Читать книгу A Debt Discharged - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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Wentworth Gold was a professional busybody. It was his business to know, and he knew. And much that he knew he kept to himself, for he had no confidant. He had no office, kept no clerks, occupied no official position, though he carried in his waistcoat pocket a little silver star which had a magic effect upon certain individuals; he had the entrée to all the best people, he was sometimes seen in the company of the worst, and he knew things.

He came back to the hall, passed up the great staircase, and leant over the balustrade to enjoy the spectacle afforded below.

He noticed the Spanish Ambassador with his beautiful daughter, and caught the eye of the Chargé d'Affaires of Italy; he saw Mrs Granger Collak sweep into the hall with her attendant train of young men, and wondered in a leisurely way what extraordinary gift women had, which enabled them to come straight from the mire of the Divorce Court to face the scornful glances of other women.

He saw Comstock Bell and kept his eye on him, because Comstock Bell interested him very deeply just then. A tall, young man, with a handsome Grecian face and broad shoulders, he stood out a conspicuous figure among the men. He was clean-shaven save for a slight moustache. There was a touch of grey at his temple which made him interesting: reputedly very rich and unmarried, he was the more interesting still to the women folk.

Gold, with his elbow on the balustrade, his fingers idly clasped, looked at him curiously. There was a strange sternness about this young man, who returned the greetings which were showered on him with little nods. There was a dip at the corner of his mouth and lines about his eyes which should not have been characteristics of one who had hardly seen his thirtieth birthday.

Bell stopped to speak with a group which gave him a smiling greeting, but only for a little while; then he passed into the reception room.

"Very curious," said Mr Gold meditatively.

"What is very curious?" asked a voice.

A man leant over the balustrade at his side.

"Hullo, Helder!" said Gold, "does this sort of thing attract you?"

"I don't know," said the other lazily; "it is interesting in a way, and in a way it bores one. You were saying something was strange; what was it?"

Gold smiled, took his pince-nez from his waistcoat pocket, fixed them and scrutinized the other closely.

"Everything is strange," he said, "life and the incidents of life; pleasure and the search for pleasure; ambition; folly; all these, judged from a normal standpoint, are strange. As a matter of fact I did not say 'strange' but 'curious,' but the word applies."

The other man was also unmistakably American. He was tall, but more heavily built than Comstock Bell. He looked as if he loved good living; he was clean-shaven, and his face was plump; he had that red Cupid-bow mouth which most men detest. His forehead was bald and his hair was short and curly.

Cornelius Helder was a popular figure in London. He was so ready to laugh at people's jokes, had a fund of good stories, and was au courant with most gossip which was worth suppressing.

"What is the normal standpoint?" he asked with a smile.

"The standpoint of a man who is not interested," said Gold.

"I guess that is not you," said the other; "you are interested in everything; a man was telling me the other day that you know more about the funny old politics of Europe than the American Ambassador."

Gold was silent, and turned again to survey the crowd.

He did not like Helder, and he was a man who based his dislikes upon solid foundations.

He was silent for three minutes, watching the moving crowd below; a babble of sound, little spiral bursts of light laughter came up to him. Once he heard his name mentioned and smiled somewhat amusedly, because he was a man intensely acute of hearing as people had found to their sorrow.

"Did you see Comstock Bell?" asked Helder suddenly.

"Yes," replied Gold, without taking his eyes from the floor.

"He looks worried doesn't he?"

Gold shot a swift glance at the other.

"Does he?" he said.

"I thought so," said Helder, "It is rather curious how a man with immense wealth such as he possesses, with every advantage a young man can have, should be worried."

"I have heard of such cases," replied Gold dryly.

"I was talking to Villier Lecomte the other day," said Helder.

Gold was all attention; he knew that this was no idle conversation which the incident of the moment had provoked. Helder had sought him out deliberately and had something to say, and that something was about Comstock Bell.

"You were talking with whom?" he drawled.

"With Villier Lecomte. You know him, I suppose?"

Gold knew Lecomte; he was the chief of the Paris detective force.

It was no exaggeration to say that Gold knew him as well as he knew his own brother; but there were many reasons why he should not appear to be acquainted with him.

"No," he said, "I don't think I know the gentleman, though the name seems familiar."

"He is the chief of the Paris police," said Helder; "he was over here the other day, and I met him."

"How interesting," said Gold politely. "Well, and what had he got to say?"

"He was talking about Comstock Bell," said Helder, and watched his hearer closely.

"What has Comstock Bell been doing to invite the attention of the chief of the Sureté—murder?"

Helder was watching him keenly.

"Do you mean to tell me that you have never heard?" he asked.

"I have heard a great many things," said Gold; "but it is interesting to be told things that I have never heard before, and I hope you will instruct me."

"But," said the other, "do you not know that Comstock Bell was a member of the Cercle de Crime?"

"Cercle de Crime? I don't even know what the Cercle de Crime was," laughed Gold.

Helder hesitated. Other people were on the balcony watching the throng below. A girl who leant over the balustrade next to him could hear every word he said if she chose. There was a constant coming and going of people behind him.

"I will take the risk of your joshing me," he said, "for I guess there isn't much you don't know. Many years ago, when Bell was a young man in Paris, he and a number of other wild youths started the Crime Club. It was one of those mad things of which high-spirited youths are guilty. Each member of the club made a vow to break the law in some way which, if it were discovered, would qualify the offender for along term of imprisonment."

"What an amusing idea," said Gold. "How many of them were hanged?"

"None, so far as I know. There was some sort of little scandal at the time. I rather think that the irate parent of one bright lad unexpectedly turned up from America and disorganized the society. Most of them, fortunately, had taken assumed names which were inscribed in the annals of the club, and the only really bad crime which was committed was laid at the door of a man whose identity has never been discovered."

"But the man need not have been the forger," said Gold unwittingly.

The other smiled.

"I thought you knew," he said.

"That it was forgery," replied Gold. "Yes, I remembered whilst you were telling me. One of those hopeful youths forged a £50 English banknote and changed it in the Rue de la Paix. I recall the fact now. What is all this to do with Comstock Bell?"

"Well," said Helder carelessly, "I happen to know that he was a member of the Cercle de Crime. I happen also to know that the French police have narrowed down the perpetrators of that crime to two men."

Gold turned and looked him straight in the eye.

"You're a most communicative person," he said, and remembering his known generosity, his kindness, and his savoir faire, there was a hint of offensiveness in his tone which was remarkable. "Now perhaps you will tell me who are the people who are suspected by the French police?"

The other went a little red.

"I thought you would be interested," he said.

"I am interested," said Gold, "most damnably; who was the criminal?"

Again the other detected a scarcely veiled hostility in his tone.

"Comstock Bell was one," he said defiantly.

"And the other?"

"I don't know the other," said Helder; "it is a man in the city—a broker or something."

"You are an amazing person," said Gold, and went down the staircase with a smile on his lips to greet an unobtrusive, middle-aged gentleman, who wore no decorations at his collar, but represented ninety million people at the Court of St James.

Comstock Bell had gone into the reception room; a little bored if the truth be told. He would not have come that night, but his absence would have been remarked upon. There was in his heart a fear amounting to panic; life had suddenly lost all its joy and sweetness, and a black cloud had settled on his soul.

He paid his respects to the club president's wife, who was receiving guests in the reception room. A concert was in progress in what had been the billiard-room. He half turned in that direction; somebody called him; he looked over his shoulder and saw Lord Hallingdale.

"Bell, you're the man I wanted to see," said his lordship, detaching himself from his party with an excuse. "I am going down the Mediterranean next month; will you come with me?"

Comstock Bell smiled. "I am so sorry, I have made other plans," he said.

"Going out of town?"

"Yes, I thought of running across to the States. My mother isn't enjoying the best of health just now, and I think she would like to see me."

He passed on. The excuse had been invented on the spur of the moment, for though his mother was an invalid, he had no intention of quitting England till a certain matter was settled once and for all.

He progressed leisurely towards the dining-room, where Tetrazzini was holding an audience spellbound. The room was packed and there was a crowd about the door.

He stood in the rear rank, and had no difficulty, but reason of his inches, in seeing over the heads of the throng.

"Fortunate man,"whispered somebody.

He looked round.

Mrs Granger Collak's beautiful eyes were smiling her bold admiration. Radiantly lovely was this woman of the world, as men had found to their cost.

"Shall I lift you up?" he asked in the same tone.

He was one of the few people who dared be natural with her in public, and she was genuinely fond of this young giant who knew her for what she was, yet never condemned her, and never sought a closer friendship.

"You can find me a nice quiet corner," she said, "for I am bored to an incalculable extent."

He detached himself from the throng and led her to a corner of the almost deserted outer lobby. Here, in a recess under the stairway, he found a quiet spot, and she seated herself with a sigh of relief.

"Comstock," she said, "I want you to help me."

"I could help you best," he said with a reproving smile, "by presenting you with a framed copy of the Ten Commandments."

"Do not be banal, I beg," she implored. "I am superior to Commandments; the fact that they are Commandments, and not requests, makes me long to break them all. No, I want something more substantial."

Her eyes met his, and she read something of the pity that filled him, pity that overwhelmed the sorrow which his own troubles brought.

"Don't look at me like that," she said roughly, "I do not want your sympathy. Have no stupid ideas about me, Comstock; I'm bad through and through, and I'm desperate. I want money to go abroad; to travel for a few years. People think I'm brazen because I turn up here after—after you know. But I can't get away; I'm at the end of my tether. I want to go!" She clenched her hands, and he saw a tense, hunted look in her eyes. "I want to vanish for a few years—to go alone, Comstock—and I'm bound hand and foot."

Somebody was approaching. Looking up Bell saw Helder with a little smile on his lips, ostentatiously looking the other way.

"Come to Cadogan Square tomorrow," he said, rising; "I will let you have anything you want."

Her hand was trembling when she laid it on his arm.

"You—you are good to me," she said, and her voice faltered. "I can't—I can't repay you in any way—can I?"

He shook his head.

He left her with one of her youthful cavaliers and made his way to the cloakroom to get his hat and coat.

He found Gold similarly employed.

"Are you going so soon, my young friend?" he asked.

Bell laughed.

"Yes, I find these functions depress me somewhat; I must be getting old. You appear to have similar designs," he said.

The attendant was helping the other into his coat.

"Business—inexorable business," smiled Gold. "Which way do you go?"

"Oh, I don't know!" said Bell vaguely.

"When young men don't know which way they are going," said Gold "they are usually going to the devil. Come along with me."

They both laughed, and, laughing, passed through the hall down the steps into the street; and there was at least one pair of eyes that watched the tall figure of the young man disappear.

"We'll walk, if you don't mind," said Gold; "the rain is not very heavy, and I like walking in the rain."

"I prefer it too," said the other.

They walked along Pall Mall in silence till they came to the corner of the Haymarket. The rain had increased and was now falling heavily.

Gold hailed a taxi-cab. "Fleet Street," he said loudly.

They had not gone far before he put his head out of the window and changed his instructions.

"Take me to Victoria," he said; "go through the park."

"Changed your mind?" asked Bell.

"No," said the other calmly; "only I am such an important person that quite a number of people spend lives which might otherwise be usefully employed in following me. Did you notice we were followed?"

"No," said the young man after a pause, and his voice was husky.

"I am going to ask you something, Bell," said the older man as the cab turned into the park. "Do you know a man named Willetts?"

"Willetts!" The young man's voice was even and non-committal.

"Yes; he has an office near Moorgate Street. He is a broker, though I have never heard that he bought or sold stock."

"I don't know him," said Bell shortly.

There was another long pause. Gold was leaning forward, looking out of the window and nodding his head at irregular intervals as though he were counting something.

"I think I will get out here," he said suddenly, and tapped on the window. They were in the Mall and it was deserted save for the cars which, obedient to the regulations which govern royal parks, were slowly coming and going along the broad road.

He tapped the front window, and the driver pulled up.

"You had better take the car on to where you want to go," he said.

Bell nodded in the darkness.

"Tell him to drive to Cadogan Square," he replied; "I will go home."

He heard Gold give the instructions, then, before the car could move on a man stepped out of the darkness of the sidewalk.

"Is that Gold," he said in a muffled voice.

"That is me," was the response.

"You were expecting to meet somebody, weren't you?" said the stranger.

The engine had stopped, and the driver was descending to start it again. Bell made no effort to listen to the conversation, but could not help overhearing it.

"Was I?" he heard Gold drawl.

"You know you were, damn you!" snarled the voice of the stranger.

"That's for you!"

A quick shot broke the silence of the night.

Bell leapt from the car. Gold was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, unharmed. His assailant was a blurred figure vanishing into the darkness as fast as his feet could carry him.

"A friend of mine," said Gold pleasantly, and picked up a revolver the man had dropped.