Читать книгу Number Six - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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CÆSAR VALENTINE had several houses and flats in or near Paris. Of this fact Tray-Bong Smith was well aware. He thought at first that he was being taken to Valentine’s beautiful apartments on the Boulevard Victor Hugo, but the car went straight across the Place de l’Étoile, and sped down the Avenue of the Grande Armée.

It was difficult on such a night to know in what direction they were going, but after a while it was apparent to Smith, from the violent nature of the road, that they were going in the direction of Maisons Laffitte. Presently the car turned into what seemed to be a side lane with high hedges on either side. The car bumped and jolted slowly for ten minutes over what could not have been anything better than a cart track, then turned abruptly to the left and through a dilapidated gate.

It was too dark to see the house, and when the car stopped and Valentine’s guest descended he had no time to make any observations. It was a fairly big chateau; how big Smith could not tell, for Cæsar opened the door with extraordinary quickness and ushered him into a large dark hall. He switched on an electric light, and the stranger had time to observe a broad flight of stairs leading out of the hall before he was hurried across the parquet floor through another door into a large saloon.

It was one of the few rooms in private houses that deserve the name of saloon. It was lofty and spacious, its walls panelled with white wood, its ceilings were beautifully carved in the Moorish fashion, and illumination came from two rich electroliers. The furniture (observed Smith) was not only magnificent, but regal.

It is queer what things impress one. Smith always remembered that saloon by its carpet—an immense expanse of purple, heavily embroidered in gold, the ornamentation consisting of fleurs-de-lis and a cipher “C.” The next thing that impressed him was a beautiful coat-of-arms above the big open fireplace. Two of its four quarterings held the lily of France, one, three gold bars, and the fourth a bull upon a golden ground.

“Sit down,” said Cæsar imperiously. “You would like a little wine?”

He pressed aside one of the panels of the wall and took out a tray containing bottle and glasses. These he carried to the visitor and placed on the table by his side.

“Drink,” he said curtly, and Smith poured out a stiff glass of whisky.

Cæsar took off his wet cloak and flung it on the back of the chair, strolled to the fireplace, switched on an electric radiator, and stood with his back to the glow, surveying the other quizzically.

An imposing figure was Valentine in his immaculate evening dress. Smith approved the snowy white shirt-front and the three pearl studs, the thin platinum chain stretched across the white waistcoat, and guessed the reason for the little mocking smile that curled Cæsar’s fine lips.

“My friend, Tray-Bong Smith,” he said slowly, “have you ever seen a man guillotined?”

“Half a dozen,” said the other promptly. “On to the board, head in the kang!* Snick! Head in basket! Vive la France!”

[* kang (sic): presumably meaning "lunette" i.e., the wooden frame used to fix the head during execution by guillotine.]

Valentine frowned as though he were annoyed at the flippancy in the tone of his guest. Then he laughed and nodded.

“I think you’re the man I want,” he said. “That is the attitude to adopt toward life. But never forget, Smith, that you must not laugh at authority. Authority is sublime, beyond ridicule, cruel, unjust, tragic, but never humorous.”

Smith was slipping off his wet coat as the other spoke.

“Put it before the fire,” said Cæsar. “Better still, throw it out through that door.” He pointed to a door to the right of the fireplace. “Madonna Beatrice will see to it.”

Smith obeyed him to the letter, wondering who might be Madonna Beatrice. Suddenly Cæsar looked at him sharply.

“Is there any blood on your hands?” he asked.

Smith shook his head.

“I aimed at the fifth intercostal space,” he said calmly. “There would be little blood.”

Cæsar nodded approvingly as his companion examined his hands.

“You have not taken much opium to-night,” he said. He stepped toward the man and peered into his eyes.

“I never take opium,” said Tray-Bong coolly. “I do not go to Chi So’s to smoke, but to watch.”

Again Cæsar laughed.

“An admirable lieutenant,” he said. “But you must not be too clever with me, Smith. I have taken a great risk for you. And let me tell you that I also came to Chi So’s to watch, and to watch you.”

Smith had guessed that already, but said nothing. “To watch you,” Cæsar repeated. “Chi So’s business was built on my money. The place is useful to me. He tells me news that I want to hear, and when I learnt that an English criminal was hiding in Paris from the police, that he was wanted for murder in America and for forgery and divers other sordid and stupid crimes, we became interested in you.”

“We?” repeated Smith, and again Cæsar frowned and changed the trend of his observations.

“I do not approve of crime, your kind of crime. It is stupid and small and leads nowhere but to the guillotine or the gallows.”

Smith might have offered his own views on crime, but at that moment the door opened slowly and a man entered. He was a little, red-haired man, and his ruddiness extended to his face, which was flaming. Somehow he matched neither Cæsar nor the saloon, for he was showily dressed; a heavy gold watch-chain dangled from his waistcoat pocket and his attitude was defiant. Smith, a student of men, guessed that he had been drinking, and was not mistaken.

“Well, Ernest, what do you want?”

Ernest advanced unsteadily into the room and glanced from Cæsar to the watchful Smith.

“Hullo!” he said loudly. “Got a visitor, eh?” The voice was coarse and uneducated, and it came to the visitor in the nature of a shock that he should speak so familiarly to his immaculate host.

“Yes, I have a visitor,” said Cæsar softly.

For a moment the little man said nothing, then clearing his throat:

“I’m going to-morrow.”

“Oh, you’re going to-morrow, are you?” repeated Cæsar in a mild tone.

“Yes, I’m going to London. Any objection?”

Cæsar shook his head and smiled.

“None at all.”

“You know where to send my salary, I suppose?” asked the little man.

Cæsar licked his lips.

“Your salary? I thought you were leaving my employment?”

“You know where to send my salary, I suppose?” said the little man in a tone of menace. “I’m taking a ten years’ holiday.” He laughed at his own humour. “A ten years’ holiday,” he repeated. “That’s good, ain’t it?”

“And I’m to send you your salary for ten years, eh?” said Cæsar.

“You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” threatened the man. “I haven’t been here doing your dirty work for three years for nothing. Let him do it!” He nodded to Smith. “See how he likes it. I could write a book about you, Mr. Valentine.”

Cæsar laughed.

“And it would be very interesting, I’m sure. And have you waited up all the evening to tell me this?”

“Yes, I have. I’ve got a lot to tell you, and I should tell you some more if that man wasn’t here.”

“Keep it until the morning,” said Cæsar, dropping his hand good-humouredly on the other’s shoulder. “Go back to bed, my friend, and ask Madonna Beatrice to come to me.”

“Madonna Beatrice!” sneered the other. “She’s a beauty, she is!”

The visitor thought he saw Cæsar’s face go pink, but the big man laughed softly to himself, and walking slowly to the door, he very gently pushed his unruly servitor forth.

“It is a curious characteristic of servants,” he said, “that they invariably imagine they know their masters’ guilty secrets. You have probably had a similar experience.”

“I never keep servants who share my secrets,” said Smith, “and to this fact I ascribe my freedom and well-being.”

There was a gentle tap at the door and Cæsar turned quickly.

“Come in, Madonna,” he said.

The woman who entered piqued the visitor’s curiosity. Cæsar had a reputation for affairs. It was a reputation not particularly creditable to himself. Smith had expected to see a young and beautiful girl, but the woman who came in had no claim to beauty. She was an old woman, squat and fat, her face was dark and disfigured with tiny warts. Her grey-black hair was brushed back smoothly from her head and gathered in a bun behind; and to add to her grotesqueness she was dressed in a robe of bright emerald-green, cut square at the breast. About her neck was a huge gold necklace of barbaric design, and her fat hands were covered with jewels. Yet, old as she was, and laughable as was her get-up, there was something about her poise that spoke of strength and power.

“Madonna,” said Cæsar softly, and he spoke in liquid Spanish, “our friend here is staying with us for some time. Will you see that his room is made ready for him?”

She looked at Smith with her heavy eyes and nodded. But he had discovered something which interested him more than her fantastic attire. He was looking at her foot, that observant man, and saw that she was wearing thick boots. Moreover they were wet and muddy, as though she had been wandering in the storm.

“Si, senor,” she replied.

The visitor wondered why the man called her “Madonna,” which is an Italian form of address, when he had spoken to her in Spanish. Cæsar, who was an extraordinary mind-reader, answered his unspoken query when she had gone.

“Madonna Beatrice,” he said, “is both Spanish and Italian, as I will explain to you one of these days.”

He made no further reference to the events of the night, but chatted pleasantly enough on crime in the abstract.

“The little criminal is a deplorable object,” he said. “I cite, for example, my friend Ernest. Ernest is a blackguard, a card-sharper, and a thief. I took him into my service and brought him to France at a moment when the police were searching for him and when he would certainly have gone to penal servitude for a number of years. If he had been a greater criminal, he would have had a greater mind and a greater heart. Also he would have been on his knees to me all his life, for he has lived luxuriously, he has money to spend at the races—I have even had him taught French.”

“Money doesn’t buy loyalty, anyway,” said Smith curtly.

“I agree,” nodded Cæsar. “And yet money buys most of the things that are desirable in this world. It even buys the appearance and the consequences of loyalty. Money buys allies in war, and a little more money would buy their desertion. It could buy my election to the Senate of France if I were a French-man—and if I did not hate the French,” he added. “With money I could sit in this house and re-shape the future of Europe. With money you can buy factions and parties and nations.”

He sighed and, turning his back on the other, looked earnestly at the coat-of-arms above the mantelpiece.

“Whose arms are those?” asked Smith unexpectedly.

“Eh?” He swung round. “Whose arms? You are not a student of heraldry? No? Some day I will tell you. Money is everything, and it is so easy to secure. Observe me! At nineteen I was penniless. I have never worked, I have never speculated, I have never gambled, yet to-day I am a rich man, because God gave me a brain.” He tapped his forehead. “Because I am attractive to women, because I am a genius without scruple—and you cannot be a genius and have scruple.”

He broke off the conversation as abruptly as before and led the way out into the hall.

“Your room is ready,” he said. “To-morrow we will discuss your future. It would not be wise of you to stay in France, and, moreover, I need you in England.”

The room into which he showed his guest was furnished simply but expensively.

“You would like tea in the morning, of course. You are English,” he said. “You will find all the necessities of your toilet on your dressing-table, and the Madonna will have put you pyjamas—ah yes, there they are. Good night.”