Читать книгу The Road to London - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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IT was exactly four weeks and three days after Nigel Black dined with the great financier and his mother that Mary October Jones came to a decision. She could remember the date precisely, because it was on the eve of her twenty-first birthday. She was walking up and down the drawing-room at Market Chase, stopping now and again to look through the long windows to the lawn and the dark line of Hawick Wood beyond. The sun had gone down, but the lemon light of sunset tinted the darkening sky.

Twenty-one seemed a tremendous age: tomorrow a new life would begin, a life from which certain shadows would be lifted. Substantially the greatest shadow of all was cast by Mr. George Loamer, but there were shades a little more terrifying. Mr. Loamer had friends and associations gathered in the fifty-five years of his life. People whose names she scarcely knew. Newest and most terrifying of these were Red Beard, a stocky, silent man, and the fat man called Lenny, who she was sure was Italian. They had appeared most unexpectedly about ten days after she introduced Mr. Loamer to that literary masterpiece The Hobo Student. She had been reading under the shade of a big oak one warm Sunday afternoon when they crossed the line of her vision. Mr Loamer was in his library—writing letters.

A tall, thick-set man with a short red beard, and a fat little man whose face was broader than it was long, the breadth being emphasised by the straight black eyebrows and moustache. They were striding out side by side, the little man's head no higher than his companion's shoulder. They favoured October with a quick sidelong stare and marched up to her, keeping in step like soldiers.

"Mornin', miss," said the tall man. "I guess this is Market Chase—tha's what the ginty-man said, Lenny?"

"Thasso," grunted the little man.

She had risen by now and had recovered from her astonishment.

"I will tell Mr. Loamer you're here," she said.

"Friends from Chicago," said Red Beard. "Name of O'Flynn... hardware."

She walked to the house in time to see Mr. Loamer hurrying out. He was a trifle breathless—but then, he had been that way for over a week, nervous, irritable, ready to jump at any sound.

"Er—um—yes... some friends of mine... business friends from New York... Mr... Hennessy, and Mr... I forget."

He hustled them into the house. She did not see them leave, only Mr. Loamer was more nervous than ever at dinner that night. She had seen them again. In the middle of the night the roar of a motor engine had wakened her and looking out in the moonlight, she saw Red Beard talking in low tones to Mr. Loamer, who was in his dressing-gown and pyjamas.

There was something about Red Beard that frightened her. Why this should be so, she did not know. He was more furtive than the stout, oily-faced woman who made such mysterious appearances at the Chase.

Mr. Loamer had not been to the office that day. At breakfast he had been abstracted and nervous. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and he had the haggard appearance of a man who had missed sleep. He had made a pitiful attempt at gaiety, had produced with a flourish the tickets for the Italian tour he had planned for her, and at the tail end of the breakfast, after a long succession of silences:

"October, my dear, there are certain documents to sign. They are coming down from town to-day—um—about your estate. You have, of course, no estate literally. You have money, but that is a legal term—"

"Mr. Loamer," she interrupted him, "don't you think that I should have a lawyer at this stage?"

He forced a smile.

"A lawyer, my dear?" he said, almost jovially. "My lawyer is looking after your interests. You need have no fear whatever. I will arrange everything for you—even your marriage settlement." He coughed, and did not meet her eyes.

"My marriage settlement? But I am not thinking of getting married."

"You will," he said huskily. "It is as certain as anything can be, that a beautiful girl like you will not be allowed to go single all your days. My mo—a friend of mine, one of the wisest, shrewdest, dearest creatures in the world, is very much interested in you, October. She suggests that you should marry a man of some—weight, let us say."

"Avoirdupois?" asked October, a little cruelly. And it needed only his red face to tell her what was in his mind, and in spite of herself she laughed.

"But that isn't done, is it. Mr. Loamer, excepts in books? I mean, the marriage of guardian and ward."

In his confusion he had no answer to give. This was a very crude variation of the speech he had prepared.

"I think we ought to be very frank with one another, Mr. Loamer." She folded her serviette deliberately and thrust it into the enamelled ring. "Since my dear mother died with such terrible suddenness, and you became my guardian, you have been very kind and sympathetic, but we have nothing in common. I am not thinking of your age: that really makes no difference," she added quickly.

She had seen the colour go from his face and had misread the signal.

"I have been virtually a prisoner at Market Chase, haven't I? I know that's a terribly dramatic way of putting it, but it is very near the truth. You have given me the use of an electric runabout which cannot run more than twenty miles without recharging; you have never allowed me to go to town except with Milton, who has not let me out of his sight—in fact, you've not given me the slightest opportunity of meeting any other man than yourself."

Mr. Loamer's face went suddenly red again.

"I had no idea of keeping other men from you," he protested explosively. "Good God! I hadn't thought of myself in that connection until... anyway, I hadn't any idea of marrying you or any other woman."

She knew he was speaking the truth.

Since breakfast she had not seen him. Somebody had arrived from London that afternoon: she guessed it was the messenger bringing the documents which she was to sign, and her resolve was that in no circumstances would she put pen to paper without independent advice. She was not alarmed; it was, she told herself, merely the new spirit of independence, the desire to break effectively with the restraining influences which had overshadowed her during the past years, that fostered this revolt. And when Milton, who was both chauffeur, footman and butler, came in to ask her to attend Mr. Loamer in the library, she followed him, resolved to have her own way in the matter which was to be the subject of their interview.

To her surprise, George Loamer was alone. There was a greater cause for apprehension in his face. It was deathly pale, and on a corner of the desk where he sat was a half-emptied decanter. That he had employed this to some purpose she gathered from his indistinct speech. This was the most astonishing thing of all, for she knew him as an abstemious man, who limited himself to a glass of claret with his dinner; indeed, she never remembered before seeing whisky in the house.

"Close both doors, Milton," he said, unsteadily, and he waited until the outer door was closed before he spoke. "Sit down, October."

There was on his desk a mass of papers. To one of these she saw a number of seals affixed.

He licked his dry lips—and his lips were often dry in these days.

"October," he began, "I've been thinking all day how I should talk to you, what I should say to you, and I have decided to tell you the truth."

For a moment her heart nearly stopped beating. Why she should think so, she did not know, except that some dormant gift of instinct kindled to life, but she realised in a flash that she was speaking with a ruined man.

He saw her change of face and read in her eyes something of her dismay.

"I haven't stolen your money," he said loudly. "Your fortune is practically intact... I couldn't touch it. God knows if I could, I should have used it."

She could only look at him open-mouthed.

"I'm going to tell you the truth." His face was drawn and old-looking. "I'm as near to ruin as I can be. Your money would stave it off... save me perhaps something... terrible."

"Ruin?" she said incredulously. "Why, I thought—"

"I've been speculating for years. Somebody... somebody I'm rather fond of is very extravagant—terribly extravagant. She thinks no more of a thousand pounds than you or I think of a penny. She just throws it away with both hands... mad schemes... thousands—nearly a million gone, and I've got to get right, October. I'm putting myself at your mercy. I had all sorts of lies to tell you, but now I'm telling you the truth. I want you to marry me. I've arranged everything."

She shook her head.

"That is impossible," she said quietly. "I'm terribly sorry for you, Mr. Loamer, but I can do nothing. Perhaps if I lent you a little—?"

He shook his head.

"I must have the whole. Less than that is no use to me. If I had that I could stop the—the other thing. It is killing me, the worry of it. She doesn't mind. She's like a great general who does not trouble who dies so long as there is victory at the end." Who was the mysterious "she"? October Jones guessed, but guessed wrong.

He was talking now rapidly, disjointedly, and it was difficult to follow from his slurred speech the mind behind it. He picked up a telegraph form and waved it. At any other moment his gesture would have been ridiculous, but she felt the tragedy that lay beyond the gesture.

"... this is a respite... nothing happened. They missed him... I could wire them and stop everything if you'd help me. You shall be as free as the air, October. I won't ask anything of you but the money."

From time to time his eyes went over to the big French clock above the mantelpiece. He was like a man who was compressing into too limited a time a task beyond his power.

"I had all sorts of schemes, but none of them seemed as possible as this—telling you the truth, throwing myself on your mercy. Will you do this for me, October?"

Perspiration was rolling down his white face; he was like a man in mortal agony.

October shook her head.

"I couldn't do it, Mr. Loamer, I couldn't, I couldn't," she said in a low voice. "I'm dreadfully sorry, but..."

He sank back in his chair, a huddled, wretched figure, and his white hand waved weakly towards the door.

"Sorry...sorry," he mumbled. "I hoped you would save..."

She did not hear the rest of the sentence distinctly.

Her mind was in a whirl as she came back to the drawing-room. For five minutes she stood staring out into the dusk, her heart beating uncomfortably, trying to eradicate from the disorder of her mind the dull patch of fear that was widening every second...

Milton came in with a cup of coffee on a silver platter. He was his dark, inscrutable self. She took the cup with a trembling hand and was grateful for the refreshment, for her mouth was dry. Super-sensitive, too; the coffee had a queer, metallic taste to it.

Milton put down the tray and waited, though she nodded him to go. He waited because a half-hysterical Mr. Loamer had instructed him to be near her when the drug took effect.