Читать книгу The Face in the Night - Edgar Wallace - Страница 15

Table of Contents

It is sometimes difficult to rule a line across a human life, and say with exactness, "Here began a career." Martin Elton had become a criminal by a natural sequence of processes, all related one to the other, and all having their foundation in a desire, common to humanity high and low, to live without working.

The product of a great school, he had found himself, at an early period of his life, with no other assets than a charming manner, the ability to converse pleasantly, and a host of exploitable friends. He went where his accomplishments paid the biggest dividends; and being unhampered by a conscience or handicapped with a too stringent sense of honour, he came naturally to the society of men and women who lived by their sharpness of intellect. He had run gambling houses (at one of which he had first met Dora and found in her a partner equally free from stupid scruples); he had manoeuvred intimate robberies that had something of blackmail in them; he had dabbled in race-track frauds of an unobtrusive character, and had made his many enterprises profitable.

Between the second and third acts of a play to which Dora had taken him, he strolled out into the lobby. There were people who knew and nodded to him, only one who made any effort to get into conversation, for Martin was not of the gregarious kind. He preferred the company, of his own thought at any time, most of all tonight.

"'Lo, Elton!"

He smiled mechanically and would have moved on, but the man who had intercepted him was wilfully blind to his desire for solitude.

"Stanford's gone to Italy, they tell me—that fellow is certainly the bird that's in two places at once. Anything doing?"

"Nothing," replied Martin pointedly. "London has been very dull since Melilla Snowden's rooms at the Albemarle were burgled and her pearls lifted."

Slick Smith laughed softly.

"Not guilty," he said, "and anyway, they were props. The burglary was more genuine, but the scream her press agent raised is just publicity. My opinion of Melilla, both as an actress and a woman, has gone right down to the mezzanine floor. A vamp that can only vamp up Luk-lik-Reels ought to be teaching Sunday school. If you got any kind of work I can do, let me know. But it must be honest."

"Come round one day and fix my kitchen stove," snarled Martin, who was not in the best of humours.

"Stoves are my speciality," said Slick, unperturbed. "Have a good cigar?" He offered his case.

"No!"

"Maybe you're right," agreed the other. "They were a Christmas present. I can't get anybody to try 'em out. It will be tough on me if I have to do the pioneer work. Seen Shannon?"

Martin sighed heavily.

"My dear fellow, I haven't seen Shannon and I don't want to see Shannon. More to the point, I'm not in the mood for conversation."

"That's a pity," said Slick regretfully. "I'm feeling chatty, and I'm tired of talking to myself. I pall on one."

"You're in danger of palling on me," Martin smiled in spite of himself.

"I felt that too. I'm responsive to atmosphere. There's a whole lot in this aura theory. Lacy Marshalt's not like that."

There was no especial emphasis to his words. He was lighting an experimental cigar as he spoke, painfully and apprehensively.

"I don't know very much about Marshalt," said Martin shortly.

"Don't suppose you do. I know him slightly. He's a thief too. And the things he steals leave a kind of gap. You're a pretty good fellow, Elton."

The seeming inconsequence of the last remark was not lost upon his hearer.

"I don't think I'd go any farther if I were you," said Martin Elton quietly. "You're trying to be kind, aren't you?"

"Not trying. I do these things naturally." Slick Smith's smile was broad and disarming. "There goes the bell—I wonder if she married the duke and sent her village swain back to the family woodpile? I guess she didn't—they never do in plays."

That raw night, as he was driving home, he thought of Slick. He had not enjoyed the play, neither had Dora, and a sense of restraint had fallen upon both. The drive was unrelieved by any spoken words. He followed her up to the drawing-room, well prepared for the outburst which was due and, unless he was mistaken, was coming.

"What is the matter with you, Bunny? You've hardly spoken a word this evening. I'm tired of your sulks! You make me so nervous I hardly know what I'm doing!"

He bit off the end of a cigar and lit it, his attention on the match.

"I'm not sulking, I'm just thoughtful, that's all," he said, throwing the stick into the fire before he sat down in a corner of the roomy settee. "Have you heard any more of your sister?"

"No, I haven't," she snapped, "and I hope to God I never hear from her again! The whining little jail-bird!"

He took his cigar from his mouth and examined it carefully.

"I don't remember that she whined; and if she's a jail-bird, we made her so," he said.

She stared at him in amazement.

"That's a new tone for you to take, Bunny. You practically threw her out of the house last time she was here."

He nodded.

"Yes, I haven't forgotten that," he said quietly. "London is a rotten place for a pretty girl to be alone in, without money, or friends. I wish I knew where she was."

A slow smile dawned on her lovely face.

"You seem to have had a visit from R. E. Morse, Esquire," she said ironically. "But then, you always fell for a pretty face."

He made a gesture of distaste. There were moments when the groundings of Wechester College started up from their sleep and made themselves evident.

"Her prettiness weighs less with me than her helplessness at this moment. She didn't write?"

"Of course she didn't write," said his wife scornfully. "Is that what has been making you so glum? Poor Bunny!" she mocked. "He has a soft heart for beauty in distress!"

He looked at her for a second, a cold scrutiny which aroused her to fury.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, her voice trembling with anger. "Tell me what's in your mind—there's something!"

"Yes, there's something," agreed Bunny Elton; "in fact, there are several somethings, and Audrey is one of them. The girl may be starving. God knows what may have happened to her."

"Let'us leave her to His keeping," she said with mock piety, and his eyes narrowed.

"I've been thinking lately," he said, "that, if you behave this way to your own sister, what sort of treatment should I get if things went wrong, and you had to make a quick decision between me and safety?"

"Safety would win," she said coolly. "I'll not deceive you, Bunny. 'Sauve qui peut' is my family motto."

She kicked off her shoes and was pulling on the red morocco boudoir boots that stood before the fire.

"And is that all? Is it only the thought of the poor little girl driven from home that is worrying you?" she sneered.

"That's one thing," he said. He threw his cigar into the fire and rose. "Dora"—his voice was like ice—"Mr. Lacy Marshalt is an undesirable acquaintance."

She looked up, her eyes wide open.

"Isn't he honest?" she asked innocently.

"There are a whole lot of honest people that no respectable lady thief can dine with in a private room at Shavarri's," he said deliberately. "Lacy Marshalt is one."

Her eyes dropped to the fire again; her colour came and went...

"You've been watching me, have you? Marshalt may be a very useful man to know in certain eventualities."

"He is no use to me in any eventuality," said Martin Elton; "and he is never so useless as when he is dining furtively with my wife."

A long silence followed.

"I only dined with him once at Shavarri's," she spoke at last. "I intended telling you, but I forgot. Hundreds of people dine privately at Shavarri's," she said defiantly.

He nodded. "And I'm particularly anxious that you should not be like any of those hundreds," he said. "You've dined with him twice, as a matter, of fact—twice I know about; probably more often. Dora, that hasn't to happen again."

She did not answer.

"Do you hear?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I get precious little out of life," she said with a little sob. "The only people I meet are Stanford and you and the little crooks you pull into your various games. I like to meet somebody who isn't that way —at times. It's like a breath of fresh air that makes me forget the rotten atmosphere in which I live."

She did not see his cynical smile, but, knowing him, she could guess how he would receive her excuse.

"Intensely pathetic," he said. "The picture you have drawn of the pure child, striving to regain the memory of her lost innocence, touches me deeply. But if you want to get back to nature, I suggest some other means than tete-a-tete dinners at Shavarri's. They are sophisticated, Dora. You won't go again."

She looked up quickly.

"If I want to go—" she began defiantly.

"You will not go again," he said, his voice little above a whisper. "If you do, I will look up Mr. Lacy Marshalt and put three bullets through the pocket in which he carries his excellent cigars. What I shall do to you, I don't know," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "It depends entirely upon my mood and your—your propinquity. I rather fancy it will be a triple tragedy."

Her face was a ghastly white. She tried to speak, but could not put her words in order. Then, suddenly, she was at his feet, her arms clasping his knees. "Oh, Bunny, Bunny!" she sobbed. "Don't talk like that; don't look like that! I will do what you wish... there was no harm... I swear there was nothing in it. Bunny... I just went out of devilment."

He touched her golden hair.

"You mean a lot to me, Dora," he said gently. "I haven't given you the very best training, and I guess I've thrown overboard every one of the good old moral maxims that guide most people. But there's one to which I am holding like death—it's 'honour amongst thieves', Dora... honour amongst thieves!"

She had been in bed two hours, and he still sat before the remains of the fire, the stub of an unlighted cigar between his white teeth, his eyes fixed moodily upon the dull embers. Two bitter hours they had been, when he had stood face to face with the naked truth of things, and had brought his philosophy to join experience in judging the woman he loved. This good-looking young man, with his flawless skin and his dandified attire, was very human.

He rose, unlocked a drawer of the writing-table, took out a small Browning, and sat for a quarter of an hour before the fire, the pistol resting on the palm of his hand, his grave eyes fixed upon the weapon. He heard a rustling sound outside, and slipped the gun into his pocket as Dora in her neglige came into the room.

"It's past two o'clock, Bunny," she said anxiously. "Aren't you coming to bed?"

He rose stiffly and stretched himself.

"You're not worrying any more, are you, Bunny?" she asked apprehensively. Her eyes were still red with weeping; the hand she laid on his arm shook. He took it in his and patted it.

"No, I'm not worrying any more," he said. "We'll start afresh."

"But, Bunny," she wailed, "there's no need to start afresh. I swear to you—-—"

"We'll start afresh," said Bunny, and kissed her.