Читать книгу The Frightened Lady - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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THERE was a man named Zibriski, who, being of a poetical turn of mind, called himself Montmorency. He was called other names, which were not so polite, by people who found themselves in possession of currency notes which had been printed by the offset process on one of Mr. Zibriski's private presses. As curios they were admirable; as instruments of exchange they were entirely a failure He made a very respectable living; went to Monte Carlo in the winter and to Baden-Baden in the summer; kept an expensive flat in London—two, if his peroxided wife only knew—and drove about in a highly chromiumed American car.

He was no common retailer of spurious notes, but a master man in a very big way. He had a press in Hanover and another in the back part of a small hotel in one of the little streets near the quay at Ostend. His five-pound notes were beautifully printed and most impressively numbered. Cashiers of banks had accepted them; they had passed without detection under the eagle-beaked croupiers of Deauville.

A man, one Briggs, of many convictions, who passed through life with the delusion that dishonesty paid, had for a week past been living in the village of Marks Thornton, being a guest at the "White Hart." He was the sub-agent, and presently Mr. Montmorency would call in his glittering car and deliver to Briggs four imposing packages receiving half the market value on account. Briggs in turn would distribute these packages in likely quarters, make a hundred per cent. profit, and perhaps a little more if he had the courage to become an active negotiator.

He came to Marks Thornton to await the arrival of the wholesaler, and there arrived at the same time in a neighbouring village two inoffensive-looking strangers who were less interested in Briggs than in Zibriski.

"I followed him to Marks Thornton," said Detective-Sergeant Totty. "It's my opinion, nothing will happen there."

"Your opinion," said Chief-Inspector Tanner, of the Criminal Investigation Department, "is so unimportant that I scarcely hear it, and, anyway, it's second-hand; it's a view that I have already expressed."

"Why not take Briggs now?" asked Totty.

He was a man under the usual height, rather pompous of manner, a courageous man but somewhat short of vision. Tanner, seventy-three inches in his stockinged feet, looked down on his subordinate and sighed.

"And charge him with what?" he asked. "You couldn't even get him under the Prevention of Crimes Act. Besides, I don't want Briggs. I want Zibriski. Every time I see a photograph of that man throwing roses at beautiful females in Nice I get a pain. There isn't a police force in Europe that doesn't know that he's the biggest slush merchant in the world, and yet he has never had a conviction. We'll do a little mobile police work to-night, Totty."

"Rather a nice village, Marks Thornton," said Totty. "In fact, I nearly took a room at the White Hart. It's silly, trying to keep observation six miles away. Grand old castle there, too."

Tanner nodded.

"That is the seat of Viscount Lebanon—Marks Priory."

"Very old-fashioned," suggested Sergeant Totty.

"Naturally it would be," said Tanner dryly. "They started building it somewhere around 1160."

In the dusk of the evening they drove over to the village, passed the "White Hart," and went slowly up the hill road which skirts the Priory. From the crest of the hill you had an uninterrupted view of the grim house with the four towers which stood one at each corner of the building. In Tudor days the curtain wall had been pulled down and a monstrous piece of Tudorism had been built into it.

Tanner stopped the car and examined the building curiously.

"Looks like a prison," said Totty. "Rather like Holloway Castle."

Mr. Tanner did not deign to reply.

There was no sign of Zibriski in any of the villages they visited. At eleven o'clock they returned to their lodging. Nor did Zibriski come the next day, nor the next. At the end of the week Tanner went back to London. He had excellent information about the movements of the underworld, so accurate indeed that he was satisfied that Zibriski had been warned of his presence, and had changed his plan. Here, however, he was wrong.

On the night of the fancy dress ball Zibriski arrived, met his agent in his room, and there was a swift exchange of good money and bad. Briggs packed the spurious notes in his bag, and, this done, having that contentment of mind which is the peculiar possession of criminals, he went out for a stroll.

There was some sort of a ball on. He stood outside the village hall, heard the strange sounds which were emitted by a hired jazz band, and, climbing the hill, came to a stile where he sat, filled his pipe, and speculated pleasantly upon his good fortune. For Zibriski notes were good trading, and he was certain of his hundred per cent. profit.

He saw somebody coming up the road, a strange apparition, wearing a robe and a turban. There was a half moon that night. Briggs got down from the stile and peeped curiously. An Indian? Then he remembered the fancy dress ball.

The man passed him with a cheery good night. From his voice Briggs gathered that he had been drinking a little. He crossed the stile into the field, on his way to the big house. Briggs resumed his seat on the stile and relit his pipe, which had gone out.

Then suddenly from behind him came the beginning of a scream of mortal agony. It lasted only for a fraction of a second. The man on the stile felt the hair on his head rise. He turned round, trying to pierce the darkness, but could see nothing. The ex-convict took out his handkerchief and wiped his damp forehead.

Then he heard the sound of somebody running towards him sad presently he saw a man.

"Who's that?" asked a voice sharply.

In the faint moonlight he saw a peaked face with a little brown beard, and gaped at the sight.

"Who are you?" He was surprised to find how husky his voice was.

"All right! I'm Dr. Amersham," snapped the man with the beard.

"Who was that screamed?" asked Briggs.

"Nobody screamed—an owl, I expect."

Amersham turned and faded into the darkness.

Briggs sat for a long time. He was a little terrified, but he had the intense curiosity which is the Cockney's virtue; and presently he swung over to the other side of the stile and moved gingerly along the beaten path. He remembered he carried a little hand torch in his hip pocket, and took it out, throwing a beam of light a little ahead of him, and continued.

He was on the point of turning back when he saw something, glitter in the light of his lamp. It came from a heap that lay by the side of the path. He moved forward a pace, and his heart began to beat violently. Briggs hesitated again, set his teeth, and continued his investigation.

It was a man—the man who had passed him in Indian costume. He lay still, motionless. About his neck was a red scarf tightly tied...and he was dead...strangled.

In spite of the horrible distortion he recognised him. It was the chauffeur at the Hall, the man who had drunk with him in the bar...Studd.

Gingerly he felt his pulse, slipped his hand under the embroidered shirt, and felt his heart. Briggs rose, went swiftly down the path, jumped across the stile, his heart beating like a mechanical riveter. He walked slowly back to the "White Hart." Let the police find their own dead. He didn't want to be mixed up in it, and had good reasons.

He left the village early in the morning, an hour before they found the strangled body of Studd the chauffeur.