Читать книгу Flat 2 - Edgar Wallace - Страница 10

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With such patience as a young man could command, Alan Leamington waited for the girl to come down. The vestibule of Lady Marshley's big house was crowded with the last of the departing guests. But still neither Beryl nor the other members of the bridge party made an appearance.

Sir Harry strolled out of the ballroom, a bald, wizened man with a habitual leer.

'Hullo, Leamington, not gone yet? Had a good time?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'Why don't you play? Her ladyship tells me that you never go into the card-room. Beryl's playing—she's a great girl.'

Alan checked the words that came to his lips, and then he remarked: 'I can't afford the stakes your friends play for, and Beryl can't either. I love bridge, but bridge at a pound a point is ruinous.'

Sir Harry wrinkled up his red nose in a sneer. 'I think Beryl is the best judge,' he said. 'She has money of her own. Her father left her a fortune, my dear fellow.'

'He left her very little,' said Alan warmly, and Sir Harry shrugged his thin shoulders.

'May I suggest that, as Beryl is engaged—or supposed to be engaged—to you, nobody is more competent to give her advice than yourself?' he asked sarcastically. 'It is hardly likely, if you cannot persuade her to stop playing, that I can succeed.'

Men and women were drifting down the broad stairs, Alan watched them, but Beryl was not there. She came last of all, and with her was a tall, burly man who was talking to her with some show of confidence which brought an angry flush to the young man's cheek.

They stopped at the foot of the stairs, the big man talking in a low voice. Alan saw the girl nod, and then she came hurriedly across to him.

'I'm sorry you waited,' she said quickly. 'I could quite well have gone home by myself.'

He thought she was looking very white and weary, and he did not speak to her until she was seated by him in his car.

'Beryl, dear, I'm worried,' he said.

'Are you, Alan? Of course you are.'

'It's this damned card-playing, my dear. I've no right what-ever to lecture you, and I don't want to. But you know the Marshleys. Their place is nothing but a gambling-den, and the dances they give are only a blind for the big game upstairs. People say that Louba is behind them. Five years ago, Marshley was in the bankruptcy court, and then suddenly he blossoms forth as the owner of this huge establishment, gives parties, has cars of his own and, of course, gets the very clientele that he wants. It isn't only bridge they play.'

'I know that,' she said.

He took her hand in his, but she withdrew it gently.

'Alan, I want to tell you something—take this.'

Now he felt something in his palm, something round and hard. Before his fingers touched the diamond, he knew it was her engagement-ring.

'Beryl!'

'I'm sorry—truly sorry. But I'm going to marry Emil Louba. No, no, don't ask me why—Alan dear—please.'

He sat stunned, incapable of thinking.

'That—beast!' he said at fist. 'You're mad, Beryl! Do you owe him money?'

She did not reply.

'You shan't do it! By God, I'll kill him first! That's why you've been shepherded to that hell hole! Louba wanted you—wanted to ruin you. And now that he's cheated you, he gives you the alternative of marrying or paying.'

'There's Mother to consider,' she said in a low voice, so low that he scarcely heard her. 'I've been a fool—oh, such a fool, Alan! Oh Lord!'

She covered her face with her hands and burst into a fit of passionate sobbing, and he could only sit silent and helpless, listening to the grief of the girl for whose sake he would have sacrificed life and soul.

Presently she sat up and dried her eyes. I'm tired,' she said weakly. 'Don't talk about it any more, Alan. These things have happened before, and they'll happen again. No, no, don't kiss me—see me tomorrow when I'm sane, and we're both sane.'

He helped her out of the car and walked with her to the door of the little house in Edwards Square, where she, lived, with her invalid mother.

'Good night, Alan,' she said, and kissed him.

She had slipped from his arms and closed the door in his face before he realised that she was gone. For a moment he stood staring at the door, and then he turned and walked slowly back to the car, and in his heart was murder.

Braymore House was a block of flats facing Regent's Park and backing onto Clive Street. It had six storeys, and each floor constituted a suite.

Alan knew the place, and, as a successful and brilliant architect, he had been interested in the erection of this most expensive block of residential flats in London. Almost the first task Alan had had when he entered the office of an architect, was to, prepare quantities for its foundations.

A red-brick building, disfigured from the aesthetic standpoint by the fire escape which had been erected after completion to satisfy municipal requirements, it offered a darkened facade, with the exception of one broad band of light on the second floor.

That, he knew, was Louba's flat. He hoped to arrive before the Levantine. To reach him now was impossible, for the great rosewood doors of the entrance hall would be closed, as also would be the staff door at the back. He glanced up at the fire escape. And then, after a moment's reflection, he walked through the gates into the garden in which Braymore House stood and, taking a side path, he reached the stiffly extended iron ladder that led to the fire escape landing above. Heavy counterweights held it horizontally. He remembered that there was an automatic alarm attached to the ladder in case it was pulled down by enterprising burglars. His reconnaissance completed, he went back to the car.

Tomorrow he would see the place in daylight. He was interested to discover where the wire of the alarm was fixed. A thin fog was drifting from Regent's Park when he reached his own flat in Gate Gardens. So much the better, he thought.