Читать книгу The Million-Dollar Story - Edgar Wallace - Страница 3

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I. — THE WOMAN WITH THE RED HANDS

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JOHN SANDS had infinite faith in his star, and, being a precise and methodical soul, he had early in life chosen Bellatrix, which is the star gamma in the constellation of Orion, to be his celestial representative and guardian.

Neither Orion nor γ-Orionis was visible as he came slithering down Whitecross Hill, skid round the danger bend into the straight dip which leads to Moulders Coppice, and straightened his car for the final run. The rain was pelting down as it had been pelting for three days. Above him was a scurry of grey clouds, beneath the wheels of his car was naked clay. All the most wonderful non-skid contrivances in the world would not save him from taking a toss down that steep slope leading to the little river if once the car swung an inch too far.

But John Sands not only professed to have faith in his star, but he acted up to his profession. With one hand on the steering-wheel and the other on the hand-brake he swerved and swung down the slope, nor did he even regret his decision to take the short cut—they told him the hill road was impossible, and he had smilingly rejected their advice—for his belief in Bellatrix was unbounded.

A confirmed dreamer of dreams, his peril did not interrupt the smooth weavings of his fancy. Perhaps he would meet her? It was, of course, a fantastic idea, but in John Sands’ dreams such things happened. Had he not taken the unfrequented road in sheer obedience to the law—his own law—of romance? He might meet her. He would go to her and take her hand and say: “I know you. You must come with me and I will get you back to London.”

He imagined her, against all reason, as a pale, timid thing, who would shrink from him and look at him with big, wide-open eyes in which fear and hope struggled for the mastery. It was just as likely that she would be stout and coarse and impossibly vulgar, but of course such persons never figured in John Sands’ dreams, which were altogether beautiful or exquisite.

At the foot of the hill his petrol supply gave out and the engine stopped. John climbed from the big coupé, where he had been well protected from the elements, and stepped down into a little river of rain, his big, handsome face wearing the grimaces appropriate to discomfort. He dragged out a tin of petrol, filled the tank, cranked up and moved towards the Great North Road.

Rain driven by the full force of a strong south-wester brings a man to the realisation of realities and produces a condition unfavourable to the growth of fancy. Nevertheless, so mercurial a man was he, he took the next rise with a song on his lips, and his eyes thrilled with blurred but comfortable visions. He would find her, perhaps, lying exhausted by the roadside. He would leap from his car and lift her up and bring her to warmth and safety. She would open her eyes and look wildly about her. He stopped the car with a jerk, his heart beating a little faster.

She stood in the shelter of a dripping tree, and any less keen-sighted man than he might have missed her, for she was crouching against the trunk, and her dark costume melted into the gloom of the background.

He was sure it was she before he spoke to her. There was a certain spiritual beauty in her pale face which fulfilled all his dream requirements. She had neither cloak nor umbrella. Her black dress was sodden; the straw hat on her head was limp and sloppy, and her black gloves were discoloured as though she had fallen on to the clayey ground.

She stood up, her head thrown back, her graceful body erect, and waited for him. Her eyes were dark with hate, her lips quivered for a second and were still, for she made no sound. John Sands, hat in hand, his heart exultant, was so flustered by the unexpectedness of the meeting, that he forgot all the fine sentiments, all the suave graciousness which he had so often rehearsed.

“I think I know you,” he said. “I heard about you back there,” jerking his head toward the hill. She looked about helplessly, as though for some avenue of escape.

“Don’t touch me!” she breathed, throwing out her hands; “don’t—don’t! I’ll not go back—I’d die rather!”

He laid a hand on her arm and patted her as if she were a restive colt.

“The man at the inn talked about you,” he went on soothingly. “Just then—you know. I don’t know anything about you—and I don’t want to know,” he added hastily and a little more loudly. “You are not to tell me anything, you understand. I don’t want to know.”

She looked at him in bewilderment.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“You get in that car,” said he. “In about five minutes we’ll strike the North Road and I’ll run you into London. I have a little house in Charles Street,” he added inconsequently.

She hesitated.

“You know?” she began.

“I know,” he said loudly and peremptorily. “I know all I want to know. I don’t want to know anything more. Will you please understand that? I—do—not—want—to—know—any—more.”

She inclined her head.

He observed as she walked past that her boots were sodden and clay-soiled, and that her dress was dripping water.

“Get into the back,” he commanded, and added: “I am glad you’re pretty.”

She smiled, involuntarily it seemed, because she composed her face immediately, but it was a smile that was well up to John Sands’ expectations.

He stopped only long enough to put another tin of petrol in the tank, and came to the North Road without mishap. There was no incentive to dream now, the reality was so close. He slowed the car before a women’s outfitters, glanced back undecidedly, and then, with a half apology, continued on his way. The gloom of evening lay over London when he brought the car to the door of his tiny house in Charles Street.

“Don’t get out yet,” he said.

He descended, passed round the car and opened the door before he came back to assist her to alight. Perhaps there was no necessity for caution, but John Sands took few risks and put no needless strain upon his stellar guardian.

She found herself standing in a lobby enclosed with three ground-glass panels, one of which was a door. When he had shut the street door behind him he opened the other and ushered her into a big room whence a flight of stairs led to an upper storey. In the half-light she gathered it was comfortably, if not luxuriously furnished, and after he had pulled down the blinds and switched on the electric light, she saw what, to her mind, was an ideal bachelor sitting-room.

He looked at her critically and admiringly.

“I don’t suppose there are three women in London who could appear in your plight and yet preserve their dignity,” he said. “What am I going to do about clothes, eh?”

She shook her head smilingly.

“I nearly stopped at a store in the suburbs,” he said, “but thought better of it. There was no need to ask for trouble. We shall have to get over your clothes difficulty somehow.”

With a nod of his head he beckoned her to follow, and passed up the soft carpeted stairs, she in his wake leaving behind her a trail of rain-water.

“I can give you a suit of pyjamas and an old dressing-gown,” he said. “That will have to satisfy you until tomorrow. The newspapers are full of advertisements of ladies’ clothing, and I will send for anything you want.”

She was looking at him curiously, and now for the first time she spoke.

“Why are you doing all this?” she asked.

Then a panic overtook him. Suppose he had made a mistake? Suppose she was not the woman? He had jumped at conclusions, but it was possible.

“Let me see your hand,” he said.

It was still covered with the discoloured gloves, and slowly she took them off. He took her hands in his and looked at them. They were rough and red, the finger-tips coarse, the hands of a manual worker. He looked from the hands to the delicate face and smiled.

“You gave me a scare,” he said. “All right. What were you asking?”

“I asked you what is the meaning of this—kindness?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, my young friend,” he said, “it means that I have been able to render you a mighty important service, and my advice to you is not to look a gift-horse in the mouth. I don’t know very much about you, but I guess you are pretty willing at this moment to do anything for a quiet and comfortable life—I am not going to ask you to do anything that a self-respecting woman should not do,” he added hastily.

She laughed.

“There is little that I wouldn’t do,” she said softly. “Where shall I find you when I want you?”

“I shall be downstairs,” he said. “I live alone in this house, and I am just going to telephone to the garage to ask them to send a man to take my car. Afterwards I can give you a meal and we can talk.”

“You know my name?” she asked.

“I don’t know it,” he said with truth, “and I don’t want to know it. What is your Christian name?”

“Margaret,” she said.

“Then you are Margaret Smith as far as I am concerned,” said John Sands firmly. “Margaret Smith is an easy name to remember.”