Читать книгу The Mouthpiece - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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THE Hotel Walderstein was not the best hotel in Cobenzil, and for that reason Mrs. Millicent Ferguson Smith had a grudge against it. If it had been the best hotel, Mrs. Smith, of course, would not have been staying there; and although she tolerated its second-class amenities with a show of patient resignation, she could never shake off a secret feeling of resentment against the place for its failure to be the sort of hotel in which a woman of her tastes would choose to reside.

Yet the Walderstein, besides the comparative moderation of its tariff, had much to commend it. It had a pleasant sunny terrace that looked out over the valley of the Danube; it had comfortable chairs on the terrace, and big gaily-coloured sun umbrellas, exactly like those of the more expensive hotels; and, even had its charges been less moderate and its food more elaborate, the view from the terrace could hardly have been more beautiful than it was under present conditions.

At the moment, Mrs. Smith did not seem to be agreeably impressed by the beauty of the view. Seated in a low cane chair beneath one of the sun umbrellas, she was gazing at the river with a look of disapproval more in keeping with the Thames at Wapping than with the sunlit waters of the Danube at Cobenzil.

Seeing Mrs. Smith sitting there, with the smoke of her Egyptian cigarette scenting the air, one might have been excused for wondering why she should be subjecting the Danube to that disapproving frown. True, she was in her forties— a fact which might make any woman frown not only at the Danube but at the entire unjust and ill-conceived scheme of existence; but "the forties" is a wide and vaguely defined realm in which a woman may wander for far more than a decade without adding to her years, and Mrs. Smith certainly did not look her age. She was still pretty; she had still to discover the first silver thread in her dark hair, and her slim figure was still independent of special diet and fatiguing exercises. Her dress, too—cause of so many feminine frowns—was such as any woman might have worn without frowning, even in Cobenzil's best hotel.

All these blessings, and Mrs. Smith was none the less frowning. But she was not at the moment counting her blessings: she was mentally counting the contents of her purse.

The manager, of course, had behaved very badly—coming out here on the terrace and flourishing the bill at her and gabbling on in his nasty guttural English. After all, it was quite a small amount. Four weeks for herself and Jacqueline at his wretched little hotel was nothing to make such a fuss about, especially as for the first fortnight she had paid her bill regularly each week.

That was the worst of staying at these second-rate places; they only thought of getting their money, and didn't take the least trouble to keep the bath water hot. Last night she had actually shivered—and the toast this morning hadn't been fit to eat. And in any case there was no excuse for making a scene out here on the terrace, flourishing the bill at her and advertising the matter to the whole hotel. Anyone might have seen—Jim Asson or Colonel Lutman Experience had taught her that nothing could so effectually wither the roots of a young friendship as a suspected shortage of money, and she did not want either Jim Asson or Colonel Lutman withered. Both of them were coming along nicely, and it would be disastrous if anything should occur now to check them. Time enough to broach money matters when their friendship was more firmly rooted and likely to stand the shock.

But the financial situation had to be faced. The manager had delivered an ultimatum: either she must pay her bill within a week or she must leave his hotel. He had a wife and a family to support, he had said—as if she were in some way responsible for his indiscretions! But the ultimatum was a nuisance. It had been delivered at a most awkward moment. Mentally counting her assets, Mrs. Smith realized that the settlement of the bill within the stipulated time limit was in the highest degree improbable; which would mean that, unless the manager could be brought to a more reasonable frame of mind, she must leave the hotel. And she did not wish to leave, because that would mean leaving Jim Asson and Colonel Lutman and abandoning all her schemes and hopes. Jim Asson and Colonel Lutman were chances—far too good to be left lying about a continental hotel for someone else to pick up and make use of.

Still, there was a week before the ultimatum expired, and a great deal could happen in a week. She must see if she could speed things up a little. If only Jacqueline were more tractable....

She lighted another cigarette, caught the sound of footsteps on the terrace, and turned her head to see Jacqueline coming towards her. She noticed that the girl was frowning, and instantly dismissed her own frown and greeted her with a smile.

The outward appearance of Jacqueline Smith always brought a smile to her mother's lips. Jacqueline in that respect was so completely satisfactory, with her dark hair, her grey eyes, her clear-cut features, and her slim, boyish figure. It was a great comfort to know that one's daughter was so eminently presentable; things would have been much more difficult if she had been thick in the ankle or short in the leg or had turned out to be one of the throw-backs who had curves where curves were no longer fashionable. Had it been possible for her mother to mould Jacqueline in strict accordance with her heart's desire, she would have given her a chin that was a little less determined, but otherwise she would have made no alteration.

Jacqueline helped herself to a cigarette and lighted it.

"Well, mother? Do we start packing?"

Millicent Smith glanced at her quickly. She had tried very hard to cure herself of that habit of giving her head that sudden turn when Jacqueline made one of her unexpected remarks, but she had never managed to do it. Some of the girl's remarks were so very disconcerting.

She raised her eyebrows in mild surprise.

"Packing, my dear?"

Jacqueline nodded.

"I suppose we're moving on, aren't we?"

"Moving on? I hadn't thought of it, Jacqueline. We're fairly comfortable here, and there are some quite nice people staying in the hotel, and even if the bath water isn't very hot—"

"When a hotel manager starts waving a bill we usually do move on, don't we?"

Again Mrs. Smith raised her shapely eyebrows.

"I don't think I quite understand, Jacqueline."

"What you mean, Mother, is that you hoped I didn't understand. But I saw the whole thing from the window of my bedroom, and it didn't need much understanding. Where are we going next?"

"We're going nowhere; we're staying here."

"But if you can't pay the bill—"

"I haven't said I can't pay the bill. Just because I don't choose to pay this afternoon—on the hotel terrace—in full view of everybody—it doesn't follow—"

Jacqueline cut her short with a gesture of impatience.

"Why go on pretending, Mother? I'm not a perfect fool, and it doesn't deceive me. Do you really suppose I don't know why we left Marienbad—and Prague—and—oh, half a dozen other places? We left because the hotel would give us no more credit, because it was a case of paying up or being kicked out. And because we couldn't pay up, we sneaked off—"

"I have never sneaked off in my life, Jacqueline. I have never left a hotel except by the main door—"

"We left Prague at six in the morning, anyway, so that we could slip away without giving any tips."

"And I have never, Jacqueline, failed to pay my bill."

"Oh, no; I don't say you have," the girl admitted. "It's rather wonderful the way you always manage to find the money somehow. But there was that fuss at Munich when the bank wouldn't meet your cheque, and—oh, you know the sort of thing I mean. All this wandering about Europe, pinching and scraping, living in third-rate hotels, hurrying past the office in case we're asked to pay our bill, feeling that the waiters and the chambermaids and the porters all know we haven't paid—it's all so humiliating."

"You've such a sensitive nature, Jacqueline. I have never felt in the least humiliated. You just imagine all this nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense, Mother. I know you've tried to keep it all from me, and I've said nothing because—well, you tried so hard not to let me know and it seemed kindest to pretend I didn't see what was going on. I realized that you were doing it for my sake, and I didn't want to seem ungrateful. But today, when I saw a dirty little foreign hotel-keeper insulting you on the terrace— "

"My dear, he wasn't insulting me."

"Well, it looked like it to me."

"No; he was only asking me—quite politely—when he might expect payment, and I told him—just as politely—that he would be paid in due course, but not in full view of the whole of Cobenzil. He was quite satisfied. And he didn't seem dirty, dear. Only his finger-nails."

"It was hateful. He shook his fist at you. To have to put up with that sort of thing from a dirty little foreigner—"

"And if he was just a little dirty, Jacqueline, you couldn't really blame him. The bath water is never really hot."

The girl seated herself in the chair beside her mother's.

"I'm serious about this, Mother," she said, "and it's no use trying to put me off. The sort of life we've been leading—it's humiliating, for both of us. If you don't feel humiliated, I do. All this grubbing along in cheap hotels, keeping up appearances, pretending we're something we aren't, and aren't ever likely to be—it's all rather contemptible."

Mrs. Smith sighed.

"I'm sure I've always done my best for you."

"Oh yes, I know. But if you're doing it for me, Mother, the sooner you stop the better. I don't want you to do it. I hate your doing it."

"And if your uncle Alan Redfern weren't a miserly skinflint, we shouldn't have to live in cheap hotels. If you want to do something really useful, Jacqueline, persuade your uncle that a man who is supposed to be a millionaire and allows his only sister a miserable three hundred a year is a miserly skinflint. I used to write regularly and tell him so, and the only time he answered he sent me an unstamped letter to say that if I ever wrote again he would stop the allowance. And he certainly wouldn't increase it, he said, because if he did I should only spend it." She sighed again. "Alan never was very intelligent, and living in America doesn't seem to have improved him.... Where's Jim Asson? I thought you were to play tennis with him this afternoon."

Jacqueline shook her head.

"I haven't seen him since lunch."

"Nice of him, I thought, to invite us to lunch with him."

"Yes, it knocked a bit off our bill, I suppose."

Mrs. Smith made no reply to that, except that she gave her daughter just such a disapproving look as she had bestowed on the Danube. And her daughter seemed no more impressed by it than the river had been.

"Why on earth can't we cut it all out, Mother?" she said. "You've three hundred a year from Uncle Alan, and that's plenty to live on quite comfortably in England."

"Comfortably—in England?" Mrs. Smith shook her head. "Even four thousand a year, Jacqueline, couldn't make an English winter comfortable."

"We could have a little flat somewhere," continued the girl. "Not in Park Lane, perhaps, but somewhere a little way out—like Clapham—"

"My dear Jacqueline! Clapham! Look at me, my dear, and tell me if you can really picture me living in a little flat in Clapham."

"Oh well, somewhere, anyway. And I could help. I could get a job and earn enough to keep myself."

Her mother smiled.

"You would have to eat very little, Jacqueline, and you have naturally quite a healthy appetite. And what sort of a job do you imagine you could get?"

"I suppose I could get a job as a typist."

Her mother shook her head.

"What all girls think who can't do anything else," she said. "No, my dear, typists have to know how to typewrite—unless they're extraordinarily pretty. And you're not that. You're pretty, of course, but the competition for that sort of job is very keen, I believe, And I'm sure you'd hate being in an office—catching the same omnibus at half-past eight every morning and lunching on a Cambridge sausage."

"I couldn't hate it more than I hate being hawked round the cheap hotels of Europe and lunching on tick, Mother."

Mrs. Smith chose not to pursue that line of conversation.

"Besides, Jacqueline," she said, "a typist in a London office has nothing like the chances you have. You would never meet a man like Jim Asson, for instance. Jim Asson is a very wealthy young man."

The girl glanced at her sharply.

"Is he?"

Her mother nodded.

"Colonel Lutman told me. He's Jim's trustee or something of that sort, and he was telling me only yesterday that it's quite a heavy responsibility because Jim is a very wealthy young man indeed."

"Then I wonder he stays in a hotel like this."

Mrs. Smith smiled.

"I dare say he has his reasons, Jacqueline. The Colonel told me that this isn't at all the type of hotel Jim usually stays at—I was telling him about the bath water—and if they'd had any idea what sort of place it was they would never have come here—"

"I dare say Colonel Lutman has won prizes for tact, Mother."

"He wanted to leave at once," added Mrs. Smith, "but Jim wouldn't hear of it. I think Colonel Lutman has a shrewd idea why, and doesn't in the least disapprove. So long as Jim chooses a lady, he said, he could marry anyone he liked as far as he was concerned, and money, fortunately, wouldn't enter into the question at all."

"Wouldn't it?" Jacqueline rose: "Colonel Lutman has a lot to learn yet by the sound of it, Mother. I should start teaching him if I were you."

"He was rather surprised, I fancy." added Mrs. Smith, "to find people like ourselves staying in a hotel like this, but of course I put that right. I told him that we came here because we'd been told it was quite one of the best hotels in Cobenzil, and were very upset when we discovered what it was really like. But as I had paid for a month in advance, I said, we were seeing the month through here, and then, of course, we should be making a change."

Jacqueline tossed away her cigarette.

"Yes, a month's about our usual limit," she said. "If only you'd chuck the whole wretched business.... But I suppose it's no use talking."

Her mother smiled.

"About Clapham, dear?" She shook her head. "No use at all, Jacqueline. Why don't you go and play tennis with Jim?"

Jacqueline turned away and left her mother. But she did not go in search of Jim Asson; instead, she went up to her bedroom and flung herself into an arm-chair and thought about him. Jim Asson, had he but known it, was being paid a compliment. To no other man whom she had met during her "wandering about Europe" had Jacqueline accorded the honour of a few minutes' serious thought. And there had been quite a number of them whom her mother had deftly manoeuvred into friendship and then, after satisfying herself as to their financial possibilities, had hopefully handed over to Jacqueline, stamped with her approval as prospective sons-in-law. But the girl had refused to take them seriously: the fat little German at Vienna, the tall, cadaverous Italian count at Naples, the chinless young Englishman in preposterous plus-fours in Paris; and her mother, having sighed in secret over the rather too determined chin which Jacqueline had inherited from her father, had tried to make her realize that in a husband who has a five-or even a four-figure income, fatness or thinness, or even chinlessness, can easily be forgiven. Jacqueline's father, she pointed out, had been a very handsome man, but his good looks had not saved his widow from the discomforts of third-rate hotels.

But Jim Asson was sufficiently different from the general run of Mrs. Smith's selections to deserve at least a few minutes' serious thought. Jacqueline, since he had arrived at the hotel, had spent a good deal of time in his company, and had found him a pleasant enough companion; but a partner for tennis or a dance, she told herself, and a partner for life, were two entirely different prepositions, and she began to consider Jim Asson point by point in relation to the more permanent position.

He was quite good-looking; he dressed well—just a shade too well, perhaps; he was an expert dancer—once again, just a shade too expert, perhaps; and he was very attentive and considerate. He was inclined to sulk if he couldn't have his own way, and although he pretended that he didn't mind, actually he hated it when she pulled his leg and laughed at him. But Jacqueline decided that she must not count that against him, because if she waited for a husband who didn't want his own way and didn't mind being laughed at she would probably die a spinster.

He had, it seemed, quite a lot of money. She trusted her mother on that score. And although she was still young and romantic enough to believe that if she loved a man money wouldn't make the least difference, wandering about Europe and living in third-rate hotels had made her sophisticated enough to realize that if love fluttered into her life with the rustle of banknotes it was none the worse for that.

All things considered, Jacqueline decided Jim Asson would make quite a good husband except for the fact that she wasn't in the least in love with him.