Читать книгу Flat 2 - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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'What is it, Mr. Louba?'

'If you will honour me...just for ten minutes, Miss Martin. T'ere is somet'ing important I have to say to you.'

Beryl Martin moved across to a window recess of the room they were in, away from the crowded table.

'You are not playing tonight?' he murmured.

She shook her head. Her face was anxious.

'Mr. Louba, I wish you'd tell me just how much I owe you. I must stop playing. I shall never win back what I lost, and I must make some definite arrangements to get out of debt. You've always said it wasn't very much, and put me off, but I want you to let me have a clear statement. I've been crazy to go on as I've done, and I'm just coming to my senses.'

'It is on this subject I wish to talk to you,' he replied. 'But we cannot do so here. Come to where we can talk quietly.'

After a moment's hesitation, she followed him out of the room to a small apartment on the ground floor, looking out on to the drive at the side of the house.

They were in Sir Harry Marshley's house, but Louba always appeared very much at home there.

'Believe me, I am ver' reluctant to mention such a matter to you. Miss Martin,' said Louba. 'And if I t'ought it would distress you, I would rather bear any loss myself t'an speak of it...but I have other hopes.'

She drew back before the look in his bold eyes.

'Of course, I don't expect you to bear any loss, Mr. Louba,' she responded hastily. 'I think you hold all the IOUs I have signed?'

'I believe I do,' he purred.

'Then will you tell me how much they amount to?'

'Fifty t'ousand pounds.'

'What?'

She rose from her seat with an expression of incredulity on her face.

'It can't be!...fifty thousand...!' she gasped, the colour draining from her cheeks.

He watched her as she sank back into the chair, overwhelmed, her eyes dilated, fixed on his as though imploring him to contradict himself.

'Is it possible?' she exclaimed at last.

'It is so. I will show you the IOUs if you wish. But I beg you I not to distress yourself.'

'But I—I haven't that much money in the world! And my mother has only enough to live on in comfort. Besides, she's an invalid—I daren't let her know I've gambled away so much. It would kill her.'

'I t'ink that very likely,' he agreed. 'But why tell her?'

'Are you sure there's no mistake?' she asked desperately.

'I am ver' sure.'

He took out a bundle of IOUs bearing her signature, and passed them to her.

'I'd no idea I was signing for such large amounts!' she ejaculated, and handed them back to him. 'And you want payment? that is what you wanted to see me about?'

'Dear lady, t'ey would all have been burned, but for the unfortunate conditions of my own affairs,' he returned. 'But I have myself suffered heavy losses, and I am compelled to call in all that is due to me.'

'You mean you cannot wait?'

'I fear I cannot. I am leaving London very shortly, and I need money to settle my obligations before I go.'

'Of course, it's your right. I'm sorry I haven't settled up before, but I—I—'

She caught her trembling lip between her teeth.

'T'ere is no hurry for one or two days,' he said smoothly.

'I really don't know how I can pay you!' she exclaimed desperately. 'I mean in a few days. I—'

'Oh, you can, quite easily,' he replied, drawing a chair up close to hers. 'You can pay me a hundred times over—if you will.'

'How?' she said, withdrawing herself as far from him as the arm of her chair permitted, the anxiety over her financial position temporarily receding before the tide of aversion, of creeping distrust and fear, which his changed manner evoked.

He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away from him.

'T'ere are treasures greater t'an money,' he said. 'T'ere are those between whom and ourselves t'ere can be no debt, no mine or t'ine. If you were my wife, ten t'ousand times fifty t'ousand pounds were but a little ting to give you pleasure! And I would soon be rich again, Beryl. With you by my side, t'ere is not'ing I could not do—you need not fear I would take you to poverty. Out of England, t'ere are still—'

'But I'm engaged—you know it, surely!' she cried, and held out her left hand.

His lips curled as he looked at the ring.

'T'at poor fool! I will soon teach you to forget him.'

'I don't wish to forget him, Mr. Louba. I'm going to marry him.'

'I t'ink not,' he rejoined confidently.

'But I certainly am. Also, it has nothing to do with this business.'

'It has everyt'ing. I have told you: if you are to become my wife, of course your debts are mine, and I will burn the IOUs on our wedding-day —which will be at once, before I leave London. But you persist in marrying this Leamington fellow why, his wife-to-be is not'ing to me, naturally, and I expect to be paid, and promptly. As you say you have not money enough to pay them, tomorrow morning I will come to see your mother—'

'Oh, no, nor She couldn't bear a shock like that!'

'Well,' he said coarsely, 'in your bereavement perhaps you will be glad to let me comfort you.'

She turned her head sharply aside, her instinctive, subconscious dislike of him waking to a sudden outraged repulsion.

Almost immediately she started back in her chair.

'Oh, who's that?' she cried.

'Where?' He looked round quickly.

'The window. Someone had his face pressed against the glass, It looked horrible.'

He rose and crossed swiftly to the window, peering out.

'T'ere is no one that I can see,' he commented.

'He went when he saw me looking at him.' She had recovered from her fright. 'Perhaps one of the staff, or someone who'd been to deliver something to the kitchen, and looked in at the gap in the curtains. It startled me, that's all. Faces always look so horrible pressed against a window.'

'Yes, that is so.' He was unlatching the window. 'But all the same, I do not like people who look through windows.'

The cold air blew in as he lifted the sash and leaned out. Beryl shivered, and drew her coat closer, for she had been on the point of leaving when Louba had addressed her.

'I do not see anyone,' he said, withdrawing himself from the outer air and pulling the window down. 'What was he like?'

'I couldn't see. His face was pressed against the glass.'

He drew the curtains together, taking care that there was no gap between them.

'Had he a full moustache and a high-coloured face?—eh?'

'I don't think so. But I really couldn't see.'

'T'at is a pity. I like to know who is interested in my movements,' he observed, frowning a little.

There was a slight pause. For a moment he seemed to have forgotten her, pulling at his moustache, immersed in other thoughts.

It was Beryl who resumed the interrupted conversation. 'You can surely give me a day or two?' she asked.

'No. I go to your mother tomorrow morning. Also, why a day or two? Where would you get the money from?'

'I...might get it,' she murmured.

'You are t'inking of Leamington. He is a young man, ambitious, just climbed to success. Do you t'ink of showing your love for him by ruining him? You don't suppose he could find fifty t'ousand pounds without breaking himself and mortgaging his future, do you?'

She bent her face to one clenched fist.

'No...you're right. I couldn't cripple him at the beginning of his life, like that...even if he could find the money,' she muttered.

'And why should you? Do you t'ink I could not make you happier than he could?—such an ordinary young man! There are a hundred t'ousand in England alone like him! You will look back and laugh at the time when you dreamed of marrying such as he.'

He had taken hold of her hands, bending his dark face to hers, though she turned her head aside to avoid it.

'If I seem cruel, Beryl, it is only to be kind,' he whispered. 'I will make such happiness for you...'

'If you meant that, you wouldn't press me now!' she exclaimed. 'If you can do without the money if I marry you, you can do without it for a while if I don't.'

'I can do without the money, Beryl, but I cannot do without you!'

'You must!' she cried, dragging her hands free. 'You must, because I cannot think of marrying you.'

'Then,' he said coolly, 'I cannot t'ink of allowing you further time for payment.'

'And you pretend you want to make me happy!'

'You, I t'ink, profess to love your mother. Yet you will not save her from what may prove a fatal shock.' She sat staring at the pattern on the carpet, trying to keep her lips steady. 'And you profess to care for Alan Leamington,' he went on. '...But you will contemplate making him a victim, at the very outset of his career, of your foolish gambling.'

'I had no idea I owed anything like that!' she exclaimed. 'I never dreamed I couldn't pay.'

'That merely showed a greater folly, does it not, Beryl?'

She set her lips struggling for composure.

'So t'ere are two of us,' he observed. 'Only I am not quite so great a culprit as you, for if I am inconsiderate, it is out of regard for you, but if you kill your mother and ruin this man it is solely out of regard for yourself. After all, it is your own folly; should you not pay?'

'Yes,' she said, very low, standing up. 'I should pay. And I will.'

She put up her hand to keep him off, as he made an exultant step forward, and he caught and kissed it ardently.

'Believe me, it is a payment that shall bring in ver' great interest,' he said. 'I promise you. I t'ink we will not burn these IOUs, for one day they shall be ver' precious to you...One day when you know the happiness to which they have led you.'

She made no reply, only released her hand and fastened the collar of her coat.

'I must go now,' she said. 'It's late.'