Читать книгу The Traitor's Gate - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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WHEN Stimmings, the butler, bolted and chained the great door of Monk's Chase for the night, he reported to his uninterested master that it was "pouring heavens hard." It had been raining all the afternoon, and by dinner-time the downpour was steady and voluminous. The rain pond began to form in the hollow beneath Lower Oaks; only the middle of the gravelled drive showed above the flanking torrents that ran down from Black Wood and the hill behind and formed a miniature lake about the lodge gates until the rim of it spread to the ditch.

A night as black as pitch and filled with the hissing of water; a night when cottagers sat beneath leaking roofs and planned new thatchings or cursed the parsimony of landlords.

The station fly from Worplethorpe came slowly through the downpour; the steady clop-clop if its ancient horse a melancholy accompaniment to groan and grind of steel-tyred wheels.

A tap on the window and the driver pulled at his wet reins, the door of the old landau screeched open and a slight figure stepped down into the road.

It was a girl, wrapped from chin to heel in a shining black oilskin. Her hat was pulled down almost over her eyes so that little of her face could be seen in the dim yellow of the lamp.

"Thank you, this will do," she said. "I may be an hour or less. Perhaps you can find some sort of shelter until I return."

The driver stooped over to speak and a rivulet of water poured from the curly brim of his hat.

"Didn't you want to go to the Chase, Miss? I can take you up the drive to the house; you'll get wet through."

"No, thank you," hastily. "If you will wait here—I don't wish to—to wake the house."

She walked forward. The old horse did not so much as raise his drooping head as she passed in front of him.

The lodge was silent and deserted, the iron gates slightly ajar. In other days, she remembered, the old gardener lived here, but he had died when she was at school. Ankle-deep, she splashed through the water, and was glad that in the one moment of sanity which had distinguished her plans, she had decided to bring her rubber boots. The crown of the drive was gained, but walking was no less uncomfortable, nor did the high poplars which bordered the straight drive afford her much protection.

The house would have been in sight, if anything was in sight, the moment she passed the lodge gates. She saw it presently, an undistinguishable mass against the hilly background. There were no lights. Evidently her information was accurate—Mr. Hallett retired early. With a heart that was thumping painfully, she crossed the oval of lawn, a green island in a yellow sea (if it had been visible), and passed round the east wing.

She was mad—she told herself this every few seconds. Mad to go on, mad to think out this wild scheme, mad to go on with it; madder still now, as she stood with a key trembling in her hand before the little door in the grey, ivy-covered wall, to commit herself finally to this act of hers.

Yet if all which had been told her was true, that behind the little door in the wall was the solution of all mysteries, then she was justified.

She put the key in the lock and turned it. At her push the door opened uneasily. From her pocket she took a little electric lamp, flashed it across the narrow stone passage before she closed the door and, moving silently in her rubber boots, climbed the three stone stairs to a second door. The key of the first opened this too. She was in a long wide corridor, broadly carpeted. At intervals were little groups of statuary, old chairs and settees—the conventional decoration that was familiar to her.

Nothing had been disturbed since she was here last. The dull portraits in their heavy gold frames, the tapestry that covered a portion of the wall, the long crimson curtains at the end that hid the east window—she knew them so well!

Here the sound of the rain was hushed. She heard the big tick of the grandfather clock in the broad hall. Somewhere in the house the wind was rattling a loose window-sash. Drawing a deep breath, she went swiftly along the gallery, turned t0 the left and was in the hall. Again she stopped and listened, her eyes striving to pierce the darkness. A ghostly light showed the two long barred windows which flanked the main entrance. She could guess rather than see the curved stairway leading to the floor above. It required all her resolution to cross the hall and softly turn the handle of the library door.

A fire was burning; a big arm-chair obscured the grate, but she saw the red glow of it. Apparently the room was empty. She recognised the chair with an involuntary nod. It was that in which she used to curl herself when she was a long-legged schoolgirl, devouring the romances of Henty. And then she let her eyes travel round the room, and they stopped at the cupboard. She set her teeth, almost ran across the soft carpet, and with shaking fingers slipped in the tiny key she took from her bag ...

Empty! Her mouth opened in amazement. The shallow hiding-place held nothing ...

Something made her look round, and she nearly dropped. From the chair was ascending a thin curl of blue smoke.

"Do you mind closing the door after you? It is rather draughty."

The voice was soft and muffled.

She stood staring in the direction of the voice, and then, in desperation, she whipped out a little Browning from her bag.

"Don't move!" she said in a low voice. "I—I am armed."

From the chair there rose a tall man, grey-haired, powerfully built, a pair of huge dark spectacles hiding his fine face. A big pipe dangled from his teeth. He wore evening dress, though his dinner jacket was of black velvet.

"Come and sit down—come nearer the fire," he said. "You must be wet."

She hesitated and then slowly came towards him, her shaking hand gripping the pistol.

"Don't move!" She hardly recognised her own voice. Then she heard his deep chuckle.

"I suppose you have a revolver or something equally dramatic in your hand? That's too bad!" And then: "I'm very serious about the door: do you mind closing it? I am rather susceptible to chills."

She went to the door. Here was her opportunity—should she fly? In a few seconds she would be outside the house. But he had seen her; it would be very undignified to leave that way. Queer how the question of dignity came to be considered at such a moment.

The door closed and she went back to the fire. He was sitting again, a pipe clenched between his teeth, his face turned to the glowing coals.

"You came in by the postern, I suppose? I must have the lock changed. Sit down, won't you?"

She hesitated.

"Oh, yes, I knew you were a woman," he went on, in his soft tone. "Guessed so when I heard the swish of your skirt, though of course it might have been a mackintosh. What do you want?"

She licked her lips; her throat was dry. She made two attempts before finally she articulated:

"I wanted something... that I thought was in this room. Nothing... valuable... to anybody but me. Can't you see... and guess?"

He smiled slowly.

"I can guess, but I cannot see. I am blind."

He made the announcement in such a matter-of-fact tone that she could not grasp its importance for a while.

"Blind?" she gasped. "Oh, I'm—I'm so sorry."

And yet her heart leapt. He could not see her—and would not recognise her again if he saw her.

"I really did not wish to rob you," she said. "Only—I—my people rented this place last summer—and—I left something behind which I did not wish anybody to know I had."

She was on safer ground here. She knew that in the summer months Monk's Chase had been let to a rich American family.

"Oh—you're one of the Osborn family, are you? Well, young lady, if you can find what you want, take it. I'm sorry I frightened you."

She looked round at the open cupboard door.

"It has been taken away," she said. "And now I'll go—may I?"

He rose and walked across the room, his fingers touching the furniture as he passed. Unerringly he turned to the right, traversed the hall and came to the little side passage. For a second he stood outside the postern door, the rain pelting down on him.

"Good night," he said. "I hope you will not get very wet."

He waited till the sound of her hurrying footsteps no longer came to him, then he turned back, locked and bolted the postern and returned to his study.

As he entered the room he switched on all the lights and made his way to the chair before the fire. For five minutes he sat motionless, his forehead wrinkled in a frown, then slowly he filled his pipe, lit it and, pushing up his dark spectacles, took up a newspaper from the chair and resumed the reading which the sound of the postern door opening had interrupted. And he read, without the aid of glasses, the very smallest type.

"Poor Hope Joyner!" he muttered between puffs of smoke. "Poor Hope Joyner!"