Читать книгу The Million-Dollar Story - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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MARGARET MALIKO rose on her elbow and blinked at the sunlight which was pouring into the bedroom. She looked around bewildered and then remembered where she was.

She slipped out of bed to the floor, and, walking round the apartment, observed with interest and admiration the evidence of Mr. Sands’ sybaritic tastes. The silver and tortoiseshell brushes on the table, the Venetian glass vases, the well-chosen photogravures which covered the walls, the tiny Empire desk in the window recess—they were all in harmony, and she, who had known what luxury was, saw and approved. She opened the door carefully and heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner at work below. Tiptoeing to the head of the stairs, she looked down and saw a woman at work.

“Has Mr. Sands returned?” she asked.

The woman looked up.

“Yes, miss,” she replied. “He was in here about half an hour ago. Are you ready for me to go out? I have got all the newspapers here.”

Margaret hesitated.

“Bring them up and put them on my bed whilst I am having my bath,” she said. “Can you bring me some coffee?”

“I’ve got it all ready, miss,” said the woman. “Your brother told me that I was not to disturb you until you called.”

When Margaret came back to her bedroom she found an array of daily newspapers, around certain advertisements in which a blue line had been drawn by the painstaking Mr. Sands. With a pencil and paper she prepared a hasty list, and then it struck her that she had no money. She went to the door again. The woman by this time was dressed.

“Did Mr. Sands leave anything for me?” asked the girl.

“Oh, yes, miss, I forgot.”

She laboured upstairs with an envelope, which Margaret took round the edge of the door. Ten £10 bank-notes—more than sufficient to cover the cost of the things she had chosen.

“Here’s the list. Take a cab, please,” she said.

She was careful not to reveal herself in her garb, for even the credulity of a lady help might have been taxed by the revelation of Mr. Sands’ pyjamas. She went back to the bedroom and read the newspapers carefully. Every one of them had a small paragraph about her escape, and she read, too, a description of herself—a description which no stranger could possibly recognise—in every one of them. One paragraph, however, caught her eye and wiped the smile from her face.

“It is believed,” it ran, “that the woman escaped to London with the help of a confederate. A motor-car was seen on the North Road close to where the convict must have been in hiding, and the police are making attempts to trace this car.”

That was serious. If the number were known—and possibly somebody may have noticed it—there would be no difficulty whatever in discovering the ownership, and once John Sands was known to have been the driver there was very little chance of her escaping detection. On the other hand, had the number been known, the police would have been in the house long before this. She waited impatiently for the return of the woman with the new apparel. They came at last—a ready-made suit, which fitted her to perfection, a number of other necessary garments, a hat and a raincoat. She felt more confident when she saw herself in the long mirror in John Sands’ wardrobe. She was so unlike an escaped convict, so eminently respectable, that she felt she might walk into the street, might indeed pass the very prison gates, and none would detect her. She had regained something of her confidence when John Sands returned.

“You look fine,” he said, with the light of admiration in his eyes. “Your own warden wouldn’t know you now.”

“Warden?” she said, puzzled. “Oh, you mean warder.”

“Something like that,” he said good-humouredly.

“Look at this.”

She produced the paragraph she had cut from the newspaper, and he read it carefully and shook his head.

“When we came in last night I walked round the back of the machine just to see the name-plate. It was so covered with mud that it would have been impossible for anybody to have deciphered it. Besides, it was nearly dark when I found you.”

“Then there is no danger?” she asked.

“I am sure of it,” he replied promptly, “and as proof of my faith I am going to take you out to lunch at the swellest restaurant in town.”

He drove her to Piccadilly Circus in an open taxi, for the rain had cleared off and the day was an unusually mild one. Half-way down Wimpole Street he lifted his hat to a girl and a young man who were on the sidewalk.

“Take notice of that girl, if you can without turning round,” he said. “She is your future niece.”

He chuckled.

The girl on the pavement looked after the disappearing taxi with interest.

“I seem to know that man’s face,” said her companion.

“He’s a friend of uncle’s,” said Faith Leman, “a Mr. Sands.”

“I’ve got him,” answered the other, “John Sands. He’s the New Yorker who has gone English.”

She smiled.

“I think that’s a description that could almost apply to uncle.”

Her companion shook his head.

“There’s nothing English about Uncle Mark,” he said, “except his bad manners.” And she lifted a reproving finger.

“I told uncle you were going away to-day,” said the girl. “Do you really return to America to-morrow?”

He nodded.

“I wish I were going with you,” she said wistfully. “I am just aching to see mother.”

“Why don’t you ask Mr. Leman to send you? There are two or three women I know going across, and they would chaperon you.”

She shook her head.

“It’s useless to ask uncle for anything,” she said sadly. “The mere fact that I wanted something would be sufficient to make him refuse.”

“Why don’t you shake him?” urged the young man. “I know it’s no business of mine, and it’s a pretty cool proposition to ask you to shake five million dollars.”

“Shaking the dollars would not be easy,” she interrupted, “because for me they do not exist. And the other thing isn’t easy either. Uncle has been very good to mother, and—”

“I understand,” he said quietly. “You have just got to stick it, and I guess the old man is using his kindness to your mother as a lever to hold you.”

She made no reply, for this was an implication which she could not in truth deny.

“But are you satisfied with your visit to London?” she asked. “Have you got—what do you call it?—a good story?”

“Thousands,” he said promptly. “You know that stories about Mark Leman sell like hot cakes. He’s one of the best sellers in the newspaper world. Of course our London man has been sending stories over to New York about him, but they’ve got a bit thin lately, and the boss sent me over to put a little romance into ‘em. Why, I’ve got some of the dandiest stories about Mark that have ever been told. There’s a story about how he nearly bought a new pair of boots in Oxford Street and then hedged and tried to buy one.”

The girl looked shocked.

“Why, bless your heart, Miss Faith, your uncle revels in that kind of story, and when we printed a Sunday story about John Rockbetter being the meanest millionaire alive, old man Leman was all for indicting us for libel! But I have fallen down on the marriage story. You are sure there is nothing in it?”

The girl hesitated.

“I am certain,” she said. “Uncle says he will get married, but I think he only says it to annoy me and to squelch any hope I may have of inheriting his fortune. Heaven knows I don’t want his money,” she said bitterly. “I would ask for nothing better than to be released from the misery of living in the same house. You don’t know what it means, Mr. Cassidy.”

“I guess I do,” he said. “It’s the one unhappy impression I’m carrying back to America.”

He wanted to say something more, but checked himself. It was not the first time he had wanted to say something more, and it was only the fact that he was speaking to a girl who some day might inherit Mark Leman’s enormous fortune which prevented him saying the word which so frequently trembled on his lips. He had met her when he had made his first call upon the millionaire in London, and she had entertained him during her uncle’s absence. They had met—as she thought—by accident many times since.

To the girl this new interest in her life had come like a streak of sunshine across a grey moor, and she faced the prospects of the end of this strange friendship with a little ache in her heart.

“I just envy you,” she said. “To be in little old New York again! Do you know what I should like to do?”

“I know what I should like to do,” he said fervently.

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“Never mind,” he said. “What would you like to do?”

“I would like to get on a car and go out to Coney Island. I’d like just to loaf around with the crowd and see all the side-shows and eat all the things that were offered—”

“And be very ill next morning,” he said practically. “No, I can devise a more pleasant picnic for you than that, Miss Leman, when you strike New York,” he said.

They came to Berkeley Square and, as if by common agreement, their progress had slowed down to little more than a saunter. There was a tale to be told, but for the life of him he could not find an opening.

“Miss Leman,” he began, “there’s something I want to say to you mighty badly.”

He paused.

“Yes?” she said encouragingly.

“You know I am a newspaper man—” He stopped again.

“I know that,” she said. “You are on the Advertiser?”

He nodded.

“That isn’t what I wanted to say,” he said. “The fact is, I am going away to-morrow, and it may be a year or so before I see you again, unless you come to New York.”

“But you are going to write to me, aren’t you?” she asked. “You said you would.”

He swallowed something.

“Yes, I’m going to write, if you will allow me to. I want you, please, to think of me as your very best friend.”

“You are,” she smiled. “I have no other friend. I shall always think of you with the greatest kindness, Mr. Cassidy.”

“That’s all right,” said Jimmy. “Only, I want to say this: that perhaps one day you’ll be a millionairess, and then I shan’t bother you any more. But perhaps you won’t be, and this old curmud—uncle of yours will leave you without a cent. Well, if that happens—”

What might have been the result of such a happening he was not to disclose, for a voice hailed him and he turned round to meet the lank figure of Mark Leman.

“Hullo! Hullo!” said Mark genially. “Thought you were gone to America!”

“Going to-morrow, Mr. Leman,” said Jimmy.

“Good for you!” said Mark. “Now come here, Jimmy. I’ve got a story for you that’s worth a whole page. You can tell ‘em that I was going to be married, but that I quarrelled with the bride as to who should pay the fees. Do you get me? And, say, you can tell ‘em that I loaned the wedding-ring from a jeweller for fifty cents. Now that’s a story that’s worth real money—”

The girl turned from the two with a little sigh, and for the moment Jimmy’s eyes met hers and he nodded his farewell.

“I will tell you the rest of that story one of these days, Miss Leman,” he said.

“What story’s that?” asked the old man as the girl walked away. “Is it about me, son? If it is, I can tell you one better. The other day a man asked me to loan him a postage stamp—”

For the first time in his journalistic life Jimmy Cassidy heard an exclusive story and paid no heed to it. His eyes were fixed upon the retreating figure of the girl.