Читать книгу The Man from Morocco - Edgar Wallace - Страница 18

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The Earl of Creith came down to dinner in the care-free mood which an afternoon nap, for some mysterious reason, invariably induced, and over the coffee Joan described her interview.

"Good heavens!" said his lordship, for the moment aghast. "What a thing to say!"

"I had to shock her," said Joan in justification.

"Shock her! But, merciful Moses! there were other ways of doing it, Joan. You could have told her that the wine at Creith was corked—as it undoubtedly is—or that the roof leaked—which it does. Why tell her that you're engaged to be married to a—a sort of burglar? You're not, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm not. I don't even know him."

"H'm!" said her father, puckering his forehead. "Suppose this gets into the papers? 'Peeress Engaged to Burglar,' or 'Earl's Daughter to Wed Notorious American Cracksman on His Release from Prison,' eh? How do you think he'd like it?"

Joan opened her mouth in consternation.

"I never thought of that!" she gasped.

"After all," said the Earl, deriving infinite satisfaction from the knowledge that for once he was master of the situation, "after all, he may have his feelings. Burglars may consider themselves a cut above the new poor—"

"Please don't be absurd, Father! Who would tell him?"

"Anyway, it was a foolish thing to do, because this Hamon man will be coming round and bothering me about it. And nobody knows better than you, Joan, that I hate being bothered."

"You can tell him you know nothing about it—which is true. You can also say that I am my own mistress, which is also true."

The old man gulped down his coffee.

"Perhaps he won't come," he said hopefully, but he had not risen from the table when Ralph Hamon's loud knock announced his arrival.

"I'm not in!" said Lord Creith hastily. "Tell him I'm out. Joan...."

He made a hasty and somewhat undignified exit.

She walked into the drawing-room to find a fuming Hamon stalking up and down the carpet. He spun round as she opened the door.

"What is this story that Lydia tells me?" he stormed.

The change in him was remarkable. At the best he was an unpleasant- looking man—now she shuddered to see him. His jaw was out-thrust, his eyes blazed with anger.

"So you know Morlake, do you?—you're Jane Smith!" he pointed an accusing finger at her, and her calm nod seemed to infuriate him.

"Joan, I've told you before—I tell you again that you are the only woman in the world for me. I will have you—and nobody else. I'd kill him and you too rather! If this is true, I'll never leave him till he's dead!"

She did not flinch, and in her quiet disdain the tortured man thought her never so beautiful. Slim and white, a fragile thing of youth, with her child face and the figure that was nearly woman. His hands went out toward her instinctively, but she did not move.

"I know a dozen men who would take you by the collar and throw you out of this house if they knew a half of what you said."

Her voice was steady: she showed no trace of that agitation which he expected.

"If I am misinformed—" he began huskily.

"You are. It was a stupid joke on my part to tell your sister that I was engaged, but I disliked her so; she was so horribly common with her affectations and her talk of the aristocrats she knew—such a feminine edition of you, Mr. Hamon. I could imagine her screaming at me, as you have been screaming. A wretched virago shrieking me down."

She had left the door open as she came in, and Peters, she knew, was in the hall.

"Peters," she called, and the butler came in. "Show Mr. Hamon out; he is not to be admitted either to this house or Creith."

Peters bowed, and, his eyes upon Ralph Hamon, jerked his head to the door.

It was one of the happiest moments of his life.