Читать книгу The Crimson Circle - Edgar Wallace - Страница 13

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THALIA DRUMMOND went back to the lodging she had occupied before she had entered Mr. Harvey Froyant's service as resident secretary, and apparently the story of her ill-deeds had preceded her, for the stout landlady gave her a chilly welcome, and had she not continued to pay the rent of her one room during the time she was working for Froyant, it was probable that she would not have been admitted.

It was a small room, neatly if plainly furnished, and oblivious to the landlady's glum face and cold reception, she went to her apartment and locked the door behind her. She had spent a very unpleasant week, for she had been remanded in custody, and her very clothes seemed to exhale the musty odour of Holloway Gaol. Holloway, however, had an advantage which No. 14, Lexington Street, did not possess. It had an admirable system of bathrooms, for which the girl was truly grateful as she began to change.

She had plenty to occupy her mind. Harvey Froyant...Jack Beardmore...she frowned as though at a distasteful thought, and tried to dismiss him from her mind. It was a relief to go back to Froyant. She almost hated him. She certainly despised him. The time she had spent in his house had been the most wretched period in her life. She had taken her meals with the servants and had been conscious that every scrap of food she ate had been measured and weighed and duly apportioned by a man whose cheque for seven figures would have been honoured. "At least, he didn't make love to you, my dear," she said to herself, and smiled. Somehow she couldn't imagine Harvey Froyant making love to anybody. She recalled the days she had followed him about his big house with a note-book in her hand, whilst he searched for evidence of his servants' neglect, drawing his fingers along the polished shelves in the library in a vain search for dust, turning up carpet corners, examining silver, or else counting, as he did regularly every week, the contents of his still-room. He measured the wine at table and counted the empty bottles, even the corks. It was his boast that in his big garden he could tell the absence of a flower. These he sent to market regularly, with the vegetables he grew and the peaches which ripened on the wall, and woe betide the unlucky gardener who had poached so much as a ripe apple from the orchard, for Harvey had an uncanny instinct which led him to the rifled tree.

She smiled a little wryly at the recollection, and, having completed her change of costume, she went out, locking the door behind her. Her landlady watched her pass down the street, and nodded ominously.

"Your lodger's come back," said a neighbour.

"Yes, she's come back," said the woman grimly. "A nice lady she is--I don't think! It is the first time I've ever had a crook in my house, and it'll be the last. I am giving her notice to-night."

Unconscious of the criticism, Thalia boarded a bus which took her into the city. She got down in Fleet Street, went into the large office of a popular newspaper. At the desk she took an advertisement form, looked at the white sheet for a moment thoughtfully, then wrote:

SECRETARY.--Young lady from the Colonies requires post as Secretary. Resident-Secretary preferred. Small wages required. Shorthand and Typewriting.

She left a space for the box number, handed the advertisement across the counter, and paid the fee.

She was back again in Lexington Street in time for tea, a meal which was brought up to her on a battered tray by her landlady.

"Look here. Miss Drummond," said that worthy person, "I've got a few words to say to you."

"Say them," said the girl carelessly.

"I shall want your room after next week."

Thalia turned slowly. "Does that mean I've got to get out?"

"That's what it means. I can't have people like you staying in a respectable house. I'm surprised at you, a young lady as I always thought you were."

"Continue to think so," said Thalia coolly. "I'm both young and ladylike."

But the stout landlady was not to be checked in her well-rehearsed indictment.

"A nice lady you are," she said, "giving my house a bad name. You've been in prison for a week. Perhaps you don't think I know, but I read the newspapers."

"I'm sure you do," said the girl quietly. "That will do, Mrs. Boled. I leave your house next week."

"And I should like to say--" began the woman.

"Say it on the mat," said Thalia, and closed the door in the choleric lady's face.

As it was now growing dark, she lit a kerosene lamp and occupied the evening by manicuring her nails, an operation which was interrupted by the arrival of the nine o'clock post. She heard the rat-tat at the door and the heavy feet of her landlady on the stairs.

"A letter for you," called the woman. Thalia unlocked the door and took the envelope from the landlady's hand. "You had better tell your friends that you're going to get a new address," said the woman, loath to leave her quarrel half-finished.

"I haven't told my friends yet that I live in such a horrible place," said Thalia sweetly, and locked the door before the woman could think of a suitable reply.

She smiled as she carried the envelope to the light. It was addressed in printed characters. She turned it over, looking at the postmark before she opened it, and extracted a thick white card. At the first glance of the message her face changed its expression.

The card was a square one, and in the centre was a large crimson circle. Within the circle was written in the same printed characters:

"We have need of you. Enter the car which you will find waiting at the corner of Steyne Square at ten o'clock to-morrow night."

She put the card down on the table and stared at it.

The Crimson Circle had need of her! She had expected the summons, but it had come earlier than she had anticipated.