Читать книгу The Devil Man - Edgar Wallace - Страница 10

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A remarkable woman was Madame Stahm: she was indefatigable, tireless.

Baumgarten, who, curiously enough, never spoke good German, called her the Wonderfrau. She could live on the minimum of sleep; she ate no more than would have kept a canary alive; and, except for these hysterical outbreaks of hers, did not know a day's sickness. She had an unusual knowledge of mechanics, was a particularly brilliant chemist, though she had taken no degree in the subject, and during her married life had acquired some of her husband's uncanny instinct which is nine-tenths of inspiration.

She was a wealthy woman, too, could afford, as Baumgarten reminded her at frequent intervals, to drop this quest of hers and, retiring, live an amusing and comfortable life. But the attainment of the goal which her husband had set forth to reach was her life's passion. Without it, life could have no meaning.

Her interest in Peace was no affectation. There was in her a leaning towards the bizarre, and there was this creditable factor in her perversity, that she saw through the ugly coating of things and detected qualities which were hidden from the normal eye.

"Dirt? Show me dirt, and I will show you the most delightful chemical constituents," was her favourite saying.

Baumgarten was a man of vision, but could never see, in the slouching little man with the repulsive face, more than something slightly removed from the baser form of animal life. He conceded to him a genius for music, for Baumgarten was not musical, and he was fair. For all he knew, the little man was a prodigy.

He received Peace in the bare ante-room that led off the square stone hall, and the visitor came in, rubbing his mittened hands.

"It's cold here," he croaked. "Ain't you got a fire here anywhere?"

"Attend to me!" Baumgarten barked the words. He never attempted to disguise his antipathy to the man he employed. "Madame wishes to ask you questions and to give you some work. You may earn ten or twenty pounds—more than you will ever make from a burglary."

Peace scowled at him. "I don't know what you mean by burglary. That's a nice word to use to a respectable man, I must say! I wouldn't have come out if I thought you was going to jaw me! Twenty pounds! A friend of mine makes hundreds—thousands!" He carried under his arm a bundle wrapped in a piece of calico, obviously torn from a bed sheet. "I've brought her something that'll surprise her—look at this!" He unwrapped the bundle and showed a small violin of an unusual shape. Most unusual feature of all, it had only one string.

"I invented it. When you hear it you'll be surprised. It will cause a bit of a stir in London when they hear it, though I'll have to learn 'em how to play it. I've learnt some of the biggest fiddlers in England—do you know what they call me? 'The Second Paganini.' I've got playbills to prove it. 'Charles Peace, the Second Paganini.' I've had some of the highest people in the land come up to me and say: 'Why don't you go on the stage, Mr Peace?' I can prove that too."

"I daresay you can," interrupted the other impatiently. "But I am not interested in fiddles, nor does madame desire music. It is on another matter I wish to speak to you before you see her. She will ask you to do something in Sheffield—possibly to take somebody away. Nothing you must do without first consulting me—you understand? You must take no steps until I have gone over every detail of your plans." Peace shifted his movable jaw restlessly, his deep-set eyes on the Russian.

"Is she here?" he asked suddenly.

"Madame—oh, no, you mean the Nurse Garden?" The little man nodded. "No, she has gone—the Sergeant Eltham came yesterday and drove her into Sheffield to see the doctor."

"Sergeant Eltham...a bald man with whiskers?" Peace scratched his chin uneasily.

"Do you know him?"

A moment's hesitation. "Yes, I know the old hound! He swore my life away—stood up in the witness box and perjured himself so that I wonder the roof didn't fall in. They say these London detectives are liars, but this man could teach 'em something! Ain't she coming back, the nurse?"

"She is staying with Dr Mainford."

The jaw of the little man thrust out. "That puppy! Said he'd throw me out of the trap, and I could have put him across my knee and broken his back! Nobody knows how strong I am. I once took a six foot navvy and threw him over a hedge, and I've got people to prove it. There was a lord who bet I couldn't carry a twenty-score pig for half a mile, and I done it for a mile, and nobody would have thought, to look at me, that I'd—"

"Yes, yes—you are wonderful, but that is not the point. This young woman must not be hurted—hurt—you understand? Whatever madame says."

Peace looked at him cunningly through half-closed eyes. "You tell me what I got to do and what I ain't got to do? Suppose I tell her ladyship what you're telling me, you'd get into a bit of a row, wouldn't you?"

If Baumgarten had followed his natural inclination he would have taken the long-barrelled pistol that he could see in the drawer of his desk and wiped out of existence the man who was an offence to him. "You may tell madame if you wish. She already knows my views. Now you may see her. You need not bring your fiddle, for she does not require music." He led the way up the stairs, Peace following, carrying, in spite of his instructions, the one-string fiddle and its bow.

It was into a smaller room, which he had never seen before, that he was ushered.

Madame sat at her secretaire, wearing a padded gown. She was smoking a brown cigarette, a remarkable spectacle. Peace had never seen a woman smoking before, though he had seen men indulging in the offensive practice of cigarette smoking.

"Sit down, nice man," she said. "Give him the stool, Peter. He will look so odd! What have you there?"

Peace handed the fiddle to her with a smirk. "He said you wouldn't want to see it."

She examined the home-made instrument curiously. "I have seen such things in Russia," she said, as she handed it back, and the little man's face fell.

"I invented that out of me head—" he began.

"I have seen it in Russia, my man. It is very interesting and some day you shall play it for me." She swept the secretaire clear of papers and rested her elbows upon it, staring at her visitor thoughtfully.

"Sergeant Eltham—do you know him? Is he important?"

"He is a liar," said Peace promptly.

"All policemen are liars," said madame. "I am not interested in their moral characters. But is he of great importance?"

"He is nobody," said Peace. "He's only a copper, a sergeant. Would he be only a sergeant if he was clever? Suppose he had my brains, where would he be? Chief Constable of England—that's where he'd be, sitting in a grand office in Parliament, ordering people about."

"Nobody has your brains, little man," she cooed.

"Nor his modesty," muttered Baumgarten, and Peace shot him a baleful glare in his direction.

"And Dr Mainford—what of him? Is he clever?"

"A whippersnapper," said Peace. "I could break him in two across my knee. I've got the strength of ten men."

"Is he well known?" she persisted patiently. "Suppose he went away, said nothing to anybody, would he be missed very much?"

"There's hundreds of doctors in Sheffield," said Peace. "They'd go to somebody else."

"That is not what I want to know." She drummed her fingers irritably upon the mahogany writing desk. "Is his—what do you call it?—practice very large?"

Here Mr Peace was at sea. He knew nothing of practices, had only the vaguest idea of the system under which doctors work.

"I told you it was useless to ask him this," interrupted Baumgarten, a touch of asperity in his tone. "The man can only tell you what he knows, and he knows nothing."

The face of the little man went livid. Baumgarten had touched him on the raw. His colossal vanity was hurt. To question his omniscience was to commit a deadly offence. "Know nothing, don't I?" he spluttered, but she calmed him again.

"I see that you have not studied the doctor, and why should you? Now, my friend, listen." From a pigeon-hole she took a slip of paper. "You can read, of course?"

"I went to the best school in England—" began Peace.

"Here are some names and some addresses. They are friends of the man Wertheimer. The first one is the young woman to whom he has paid his addresses."

"Courting her?" She nodded.

"They are engaged perhaps—I am not sure. He writes to her regularly. Do you know Manchester?"

Peace leered at her. "Do I know me own right hand?" he asked,

"I see you do," she went on. "She lives there. She is young and romantic. Possibly she keeps all his letters—where I do not know. The bureau, under her pillow, near to her heart—God knows! You are a clever little man; I have always said so. You are adorable. I am your friend and your disciple, isn't it—is that not so? You will make inquiries in your own way. You are too clever to be told. Possibly a servant will tell you where the young lady keeps her letters. I would like those."

He eyed her suspiciously, a little resentfully. Nobody must think ill of him or regard him disparagingly. "Anyone would think I was a burglar, the way you're talking!" he complained, and she smiled at him.

"How absurd! Of course you are not a burglar; you are a very clever man, and you are a wonderful spy. In Russia you would be a great man, earning thousands of roubles."

Peace considered the matter. He was a little ruffled. The polite fiction of his integrity had to be maintained. Burglary was vulgar and low, but spying—He could dramatize himself into any role. Already he was slinking through the snowy streets of St Petersburg in pursuit of Nihilists.

"Can you do this for me, my dear friend?"

He hesitated. "I know a man." he said slowly, "a common man who does a bit of burglaring. I ain't seen him for years, but he'd do anything to oblige me. I saved his life—jumped into the river when he'd gone down for the third time and brought him out. They wanted to give me a medal, but I got away—never even so much as left me name."

"Modesty again," murmured the irrepressible Baumgarten.

"There is another thing I want to speak to you about." madame went on quickly, to check the little man's snarling retort. "You remember the girl—the nurse? You wanted to take her for a walk. You remember you asked me?"

"I'd have treated her like a lady," said Peace vehemently. "I always treat ladies as such. I'd have took her into the best public-house and given her nothing but wine. Nobody's ever said I wasn't a gentleman—"

"Yes, yes, yes, that I know. But she has run away from me, to the doctor. I think he is her lover."

The man's face became distorted with rage. "If he does any harm to that young girl I'll smash his head in!" he growled. "I can't abear seeing women treated cruel."

She was secretly amused, but did not show it. She knew something of Mr Peace and his private reputation; knew, though he was not aware of this, that he had so beaten his wife that her face was permanently disfigured; knew other unwholesome facts which did not accord with this profession of chivalry.

"You are quite right," she said. "It is admirable of you! You have the heart of a chevalier, my little man. She is in bad hands. I would like to bring her back to me. She may tell stories about us—about you, for example. This doctor is a busybody, very arrogant and unscrupulous. Also he is a friend of your Sergeant Eltham. That is very bad for us all."

"I'll get her back," interjected Peace excitedly. "It's just come to me how I can do it! That's how my mind works, my ladyship. Other people think hours and days and months—it comes to me of a sudden! I'll follow her round when she goes out for a walk; I'll talk to her. She can't shake me off. Then I'll have a handsome pony chaise and ask her to go for a ride and bring her here."

"Very clever," said Baumgarten. "And suppose the doctor is out walking with her?"

"I'll settle him," said Peace with an ugly grin. "You mark my words, mister." Baumgarten and the woman exchanged a glance. He shook his head slightly, and he saw agreement in her eyes.

"That will not be good, I think. We must try some other plan. But in the meantime these letters—I must have them. There is twenty pounds for you—ten pounds today and ten pounds when the letters come. The girl in Manchester, I mean. Afterwards you must try this man." She pointed to the second name on the list. "He is a friend also of Wertheimer. Do you know Mr Dyson?"

"I know everybody in Sheffield," said Peace, and ignored the sarcastic click of Mr Baumgarten's lips. "Dyson? He's got a greengrocer's shop in—"

"He is an engineer on the railway," said madame. "He has a very attractive wife."

"Leave it to me," said the little man.

That satyr smile of his sickened Baumgarten, and he was a man with a strong stomach.

"I will tell you about him later." said madame. "First"—her finger went to the top of the list—"this girl. Here is the address. I do not know what kind of house it is, but that you will find out. If anything happens you will not, of course, speak of me."

"Don't worry." Peace would have taken the slip of paper, but she held it under her hand.

"Have you a book? I will write it for you."

"I can write." he said gruffly.

He was very touchy on the point of his education.

She watched him whilst laboriously he copied the name and address in a little notebook with a stub of pencil. He wrote as a child writes, letter by letter, muttering each as he set it down.

"That's good writing." He showed her the illiterate scrawl triumphantly. "There's people been to Oxford and Cambridge that couldn't write better than that."