain about is that his agents are very few in number. There never has been a case where deliveries have been made simultaneously in Paris and Berlin."

"Yet his profits must be enormous," said the girl wonderingly.

Bourke nodded.

"Sixty thousand a year. That's a lot of money. The only time he ever put out forged bills wholesale was during the slump of the franc—he was probably one of the contributing causes. He put thirty million francs in mille notes on the French market."

Peter had been playing with his knife through this conversation, his eyes fixed upon the table. Jane had the impression that he was a little bored, and wondered why a man who was so interested in police work should find so little that was thrilling in this narrative.

She gathered from his restlessness that he was anxious to see Bourke alone. He left the conversation to Bourke and herself and sat throughout the meal staring at the one picture the room held—a big oil painting in a dull gold frame affixed to the panelling. It was a picture of a man of the Regency period, high-stocked, heavy-faced, with a harsh, big mouth and eyes into which the painter had conveyed more than a hint of cold malignity. The picture seemed to fascinate him, for again and again his eyes wandered back to the painted canvas.

At the earliest possible moment she rose and left them, and Peter visibly brightened at the first sign of her coming departure.

She was not by nature curious, and was irritated to find herself speculating upon what was the subject of the talk that held these two men in such earnest conference. Really it was no business of hers.

She wandered from the drawing-room to her sitting-room upstairs; poked the smouldering wood fire to a feeble liveliness, and, in sheer boredom, searched the little bookshelf for something to read. There was a number of three-decker novels, a volume on archæology (published in 1863), a dog-eared school manual, and, to her surprise, a very modern volume in German. She could not read German, but the illustrations left her in no doubt as to the subject of the book. It was a manual on the art of etching.

Peter's? She remembered the plates that her father had lost; remembered, too, some of the better examples of Peter's work. A fenland scene, full of light and soft shadows. John Leith had told her that this little work of Peter's compared favourably with Zohn at his best.

The book had been read carefully, for there were certain unintelligible phrases underlined. So Peter spoke or read German—she was discovering some new accomplishment every day. Here she was shocked to find that there was a sneer in her thought—there was no reason to sneer at Peter. There was, in truth, much that she could admire and respect.

It was ten o'clock when Peter called her down to say good night to Mr. Bourke. She stood by her husband's side and watched the red tail light of the car disappear down the drive before they walked back to the library, a little awkward in their companionship.

"Well, did you have a very satisfactory talk?" she asked.

She wasn't really interested, but she was trying desperately hard to return her friendship to the notch whence it had slipped that afternoon.

He was gauche; stammered a little, and there was an uncomfortable silence before she said "Good night" somewhat hastily, and went up to her room.

To-night she locked the door, drew the curtains over the window and fastened the latch of the casement so that it could not be opened; then she undressed. She was not a bit tired, only bored, bored beyond words. For an hour she lay, turning from side to side, in a vain attempt to sleep, until at last she fell into a state that was neither one thing nor the other, a sort of dazed and stupid wakefulness. . . .

What brought her to full consciousness, her heart thumping, she did not know. It was a sound—the crunch of feet on gravel. Perhaps in her sleep subconsciously she had been listening. Danger had come before, and might come again, from without.

She was out of bed in a second and, pulling on her dressing-gown, she walked stealthily to the window and looked out. For a time she saw nothing, and then . . .

It was not imagination: against the darkness of the grass she saw something darker moving—the figure of a man.

She had to put her hand before her mouth to suppress the exclamation of terror. There it was again! With trembling hands she opened the door leading to the sitting-room, crossed it swiftly and opened Peter's door. The bed was empty, had not been slept in, she saw by the light of the little lamp burning on the bedside table.

The hands of the clock beneath the lamp pointed to two. She went through the room and down the stairs. The library door was open and the interior dark, but she saw a crack of light under the dining-room door and went in. This room, too, was empty, but even as she turned the handle she was conscious of a faint, rhythmic-like whirr like the sound of machinery.

Where was the picture of the malignant man?

It had disappeared from the wall, and in its place was an oblong aperture. The picture and the lower portion of the panelling formed a door, now standing wide open.

Jane crept forward and, looking round the edge, saw a sight which she would never forget.

A long, narrow room, dusty, unfurnished save for a stout bench in the centre and a smaller bench against the wall littered with the paraphernalia of the etcher's craft. But it was not these on which her eye rested. On the central bench was a small machine that whirred and clicked softly as its cylinders turned. A printing machine. . . .

Then her heart nearly stopped beating, as she saw the oblong slips which were being fed along a small canvas band. They were bank-notes, and the man who was standing, watching the automatic delivery, was her husband!