Читать книгу Private Selby - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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They were crying the news through Deptford when Dick Selby woke the next morning. He heard the voices of the boys with the Sunday papers. "Coining Den in Deptford: Sensational Discovery."

He dressed hurriedly, and went into the street to buy a newspaper. Would she be mentioned? He read the closely printed columns with feverish haste. No, there was no word of her. Only a string of names, for the most part too familiar, and the story of the escape of "two of the miscreants."

He smiled a little at this.

He went back to his breakfast, re-reading the story of the raid. The voice of his landlady calling over the stairs roused him.

"Where is your overcoat, Mr. Selby, and whose is this?"

He leapt up the stairs two at a time, and took the thing the smiling woman held in her hand. It was a little gold brooch of a quaint Eastern design.

He turned it over in his hand, inventing a story to account for its presence in his room.

"Mr. Selby, I do believe you're walkin' out!" said the lady of the house, heavily jocose.

Dick let it go at that.

All Sunday he searched for Laddo, and the greater part of Monday. He could afford to postpone his hunt for work for a week, especially if Old Cull's prediction came true. He had a wild idea of calling on the Brown Lady—the brooch must be given back—but he could not summon up the necessary courage. However, on Monday, returning from a visitation of Laddo's haunts, he found a neat parcel awaiting him—the overcoat had come back. Pinned to it was a curious note in a neat hand.

It ran:—

"When I am on Blackheath, near the Park entrance, to-morrow afternoon (Tuesday) I shall think of your great kindness. P.S.—At five o'clock."

This note puzzled Dick Selby, who read into it every meaning but the right one, for he knew nothing whatever of the working of a girl's mind.

As he read it for the twentieth time he was seized with a brilliant idea. He would go to Blackheath at that hour, on that day, and perhaps he would see her!

A brilliant scheme indeed, and one not quite unforeseen by the Lady in Brown.