Читать книгу The Face in the Night - Edgar Wallace - Страница 16

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Dick Bannon tapped furiously on the glass of the cab that was carrying him down Regent Street, and, dropping the window, leaned out.

"Turn round and go up the other side. I want to speak to that lady," he said.

The Ragged Princess! It was she—he would have known her anywhere—but a different ragged princess.

"Which lady, sir?"

The taximan screwed his body to shout the query through the open window as he brought the cab to the edge of the opposite sidewalk. But Dick had the door of the cab open and had leaped to the pavement before the car came to a standstill.

"Miss Bedford, I presume?" he laughed. "This is a very pleasant surprise."

It was, in more senses than one. All traces of her poverty had vanished; the girl was well dressed, well shod, and, in the now setting, was so lovely to look upon that she had passed through a lane of turning heads.

The surprise was mutual, and, by the light that came to her ryes, the pleasure was no less.

"I have been searching London for you," he said, falling in by her side and oblivious of the taximan's alarm at the threatened bilk. "By rank bad luck I lost you on the morning you came from Holloway. I arrived a few minutes after you had left. And queerly enough, I made the mistake of thinking that it was necessary that you would have to report to the police."

"Like other dangerous criminals," she smiled. "No—I am spared that. I saw you once or twice in Holloway. You were there on business."

The business that had taken him to the woman's prison had been to catch a glimpse of her and to learn of her well-being. There were small privileges that could be obtained for her, an allocation of less unpleasant tasks. She had often wondered why she was so abruptly taken from the drudgery of the laundry and given the more congenial work of librarian, and had not connected the fugitive visits of Dick Shannon with the change of conditions.

They turned into the less congested area of Hanover Square. She had had no intention of going to Hanover Square, and was, in fact, on her way to an Oxford Street store, but she surrendered her will to his in this small matter without exactly realizing why.

"I am going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he said, slowing his pace. "You're not a mason; neither am I. But masons have confidences and keep one another's secrets and talk 'on the square' with the greatest frankness."

There was laughter in the eyes that she turned to his.

"And from knowledge that I have acquired, in a place that shall be nameless," she said, "policemen are artful! And under the guise of loving- kindness—?"

She saw the flush come to his face and the droop of his brows.

"I'm awfully sorry; I didn't really mean to be rude. Go on, be candid—I'll be recklessly truthful, but you mustn't ask me anything about Dora, and you really must not raise the question of that unfortunate Queen's jewellery."

"Dora Elton is your sister, isn't she?"

She was silent for a moment. "She isn't exactly my sister, but I was under the impression that she was," she said.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Anyway, it stands to her credit that she's looking after you now."

The girl's soft laughter answered him.

"Do you mean to say that she isn't?" He stopped and frowned down at her.

"Dora and I are no longer on speaking terms," she said, "and very naturally. It isn't good for Dora that she should be on speaking terms with a woman of my low antecedents. Seriously, Captain Shannon, I do not wish to speak about Dora."

"What are you doing?" he asked bluntly.

"I was walking up to Daffridge's, only I was arrested and taken ——"

"Tell me seriously, what work are you doing?"

She hesitated. "I don't know, except copying letters for a very unpleasant-looking old gentleman, and being paid at extravagant rates for my services."

In spite of the flippancy of her tone he detected the doubt in her voice, and knew that behind her pose of light-heartedness she was worried.

"Hanover Square isn't the quietest place in the world." he said. "I'll drive you to the Park and we'll have a real heart-to-heart talk."

He looked round for a taxicab. There was one crawling behind him, and the driver's face was strangely familiar. "Oh, lord! I'd forgotten you," he gasped.

"I hadn't forgotten you!" said the taximan grimly. "Where do you want to go to?"

In the desert of Hyde Park they found two dry chairs and a desirable solitude.

"I want first to hear about this unpleasant-looking old gentleman," said Dick, and she gave him a brief and vivid narrative of her experience with Mr. Malpas.

"I suppose you'll think it was despicable of me to use the money at all; but when a girl is very hungry and very cold, she has neither the time nor the inclination to sit down and work out problems of abstract morality. I certainly had no intention of breaking anybody's heart, but I didn't examine my duties too closely until I was comfortably installed in the Palace Hotel, with two day dresses, three pairs of shoes and a lot of other things that would be complete mysteries to you if I mentioned them! It was not until the next morning that my conscience became awfully busy. I had written the night before to Mr. Malpas, telling him my new address, and I was half-way through a second letter in the morning, explaining that, whilst I was ready and willing to render any service, however menial, I had discovered that heart-breaking was not amongst my accomplishments, when a note came from him. It didn't look like a note: it was a bulky envelope, containing about ten pencilled letters, which he asked me to copy and return to him."

"What kind of letters?" asked Dick curiously.

"They were mostly notes declining invitations to dinners and other social functions, which had evidently come from intimate friends, because he merely signed the letters with his initial. He said they could be written on the hotel note-paper, and that they must not be typewritten." Dick Shannon was very thoughtful.

"I don't like it very much," he said at last.

"Do you know him?"

"I know of him. In fact, the other day I was having a long talk about him with some—friends. What is your salary?"

She shook her head.

"That we haven't mentioned. He gave me this lump sum, told me to report next week, and since then I've done nothing but copy the documents which come to me every morning by the first post. Today the letters were longer. I had to make a copy of correspondence between the Governor of Bermuda and the British Colonial Office. This time the document was printed—it had evidently been torn from an official Blue Book. What am I to do, Mr. Shannon?"

"I'm hanged if I know," he said, puzzled. "One thing you must not do, and that is to go alone to that queer house next Saturday, or whatever is the day of your appointment. You must let me know the exact hour, and I will be waiting in Portman Square, and when the door opens for you it will be easy for me to slip in." And then, noticing her alarm, he smiled. "I'll remain in the hall within shouting distance, so you need have no qualms that I'm using you for my vile police purposes. We haven't anything against Mr. Malpas, except that he is mysterious. And, in spite of all that has been written to the contrary, the police hate mysteries. By the way, were any of the letters you wrote addressed to Mr. Lacy Marshalt?"

She shook her head.

"That is the African millionaire, isn't it? He lives next door. The taxi-driver told me."

She narrated the queer little comedy she had witnessed on the doorstep of Mr. Marshalt's house.

"H'm!" said Dick. "That sounds like one of the old man's petty schemes of annoyance. I think the best thing I can do is to see friend Marshalt and ask him what Malpas has got on him—that there is an enmity between the two is very clear."

A cold wind was blowing, and, warmly clad as she was, he saw her shivering, and jumped up.

"I'm a selfish dog!" he said penitently. "Come and drink a flagon of steaming hot coffee, and I will continue my famous 'Advice to Young Girls Alone in London'."

"Perhaps at the same time you'll begin it," she said demurely. "So far, we have only had your equally famous lecture on 'How to Get Information from Reformed Criminals'!"