Читать книгу The Man Who Was Nobody - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

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ANOTHER second, and Fordham had rushed her from the room, gripping the girl by the arm, and half led, half dragged her to the door.

"You've got a cab here, haven't you?" he said. "A motor-cab?"

"What—what is wrong?" she stammered.

He made no reply; but, opening the door, he pushed her into the stormy night, following and closing the door behind him. He gave some direction to the cabman which she could not overhear.

"Get in," he said impatiently.

"What has happened?" she asked again. "Are you going for the police?"

He did not reply to this inquiry either. They went through the village again and stopped at the farthermost end, and only then did he speak.

"Young lady" he said, "you must go back to Mr Vance, and until you see him you are not to speak of what you have seen to a living soul. Do you understand that?"

The girl was bewildered, half hysterical, and her lips trembled as she replied. "N-no."

"I will get Mr Vance on the 'phone. He will be at his office, he said so in his letter."

"Is Sir James dead?"

"I hope not," said the doctor briefly and with these words left her.

She was surprised to find Mr Vance waiting on the platform when the train drew in to Paddington. Occupied as she was with her thoughts, the journey had passed in an amazingly short time, and it was not till she reached London that she realized how famished she was.

"You haven't had any dinner, the doctor tells me," said Mr Vance. "I am taking you straight away to eat, and then after I can talk to you."

"You have heard from Dr Fordham?" He nodded.

"Is—is Sir James—?"

"Now, you're not to ask questions until you have fed," said Vance with an attempt at good humour which he was far from feeling. "I am taking you to my house in Grosvenor Place."

It was not until she had finished her meal at his earnest solicitation, and had choked down half a glassful of port, that he referred to Sir James Tynewood and the tragedy which had overtaken him.

"Now, in the first place, let me reassure you on one matter. Sir James Tynewood is not dead."

"Thank God for that!" said the girl with a sigh of relief. "I was so awfully afraid—"

"It was just a superficial wound and he has quite recovered. In fact," said the lawyer, speaking deliberately and emphatically, "he is well enough to leave for abroad tomorrow."

The girl stared at him. "Is Sir James going abroad?" He nodded.

"Is his wife, Lady Tynewood, going also?"

"His wife is not going," said Vance.

"But I—I don't understand!"

"There's a great deal that you won't understand for many years about this matter," said Mr Vance. "But I want you to believe me. He is leaving by the mail boat Carisbrooke Castle tomorrow afternoon."

She shook her head hopelessly "I'm afraid I'm not good at solving mysteries," she said and then asked: "Where is Mr Smith of Pretoria? Is he going too?"

The lawyer took his cigar from his teeth and regarded it critically "Mr Smith of Pretoria accompanies Sir James," he said slowly. "And now I'm going to send you home in my car."

If Marjorie Stedman had been in an uncommunicative mood in the morning, she was sphinx-like that night, and the baffled Mrs Stedman, curious to know what had kept her daughter so late and what had thrown her into this unusually agitated mood, gave up her inquiries in exasperation.

The mystery of the events at Tynewood Chase were to deepen for the girl. She reported for duty on Monday morning as usual, and found Mr Vance apparently oblivious to all that had happened on the Saturday After the part she had played in this strange Tynewood drama, she found the routine of the office dull and uninteresting. She did not see much of the lawyer. He had a bell-push on his table, and only summoned her when he required her. Owing to the peculiar nature of the business in which he was engaged, it was understood that he was not to be interrupted and any inquiry that had to be put through to him, or any question which had to be settled, had to be made by telephone after a preliminary inquiry by telephone whether he was disengaged. But Mr Vance had an absent-minded trick of pressing the bell when the girl was not required. It happened almost every day that his idle fingers would rest abstractedly on the bell-push and the girl would answer the summons to discover that she was not required.

Late on the Monday afternoon, as she was preparing to go, the bell rang shrilly and she gathered up her notebook and pencil and opened the door communicating with Vance's office..

A man was sitting on the opposite side of the table and she recognized him immediately as Dr Fordham, and stopped dead, guessing that the bell had been rung by her employer in one of his moments of aberration. Neither Dr Fordham nor Vance saw her, for they were deeply intent upon the matter they were discussing, and she was backing out when Vance spoke.

"So he is dead," he said. "Poor boy; poor boy!"

"Quite dead," said Fordham. "I thought I told you on the 'phone that there was no possible hope of his recovery."

She stepped back into her room quickly and closed the door softly behind her and stood with her hand resting on the handle. Dead! Sir James Tynewood was dead! Why had the lawyer lied? And whose hand had struck down the husband of Alma Trebizond?