Читать книгу The Gaunt Stranger - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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THE Romans who cut the old road through Kent must have established a fort in the place where Mill Lane meets Church Street; for here the street-way bulges northward and there is a comparatively wide open space which is called magnificently "The Broadway," to distinguish it from all other Broadways in the world. Here, on Saturdays particularly, there are fine stalls where the thrifty market, in the mistaken belief that it is cheaper to buy from a trolley than from a shop. On Sundays there are public meetings. Political orators roar, earnest workers for prohibition bellow, sincere Christians gather in knots under the light of an oil-lamp and listen to good men struggling with other people's perversities, or else sing together in thin, reedy voices.

The Athletic Sports Club is in one of the streets leading out of The Broadway, a fairly new building erected by a local patriot who made war goods at a large profit and would have been a rich man to-day if some interfering person had not stopped the war just as he was furnishing his new house on Blackheath. Since the war was, indeed, over, the factory became a superfluity. The actual workshops became a garage, whilst the handsome office buildings fell into the hands of Elijah Sterner, an expert in club management, and the Athletic Sports Club was inaugurated under the auspices of eminent and innocent bigwigs. It was the idea that this should be a centre of sport; that here should be discovered and encouraged the white hopes of the future. When the garage proprietor became bankrupt, following the course of four-fifths of all garage proprietors, a boxing ring was added, and here on Saturdays good lads fought for microscopic purses to the deafening encouragement of the patrons.

Here sport began and ended, if you except the racing which kept three bookmakers busy in the club proper.

Men and women (it was a mixed club) crowded the flashily decorated club-room on the second floor every afternoon when racing was in progress. By ticker and telephone vital news came and was recorded—pandemonium reigned until the tape machine buzzed and the magic words "They're off!" brought an unearthly silence to the members. Somewhere under God's sky, lithe, lean racehorses were rounding the bend for the home stretch—green turf beneath the flying hooves; a shimmer of silken jackets in the sun, a forest of glasses levelled from the stand....

"London Call won!"

Grimy hands, trembling with excitement, are outstretched to the bookmaker, a growl of passionless blasphemy from the losers ...

"Ladies present—moderate your language, gen'l'men." The white-coated barman said this mechanically.

On the wall over the serried ranks of bottles is a printed card:

As a bird is known by

his note, so is a man

by his conversation.

It is a classy proverb, believed to be in the Bible by many.

Racing was over for the day; the track and ticker portion of the club had drifted away. At a long table in the corner of the room Lee Campbell, Li Sterner's manager and partner, held the bank in a forbidden game of baccarat—played according to rules framed by Elijah and his manager.

Elijah, a stout, broad-shouldered man, slumbered noisily in a Windsor chair, his head lolling on his shoulder, his cigar still between his fingers. The barman, wiping the counter with slow, leisurely strokes, had his mind and eyes on the card-players, when there came a faint tinkle of sound and the barman took down the receiver of a wall telephone.

"Who is it?" Li Sterner was awake and on his feet.

For answer the man handed him the receiver.

"Huh? Come right up!"

He swung round to the door as it opened.

The girl who came in would have been fashionably dressed in Park Lane. Deptford might well hold its breath as it did. From the Paris hat on her shapely golden head to the tips of her Fifth Avenue shoes she was exquisite. She brought into the room the elusive fragrance of a perfume unknown to men and women who could do little more than distinguish the tang of synthetic violets from the poison gas of peppermint.

Her features were regular and small, the chin too full for perfection, her eyes a limpid blue. She owed something to art for the clarity of her complexion and the redness of the full lips.

Li took the little white-gloved hand in his and was politely interested rather than enthusiastic.

"Glad to see you back, Cora. You fellers can get on with your game. I don't want any nosing round here." This to the fascinated group at the table. Then, in a lower voice: "You've got a nerve—in daylight, too!"

She dropped into the chair he had vacated a few seconds before and laughed.

"Nobody knows me here—good day, Mike," she nodded to the grinning barman. "There's a new man in charge of this division, they tell me?" He nodded. "Well, unless you boys talk, nobody is going to get mad at me for coming back—nobody knows. I jumped the boat at Genoa and came along overland. Got to London early this morning after the gol-darnest crossing ever! Say, that Dover trip is worse'n a month in the Bight! And they've got nothing on me, Li—the police, I mean. I'm a respectable British citizeness—got my marriage certificate 'n' everything. The police!" She shrugged her dainty shoulders and fished in the jewel-clasped bag she carried. "I've certain got no mean opinion of the police of this or any country. Back home they're cute—I'll hand it to the Fed'ral people. But here—"

She paused to pass a swift pink pad about her nose and cheeks, surveying herself the while in a tiny mirror that hung outward from the bag. Li Sterner was looking at her with pursed lips.

"Is he all right?" he asked.

"Yuh." She did not pause in her toilet.

"Is he there—in Australia?"

"Sure!" in a tone of hurt surprise, as though the barest suggestion that "he" was not in Australia was in some way a reflection upon herself.

"You know they want him for The Big Thing?"

Li could have said "murder" as easily, but his kind are delicate.

She paused, powder pad in hand.

"How's that?"

"For murder!"

Her hands dropped to her lap.

"That prison guard—did he die?"

"No, it was another case. Years ago, before you knew him."

Under the powder the face whitened and little lines showed under her eyes.

"The dam' fool!" she said softly. He saw the quick play of her breast and realised that he had given her news. "Why didn't he—what's the good of talking? He's him! God, how that man frightens me—frightens me sick! He's got one idea—kill ... kill ... kill!" She breathed the words.

"He'll not come back!"

"Not unless he's crazy. I'll tell you, Li, as much as any man ought to know. I haven't seen him. If I die that's true. He's been ill, too—pleurisy or sump'n'. He wouldn't let me see him; it nearly drove me mad! I've spoken to him a dozen times—and he's passed me in the street twice as close as I am to you. And I didn't know him, though I remembered seeing the man and saw him looking at me—thought he was trying to get fresh. He told me over the phone the same day that it was he! And I didn't know him! If he'd spoken to me on the street I'd have called a copper. Arthur's the clever boy all right—that's what scares me. No man knows how clever he isn't!"

Buzz!

An angry drone of sound from somewhere beneath the counter. The men at the gaming table got up hurriedly. In a second, cards, shoes and counters and the green baize cloth were bundled together and dropped into a convenient chute that led to the basement. A draughts board appeared by magic and the group split up into units, depositing themselves at the small tables which sprinkled the room.

"A police visit." Under his breath Li passed the information.

The girl rose in alarm.

"Where can I go?"

"Stay here," he urged, speaking rapidly. "Sit with your back to the door—Mike, give the lady a glass of lemonade. Here's a paper.... Why, this is a pleasure, Mr. Wembury—come in and make yourself at home."

Alan Wembury shook the proffered hand and glanced at the clock.

"Licensed hours!" said the jovial Li. "Not a drop passes that counter till five. I often say to the members, 'Boys—keep the law and keep your money.' Not for a million pounds would I serve you with the smell of a bottle till the clock strikes—I get it regulated from Greenwich every morning, too. Have one on the house, Mr. Wembury?"

"No, thanks—I'm on duty."

The detective surveyed the room in one glance, then his eyes came back to the elegant figure by the counter.

"Lady friend of mine—she's not a member." Li dropped his voice to a confidential pitch. "Relation of my wife's."

"Indeed?" Alan was polite but incredulous.

"She's just come down from the North—Cumberland—to bury a brother," said Li rapidly, "Walk over and see the view from this window. Mr. Wembury."

"In mourning, too," said the sympathetic officer.

It was true that Cora was wearing black, but it was a gay black—a black that gave back colour in the sunlight that flooded the room.

"And how are you after your long journey, Miss O'Hara?"

Cora Milton had recognised his voice whilst she was still puzzling her head to associate the name with her past.

"Why, Mr. Wembury! Now, isn't it nice to see you! I was going along to the station house to call on you before I left town—and say, my name's Milton, the same as my poor boy's." She tapped her eyes with her handkerchief. "Isn't it too bad about his falling into Sydney Harbour and getting drowned? As God's my judge, Mr. Wembury, I haven't closed my eyes in sleep for nearly three weeks. When the wire came to me in Scotland I just couldn't believe it."

"I shouldn't believe it now if I were you," said the unsmiling Alan. "And when you say 'Scotland' you mean 'Bombay,' don't you? Your ship was there three weeks ago?"

"Did I say Scotland?" Cora made a rapid recovery. "That just shows how my mind's going dippy. Sure, it was Bombay. That's the town with the white houses, ain't it? And when I got to Plymouth—"

"Dover—you came overland from Genoa. You're staying at the Queensbury Hotel, Russell Square—suite 27."

Her red lips curled in a smile.

"Now, isn't that wonderful! Just like a little old sleuth out of a book! My, I didn't know you were such a crime-hound! Suite 27! And the room faces south—you forgot that."

And then the banter went out of her tone and the blue eyes grew hard.

"Why are you trailing me, anyway, Wembury? You don't think Arthur is with me, do you, you poor simp? He's in Australia—even I couldn't find him. And he'll stay right there till he wants to go somewhere else."

"Has he got another wife?"

The insult was deliberate, intended to provoke, and it was successful. In her flaming fury he read her fear—the real fear that was never absent from the mind of this infatuated girl.

"Another wife! He'll get you for that, Wembury—you poor fool! You think you'll work that cheap stuff on me? Go, get him, little policeman—you're so damned clever! Go look for him, and mind he doesn't get you first!"

He took a step closer.

"He's here!" He pointed an accusing finger. "Here in London—ah!"

For a second she was speechless; her lips moved, but no sound came.

"He's here in London—he's come back and I guess why! You don't know where he is—but he's in town, and that is why you've come back, Cora!"

"You're a liar!" she raved, haggard with fear and anger. "He is not—"

The door leading to the street was opening slowly, and now she saw the man in the doorway, bent and thin, a week's growth of beard on his gaunt face. Only for the fraction of a second she saw him, and then she screamed. The door banged tight—there was a sound of swift footsteps on the stairs.

"What's wrong?"

Alan spun round at the sound of the closing door.

"Who went out, Sterner?"

"Nobody," said the club proprietor.

"Somebody went out—you saw him, Cora."

"I saw nobody," she gasped, "nobody—nobody!"

But Wembury did not hear her. He was flying down the stairs in pursuit of the mysterious intruder.

The Ringer was in London!

Death walked at the elbow of every man who had been concerned in his arrest. It hovered above Lewis Meister like a dark and threatening cloud. And Mary Lenley was the daily inmate of Meister's house. This was the thought uppermost in his mind as he hurried to the station house. Ten minutes after his arrival every police station in the metropolis had this message:

Arrest and detain Henry Arthur Milton, alias "The Ringer." Age 33. An escaped convict wanted for murder, attempted murder and prison breaking. Height 66 inches. Fair complexion, light brown hair, grey eyes. May be disguised. Dangerous. Carries firearms.

By some means a copy of this warning came into the possession of The Ringer. He sat in his modest apartment and read the scrawled copy with a little smile.

"May be disguised! I like that!" he chuckled.

It needed something like this to rouse him to genuine laughter. He read the copy again, nodded and went on stropping the knife—stropping knives had been a hobby of his for the greater part of eleven months.