Читать книгу The Edgar Wallace Reader of Mystery and Adventure - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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Tom Curtis said nothing. He fiddled with his bread-knife, stared out of the window, apparently absorbed in the phenomena of nature, in the gray of flying clouds, in the drunken lurchings of poplars, in everything except the enormities of Chesney Blackland. When he did speak, it was to remark that it was going to be a real snorter.

"I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "that one ought to have a snowy Christmas once in forty years to justify the Christmas cards."

Margaret pressed her lips tightly together, and her fine eyes glittered ominously.

"You're a slug, Tom," she said.

Tom closed his eyes in patient resignation. He was a slug, and was proud of his lowliness. He stood six foot three, was broad in proportion, and had little interest in life outside the fluctuations of the industrial market and the very excellent pack he hunted in the Cresmore country.

"There will be no hunting for weeks," he said pathetically.

"Hunt Everstein," she snapped. He looked at her in mild reproof.

"Really, Margaret, you're unreasonable," he said. "Everstein has been acquitted by a jury of his fellow-countrymen, and there's an end of it. I admit he's a poisonous little beast; I'll go so far as to say that if every man had his due, Everstein would be breaking coke in Dartmoor —or whatever they break. Which reminds me that I've been asked down to Devonshire Hunt on Thursday. It's a pretty sporting country—"

Margaret leant back, a picture of despair.

"I can't get father to see it, but it's little short of a crime —it is a crime—that this horrible man should be basking in the sunlight at Monte Carlo, his wretched pockets filled with our money. I think Mr. Blackland is as bad as he. Everstein is a criminal, but at least Mr. Blackland has some pretensions to being a gentleman."

She looked to her father for confirmation, but the Colonel did no more than shift uncomfortably in his chair and fidget with his serviette.

Colonel Robert Curtis had been described as "a beautiful old man." He was gentle, sweetnatured, weak. He hated trouble of any kind, and Heaven knows he had had trouble enough this past six months; for there had come into his life, a little more than two years before, a most plausible financier, with a scheme for amalgamating industries, and the Colonel had joined his board. Some of the industries were represented by genuine factories which prepared and distributed real commodities that people bought, but there were a few which were little more than derelict buildings and rusted machinery. They did not appear that way on the balance-sheet: they were most important assets, and few people realized their utter worthlessness until the crash came and Mr. Everstein was arrested.

The Colonel had been a director of the parent company, and the smash had cost him a lot of money. How much, Margaret did not know. She did know that after Everstein's arrest her father had taken to his bed, and for three weeks had talked brokenly of the ruin which faced him, and had even gone as far as inviting an estate agent from Oxford to value Deeplands and its contents. But he did not go any further than this: the threatened sale was never held, and the only servant dismissed was a chauffeur who disposed of two worn tires without his master's permission.

"Everstein brought father to the very verge of ruin," said Margaret tragically. "If father hadn't been able to borrow money from his friends, we should have been living in some wretched little villa and owing the landlady money."

"Rot!" said her practical brother. "Suppose Blackland hadn't defended Everstein, or suppose he had defended him and Everstein had been sent to jail for seven or eight years, what difference would that have made? Chesney is one of the best fellows in the world, and anybody but an idiot knows that it's the duty of a barrister to defend his client to the best of his ability. He would have been a skunk if he hadn't."

"And you call him a friend of yours" said Margaret witheringly. "He's a very good friend and a ripping fine fellow! If you weren't such an unreasonable goose, I should have asked him to come over to spend Christmas Day with us."

It needed but this to drive Margaret over the edge of reason. She got up and, her hands clutching the cloth, leant over the table towards him.

"Tommy!" she said intensely. "If you bring Chesney Blackland here, I will leave the house! I would not spend an hour under the same roof with him. Have you read his speech for the defense?"

She flung towards the little secretaire which stood in a corner of the room, wrenched open a drawer and brought out a folded newspaper.

"Listen: "'There is no doubt,' counsel went on, 'that Everstein had amongst his shareholders some of the most credulous and simple-minded people in England. In effect, however, whatever onus attaches to the prisoner from that cause is attached also to Everstein's fellow- directors.'"

She put the paper down and glared at her brother. "In other words," she said deliberately, "this wretched man said that father was as big a thief as Everstein... and this reptile is your friend!"

Tom rubbed his nose and looked at his father. That aristocratic gentleman shook his head and closed his eyes, as though he could not bear either the contemplation of his son or the thought of Blackland's enormity.

"Anyway, counsel have got to say all sorts of things," said Tom stoutly. "It's silly to bear malice against a barrister for what he's said in the defense of a—" He fizzled out lamely.

"If you dare ask Chesney Blackland here, Tom, I will never forgive you." She pointed a minatory finger at the big young man. "Father would forgive him, of course, because father forgives everybody, and he's a Christian and all that sort of thing."

"It's Christmas time," murmured Tom.

"It would make no difference to me if it were August Bank Holiday," said Margaret. "If you bring Mr. Blackland to Deeplands, I will go out. I would rather die than be in the same room with him. He has slandered father, he has let this scoundrel loose upon society, he is worse than Everstein himself; and if you had any self-respect you would write to him and tell him just what you think of him."

Tom grinned. "Why not send him a Christmas card and write all these admirable sentiments on the back?" he demanded, and Margaret shivered at his vulgarity.

She had to go into her father's study soon after breakfast to consult him about the following day's arrangements. The Colonel stood with his back to the fire, a pipe in his mouth, a look of settled gloom on his fine-cut face.

"I don't think I should bother Tommy about this man Blackland if I were you," he said. "Blackland's really a nice fellow. Didn't you meet him when you were up at Cambridge last May week?"

She gazed at him blankly. "The thing is finished and done with," her father went on hurriedly. "I see no advantage in bearing malice. We shall —er—battle through. Blackland was a good fellow: I liked him."

Colonel Curtis was one of those fortunate people who can convey the most subtle of expressions by an innuendo. You never realized that he had enemies until he forgave them. He had borne his troubles bravely and silently, and Margaret had not realized how badly he was hit until there came the valuer with his notebook, examining legs of chairs and weighing the silver on the palm of his hand. It is true that the legs of the chairs were still planted on the carpets of Deeplands, and that the silver graced the table at every meal, but the atmosphere of near ruin was established.

The Colonel had never complained about Everstein's duplicity or Blackland's treachery, but in those simple words, "Blackland was a good fellow: I liked him," she read the Colonel's crushing disappointment when he had discovered that this good fellow whom he liked had stood up in a crowded court and had basely hinted that Everstein was not alone in his guilt. And Margaret loathed Chesney Blackland more than ever.

"You will be in this afternoon, Margaret?" said the Colonel, changing the subject. "I have asked the Walshes to come over, and I thought we might have a rubber of bridge."

Margaret shook her head. "Tom can make a fourth," she said. "I am going to drive over to Cheltenham to see old Mrs. Gurney and take her Christmas present."

The Colonel's face fell.

"The post, of course, is gone—it might have been sent direct from the shop—"

"I want to take it myself, Father," said Margaret decisively; and when she spoke in that tone of voice, the Colonel seldom opposed her.

She had intended going that morning, but old Mrs. Gurney's woolen coat did not arrive until after lunch; and by the time she had packed the little hamper with the whisky, and the plum pudding, and the body of a cockerel slaughtered that morning, it was three o'clock.

Tom, who had taken his gun out on to the Priory fields, came into the hall as she was making her preparations for departure. He was sheeted white from head to foot.

"It's snowing like the dickens," he said. And then, as she was fastening her coat: "You're never going out in this weather?" he added in amazement.

"I'm running over to Cheltenham," replied Margaret, with that note of finality which as a rule suspended all argument.

"You're driving to Cheltenham in that wretched thing?" Tom's blue hands pointed to the two-seater at the door.

"Don't be silly," said Margaret. "You don't imagine a little snow will stop me?"

Tom walked out into the road and looked up at the skies, which were filled now with whirling white specks.

"You really oughtn't to go, Margaret," he remonstrated. "Send Downes over—or, if you must go now, let me drive you. You'll get snowed up as sure as fate."

"It will be even more certain if a fat man like you is in the car," she said, with a smile.

"If you want to be helpful, put that hamper and parcel into the boot."

As she settled herself in the little car and drew a fur rug over her knees, she raised a warning finger to Tom.

"I'm very serious about Chesney Blackland," she said, "and if you have some Machiavellian plan for bringing him here tomorrow"—Tom wriggled uncomfortably—"I want you to alter your plan, Tommy: if he comes here, I shall go to town and spend Christmas Day with the Readings."

"Beastly prejudice," muttered Tom, and from his guilty demeanor she guessed that she had not been far wide of the mark when she suggested that he had already formed a plan for inviting the hateful Blackland.

She smiled triumphantly as she sent the little car down the snowy drive and turned on to the Witney Road. The hood of the machine was raised, but the snow blew persistently under the canvas, and although her tiny electric screen-wiper worked frantically, it was difficult to see more than a few yards ahead, and that through a blurred surface.

The road was fairly good, and the car held its way without any more than an occasional skid, and she came through the deserted streets of gloomy Witney in excellent time. She had left the town and was climbing up on to the plateau which separates Witney from Cheltenham when she experienced her first sense of misgiving. It was nearly dusk. The storm had abated just before she reached Witney, and there was little or no wind, but the snow was falling thicker than ever, and once she plunged into a drift which lay athwart the road. It was not very formidable: the bonnet of the car sent the fine powdery snow flying, and she was through almost, before she realized she had hit an obstruction.

Her spirits rose when she came on to a stretch of road which was almost free of snow, being protected by a belt of trees which ran for half a mile along the roadside; but her satisfaction was shortlived. Dipping down into a valley, she met a recrudescence of the storm, and she slowed almost to a crawl, for now it was absolutely impossible even to see the road, and she could only guess her position by observing the stone wall which marked the boundary of a farm on her right.

It grew dark with surprising suddenness, and, looking at her watch, she saw with dismay that it was past four o'clock. Where she was she could only guess, but the road she followed went downhill and that did not seem right. Presently she came to a place where another road joined that on which she was traveling, and, getting down from her seat, she plodded to a sign-post, the face of which was so covered with snow as to be indecipherable. Taking her umbrella from the car, she managed to clean the face of the indicator, and her jaw dropped in consternation. She was on the wrong road: by following the stone wall she had been led miles out of her track.

Margaret took counsel with herself and decided that the only sane thing to do was to return to Oxford. She got into the car and backed up the road, intending to return on her tracks. But to come downhill was one thing, to go back up that long and tiring slope was another. She had accomplished less than a third of her journey when the car struck. She must continue along the wrong track, hoping to work her way back to the main road.

Hers was a very small machine, ordinarily easy to turn, but in thick snow the smallest of motor-cars becomes a little unmanageable. Backing to the hedge to give herself room to turn, she suddenly felt the wheels sinking, and before she could reverse, the back part of the car settled gracefully into a ditch.

"Blow!" said Margaret.

She might have said something stronger, but it was very dark and she felt rather frightened. She felt that this was not the moment for profanity. Nearly a mile farther on she had passed a small lodge and a pair of big gates, suggesting that somewhere behind the pine and the laurel was a human habitation. With what philosophy she could summon she trudged up the hill, slipping and sliding in the snow, and came, hot and weary, to the lodge gates.

The lodge proved to be empty; but the iron gates opened readily, and she followed a serpentine path which led her at last to a white lawn that stretched before a small Elizabethan mansion. She sighed with relief when she saw a light glowing in one of the windows, and with great labor made her slow way across the lawn and knocked on the old-fashioned double door.

It was immediately opened by a middle-aged woman, obviously, from her sedate alpaca and her trim lace cap, the housekeeper. In a few words Margaret explained her predicament.

"Come in, miss," said the housekeeper. "I will send a man down to get your car. Why, you're wet through!"

Margaret gazed ruefully at her sodden feet. "You have a telephone here?"

She saw the instrument standing on a table in the wide, flagged hall. "I want to telephone to my people—"

The housekeeper shook her head. "I'm afraid, miss, the line must have broken. The master was talking to a gentleman in Oxford a quarter of an hour ago when he was cut off. But you must change, miss. I will see Mr. John."

She disappeared through an open door, and Margaret had a glimpse of a cozy library, the lights of which she had seen from the drive. There was a murmur of voices, and the housekeeper came back.

"Will you come this way, miss?"

She led the way up the broad stairs and opened the door into a comfortable bedroom, which was obviously a man's room, for she saw certain striped garments folded on the bed.

"I may be able to get you some silk stockings, miss, but I'm afraid I can't give you anything better than the maid's shoes. We have no lady in the house," she said. "Mr. John is a bachelor."

There was a bright fire burning, and before this Margaret changed as many of her garments as were necessary, accepting the unknown maid's skirt and stockings with gratitude. She strolled to the open casement window, and by the light which streamed from the room she saw that the snow was still falling heavily.

The housekeeper, who had been to make inquiries, returned with somewhat disconcerting news.

"There is no possibility of a car getting away from here tonight, miss," she said. "Mr. John will send the gardener to the nearest telephone with any message you wish to send to your parents."

Margaret gazed at her in amazement.

"Do you mean to say that I shan't be able to get away from here tonight?"

The housekeeper shook her head.

"No, miss, I'm afraid you won't," she said. "The roads are quite impassable and it's still snowing."

"But I must!" insisted Margaret. "I simply can't stay here... in a bachelor's house."

"I stay in a bachelor's house, miss," said the middle-aged lady, with dignity.

"Yes, yes, I know. But don't you see—" began Margaret. And then the absurdity of the situation struck her and she laughed. "I'm afraid you and Mr. John will think I'm very ungrateful," she said. "I'll write a message."

She scribbled a note to her father, headed with the telephone number, and then: "But I can't stay here: this is Mr. John's own room, is it not?"

"I'm having a room made ready for you, miss," nodded the housekeeper, "and Mr. John has asked me whether you would like to come down to tea."

"I'd like to come down, if only to thank him," she said. "Will you send this message?"

She handed the paper to the woman, who went away and came back almost immediately to announce that tea was waiting.

A slim man, soberly attired, rose as she entered the library. He might have been thirty, but might as easily have been forty. He was very tall, with a slight stoop, and her first impression of him was that he was rather goodlooking. She guessed, from his preter-natural solemnity, that he was a doctor.

"I ought to bless the snow for bringing me a visitor, Miss Curtis," he said. (He had rather a charming smile, she thought.) "But I expect at this moment you are hardly sharing my view?"

"I am not," she said frankly. "Is it really impossible for me to get away tonight?"

"I'm afraid it is," he answered, with a return to his grave manner. "I have sent a man out to telephone to your people, and I can only hope that the snow will stop falling, and that tomorrow morning we shall be able to get you back to Oxford. In the meantime, are you partial to muffins?"

He raised the lid of a dish, and Margaret, who by this time was very hungry, speared a crisp brown morsel to her plate.

"Do you live here alone?" she asked.

He nodded. "I usually spend winter in Switzerland," he said, "but this year my work has kept me at home. You see, the Christmas vacation is a very short one."

She put down her cup. "Are you a lawyer?" she asked, and he laughed softly at the dismay in her voice. "You don't like lawyers?"

"I like some lawyers," she admitted, and adroitly he turned the conversation into another channel.

It was a jolly little house. She could quite understand that even solitude had a charm in these paneled, low-ceilinged rooms. Once or twice between tea and dinner she sounded him about her bête noir, but Mr. John skilfully evaded discussion of Chesney Blackland and his villainous deeds.

It was after dinner; they were sitting before the log fire in the library, she in one deep armchair, he in another, when—

"Do you know Chesney Blackland?"

He did not answer.

"Mr. John, do you know Chesney Blackland?"

"You don't like him?" said the lean-faced man, looking into the fire. "And yet, he likes you rather a lot. He once saw you, though he never spoke to you, and carried the memory in his heart for years and years—"

"You do know him?" She sat up.

"Yes," said the man quietly; "I am Chesney Blackland."

Margaret gasped.

"Then you—you told them to call you Mr. John... to deceive me..."

She was on her feet now. "No; I am Mr. John to Mrs. Buckingham. My name is John Chesney Blackland."

She was looking down at him with a deep frown.

"I am very grateful to you for your hospitality," she said stiffly, "and I can only regret that I have given you so much trouble."

"Where are you going?" he asked, jumping up as she moved to the door.

"To get my coat, and then Im going to walk back to Witney," she said.

In two strides he was between her and the door.

"You'll do nothing of the kind," he said violently. "Why, it is madness! You will be caught in the storm: you haven't a ghost of a chance of getting back!"

"I am going to Witney," she said steadily. "Will you please let me pass?" And then, in a sudden burst of resentment: "I would rather die than remain in the same house with you, Mr. Blackland! You have insulted my father, you have helped a blackguard to escape justice. I hate you!"

For a second she saw the bleakness in his eyes and shivered.

"I don't mind your hatred," he said in a low voice, "but I cannot allow you to leave this house."

"But if I insist?"

He was silent.

"Will you please let me pass?"

For answer he pointed to the chair before the fire. "You may go, of course, but before you go I want to tell you something that apparently you do not know."

"Nothing you can say will alter my view, Mr. Blackland—" she began.

"At least I am entitled to a hearing," he interrupted. "I cannot prevent your leaving this house. I suppose you would make it so unpleasant that I had no other course. But if you go, I must accompany you, whatever be the consequences."

"If I go, I go alone."

He nodded slowly.

"At least you will allow me to tell you the secret that lay behind the Everstein case?"

She hesitated. "Nothing you could say would convince me—" she began irresolutely, and then, to her own amazement, went back to the chair she had vacated.

"May I smoke?" He filled a pipe from a silver box, lit the tobacco carefully, and, settling down in his chair, puffed for a moment or two, his eyes fixed on the blazing logs.

"The man you call Everstein is my brother," he began, and her eyes opened wide.

"Your brother?" incredulously.

He nodded.

"But he is a Swiss—"

"I am Swiss, too," said Chesney Blackland. "Isaac Everstein is my brother, though I am not proud of the relationship. He is a swindler! I knew him to be a swindler. But he has a child—she is in the house at this moment."

"Here?" He nodded again. "A sensitive girl of fifteen, who had no illusions about her father, and yet loved him passionately. By some mischance she learnt that Isaac was under arrest, and the shock nearly killed her. Had he been sent to penal servitude—"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I know you hate me," he went on. "Your brother was on the telephone to me a few minutes ago: I was coming over to spend Christmas in your house. I suppose you didn't know that? It was a scheme of Tom's, who knew you disliked me, but thought that if we met, you might modify your point of view. I defended my brother, and was prepared to involve any person in the world rather than that he should be sent to prison. If you ask me whether I like him, I reply that he is utterly loathsome to me. I should not have turned a hair if he had been sent to the scaffold. But all the time I was pleading in that fusty court, I had one thought and one thought only—the child, stretched upon a bed of pain, who was waiting, waiting.. dreading the sound of the telephone bell..."

He stopped abruptly. Margaret was listening open-mouthed.

"But nobody knew this?"

He shook his head. "You are the first person I have ever told."

"And the child?"

He sighed.

"She is slowly recovering. The trial will have left its mark upon her—that is natural. But imagine, Miss Curtis, what would have been the consequence if—Isaac had been sent to penal servitude for a term of years?"

"I'm sorry," said Margaret, and on the impulse of her emotion leant forward and laid her hand on his arm.

He shrank back at the touch.

"No, no, please don't sympathize with me," he said, as he rose quickly, and she thought she understood.

"I'm sorry I've been such a fool. Won't you forgive me?"

She held out her hand and he took it.

"I wonder if you will forgive me?" he asked.

"Why, of course. And now you can teach me picquet, as you promised: I am quite sane. May I see your little niece?"

He shook his head.

"She will not be fit to see visitors for many weeks," he said gravely.