Читать книгу The Coat of Arms - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

Table of Contents

KEITH KELLER had no plans, he confided to his host. He had nothing to do but to occupy the time which separated him from the arrival of his fiancée. He had no friends in London. Nevertheless, he had decided to go to a London hotel, but Eddie would not hear of this.

"My dear fellow, I should be very wanting in hospitality if I did not ask you to come to Arranways for a week or two," he said a little pompously. "I shall have an opportunity of showing you the railway scheme I put before the Viceroy—it would have been of incalculable value to the Northern Provinces, but the fact that it would have cost a few lakhs of rupees... "

Keith Keller was one of the most intelligent young men he had ever met, and one of the most respectable. He was not at all interested in Marie, seldom spoke to her except when politeness demanded some rejoinder. He spent most of his days in the library with his host. He was a quick reader, and could assimilate facts with remarkable rapidity. He agreed with every conclusion the late Governor of the Northern Provinces had reached in the course of a 242-page report. He could trace with a pencil the line the projected railway should have taken, and if he mildly differed from his lordship as to whether the railway should traverse the Sakada Pass or the Sibhi Pass, it was only, as he admitted when his lordship explained the advantage of the latter route, that because of his stupidity he had not fully grasped the importance of the railway passing through the fertile Chah valley.

Dick Mayford went down to the "Coat of Arms" to renew an old acquaintance and to drink real beer. He hardly recognized the house in its new furnishings. "More like a club than a pub," he said flippantly. John Lorney favoured him with one of his rare smiles.

"We're getting a good class of people down here now, in spite of the old man," he said. "Haven't they caught him yet?"

John shook his head.

"No, and they never will."

He looked round the lounge and lowered his voice.

"There isn't any old man." he said. "This burglar is putting back the stuff he has stolen for some reason we don't understand. He is a man who lives, or has lived, in this neighbourhood and knows it pretty well. For some reason or other he's tried three times to get into the 'Coat of Arms'; at least, the old man's been seen three times on the lawn here, and I suppose he wasn't trying to hire a room."

"When was he seen last?"

Lorney considered. "He hasn't been seen since your party left England."

Dick stared at him. "But wasn't there some property put back—the Pursons' property?"

Lorney nodded. "That was the night before you left."

"But her ladyship had news of it in Egypt."

"I don't know anything about that," said the grim landlord of the "Coat of Arms", "but if you see Mr. Purson he'll tell you. Did you read about it in the papers?"

Dick shook his head. "No. Mr. Purson wrote to her ladyship."

"Letters take time to travel. No, he's not been seen since you've been away. They tell me an attempt was made to get into the Hall, but nobody saw the old man."

He took a swab and wiped the spotless counter-top needlessly.

"A young gentleman came back with you. I don't remember him."

"Mr. Keller?"

"A good-looking young fellow," said Lorney. "I saw him driving with her ladyship this morning over towards Hadleigh."

"Mr. Keller," repeated Dick, and left the matter at that.

"I'm sick of the old man. With a lunatic asylum within a mile of the village, I can't keep a servant more than a week at a time," complained Lorney. "They get frightened out of their skins."

A stout woman came painfully across the floor of the lounge, a pail in one hand, a brush in the other. She nodded genially and familiarly at Dick, and Lorney groaned. "That's one servant you don't lose," said Dick.

"No," said Lorney, "she's a permanency." He chuckled.

"What is her position?"

"She's a charwoman. She's everything in turn," said Lorney. "I fire her half a dozen times a week, but she never goes—thank God! There are times when I'd be absolutely without a single servant or waitress if it wasn't for Mrs. Harris."

He heard a sound, lifted the flap of the counter, and, coming quickly out, almost ran across the floor of the lounge and disappeared through the door that led to the lawn. He came back in a few minutes, accompanied by a pretty girl. She was, Dick judged, about eighteen; a slim, lovely child, hardly yet a woman. Lorney carried her grip in his hand, and was talking volubly. They went up the stairs to the gallery above and disappeared down the passage. Dick finished his beer and waited. Presently Lorney came back.

"Who's the lady?"

"A visitor."

"She seemed almost an old friend."

"I knew her uncle," said Lorney. "She spent a week here last year. She's at school in Switzerland—Miss Jeans."

He glanced back over his shoulder to the gallery as though he expected to see her.

"Her uncle was very good to me many years ago, and it's a great pleasure to be able to look after her. She has no father or mother."

Dick looked at him curiously. Here was another side of the character of this forbidding man, a sentimental side.

"Mr. Lorney!"

The two men looked up. Anna Jeans was leaning over the balustrade. "May I come down?"

"Surely, miss."

He went to the foot of the stairs to meet her. "This is Mr. Richard Mayford." She smiled quickly. "From Ottawa," she said, and Dick raised his eyebrows.

"Yes, we came from Ottawa many years ago. Do you know the city?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I went to school there when I was a little girl, and everybody knew the Mayfords. You're Lord Arranways' brother-in-law, aren't you?"

Five minutes later they were pacing the lawn, exchanging reminiscences of a city that neither remembered very clearly, and Mr. Lorney watched them from the porch, his head on one side, a curious little smile on his hard mouth.

Marie did not know Miss Jeans, and was only mildly interested in Dick's enthusiasm.

"As lovely as that, is she? They grow that way in Canada. What is she doing here?"

"She's on vacation—she's at a pension in Switzerland. She's going to a college or something. She's such a kid! Yet I've never met anybody who was quite as intelligent."

Marie looked at him oddly.

"This sounds a little alarming," she said lightly.

She was very cheerful that day, very tolerant of Eddie's complaints and dissatisfactions. The lost bracelet came up for discussion at dinner; it invariably did. But there was an especial reason to-day. It had been found by the French police in the possession of a receiver who dealt extensively with the Continental capitals.

"It will cost about three hundred pounds to recover it. That's all the receiver gave for it. Of course, they'll never trace the thief—probably one of these infernal Society women who hang around hotels."

He looked round at Keith and beamed at him benevolently through his spectacles.

"I've got a word of advice for you, my friend," he said pleasantly.

Keith's face was a mask.

"Then it will be pretty good advice."

"Leave horse-racing alone," said his lordship. "Your father may be as rich as Croesus, but the bookmakers will get every penny from you. And don't be led astray by this infernal landlord of the 'Coat of Arms'. He's made a lot of money, but he's probably hand in glove with some of these racecourse touts, and as sure as you're alive you'll lose every penny."

"Why this highly moral dissertation?" asked Mane.

"I met Dane, from the Berlin Embassy. He said he saw your friend at Hoppegarten race-track, betting like a drunken sailor—I'm using his expression."

Keith smiled.

"Those are my wild oats—let me sow them," he said solemnly. "The paternal purse is bottomless."

Dick saw the swift glance that Marie threw at the young man, saw her eyes drop again to her plate, and for some unaccountable reason had a momentary feeling of depression.

"Marie tells me that there's a fascinating guest at the 'Coat of Arms'."

Eddie could be heavily paternal.

"Eh?" Dick started. "Oh yes, Anna Jeans... a Canadian. Or, rather, she's lived in Canada."

Eddie shook his head.

"Think well, my friend," he said cryptically, and in that remark Marie read the story of a fascinating A.D.C. who was found with a bullet in his shoulder, and a wildly screaming woman who flew to the house of the military secretary for protection. That was the eternal background to Lord Arranways' thoughts.