Читать книгу The Valley of Ghosts - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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Stella Nelson left the post office in a panic. Though she did not turn her head, she was conscious that the good-looking, strong-faced man she had seen in the telephone box was looking after her. What would he think, he, a man to whom, in all probability, the flicker of an eyelash had significance? She had nearly swooned at the shock of that word 'detective', and he had seen her sway and turn pale, and must have wondered what was the cause.

She wanted to run, and it required all her reserve of will to keep her from increasing her already hurried pace. She went rapidly down the declivity to the railway station and found she had half an hour to wait, and only then remembered that when she had left the house she had given herself time to order a number of commodities that were required for the kitchen. Should she go back? Dare she face the grave scrutiny which had so terrified her?

Eventually she did go back. The spur of self-contempt urged her, yet she was relieved to discover that the blue car had gone. She hurried from store to store with her orders, and then, after a moment's hesitation, went across to the post office and bought some stamps.

"What did you say that man was?"

With an effort she kept her voice steady.

"A detective, miss," said the old postmaster with relish. "You could have knocked me down with a feather duster when he showed me his card. I don't know what he's after."

"Where has he gone?" she asked, dreading the reply.

"He's gone up to Beverley Green, Miss, according to what he told me."

The postmaster's memory was not of the brightest, or he would have recalled the fact that Andy had expressed no such intention.

"To Beverley Green?" she said slowly.

"That's it, miss—Macleod!" he said suddenly. "That's the name. I couldn't remember it. Macleod." He pronounced it "Mac-lo-ed."

"Macleod," she corrected him. "Is he staying here?"

"No, miss, he's just passing through. Banks, the butcher, wouldn't believe that we had a detective in the town—a real man from headquarters. He's the fellow who gave evidence in that Marchmont poisoning murder. Do you remember it, miss? A wonderful murder it was, too. A man poisoned his wife, being anxious to marry another lady, and this Macleod's evidence got him hanged. Banks told me that, but I remembered it the moment he spoke. I've got a wonderful memory for murder cases."

She went back at a more leisurely pace to the station and took a ticket. She was undecided, tormented by doubt and fear. She hated the idea of going away from the place, even for a few hours, whilst that man was prying into heaven knows what, she told herself fretfully.

Again she walked back towards the village, and then she heard the scream of the train whistle. No, she would carry out her original idea. One danger at any rate was definite. She hated Macleod. He was an enemy. She hated him, but she feared him too. She shivered at the recollection of that inquiring stare of his, which said so plainly: "You have something to fear." She tried hard to read, but her mind was never upon the newspaper, and, though her eyes followed the lines, she saw nothing, read nothing.

Nearing her destination, she wondered that she had ever dreamt of going back. She had only a week to settle this ghastly business of hers—exactly a week—and every day counted. She might be successful. She might be returning that afternoon, her heart singing with happiness, passing by these very fields and bridges, her mind at peace.

Mechanically she noticed the objects of the landscape as the train flashed through. She must remember to register her emotions when they came to that white farmhouse on the return journey. By the time she saw it again she might not have a care in the world.

Dreams and journey ended simultaneously. She hurried out through the big terminus, crowded with jostling, horrible people, who would not so much as turn their heads if she died that moment. A taxi-cab came to her signal.

"Ashlar Building?" he pondered, and then: "I know where you mean, miss."

The Ashlar Building was a great block of offices; she had never seen it before, and had no idea as to how she was to find the man on whom she was calling. Inside the hall, however, and covering both walls, was an indicator, and her eyes went down column after column of names until they stopped.

309, Abraham Selim.

The office was on the fifth floor.

It was some time before she found it, for it stood in a corner of a long wing—two office doors, one marked private, the other abr. selim.

She knocked at the door, and a voice said:

"Come in."

A small rail separated the office from the narrow gangway in which callers were permitted to stand.

"Yes, miss?"

The man who advanced to her was brusque and a little hostile.

"I want to see Mr Selim," she said, and the young man shook his well-pomaded head.

"You can't see him, miss, without an appointment," he said, "and even then he won't talk to you." He stopped suddenly and stared at her. "Why, Miss Nelson!" he said. "I never expected to see you here."

She flushed, and strove vainly to recall where he had ever seen her.

"You remember me, miss—Sweeny," he said, and her face went a deeper red.

"Why, of course. Sweeny."

She was embarrassed, humiliated, at this discovery.

"You left Mr Merrivan's service rather hurriedly, didn't you?"

He was uncomfortable in his turn.

"Yes, I did, miss." He coughed. "I had a bit of a disagreement with Mr Merrivan. A very mean gentleman, and awfully suspicious." He coughed again. "Did you hear nothing, miss?"

She shook her head. The Nelsons did not keep their servants long enough to reach the stage of intimacy where they could gossip with them, even if they were so inclined.

"Well, the fact is," said Sweeny, a trifle relieved that he had the opportunity of getting in his version first, "Mr Merrivan missed some silver. Very foolishly I had lent it to a brother of mine to copy. He was very interested in old silver, being a working jeweller, and when Mr Merrivan missed the silver—" He coughed again, and grew weakly incoherent. He had been accused of stealing—he! And he had been fired without ado. "I'd have been starving now, miss, only Mr Selim got to hear of me and gave me this job. It is not much," he added deprecatingly, "but it is something. I often wish I was back in the happy valley. That's what I always called Beverley Green."

She cut short his flow of explanation and reminiscence.

"When can I see Mr Selim?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I can't tell you that, miss. I've never seen him myself."

"What!" she said, staring at him in amazement.

"It's a fact, miss. He's a moneylender—why, of course, I needn't tell you that."

He looked knowingly at her, and she felt ready to sink through the floor from very shame.

"All his business is done by letter. I receive visitors and fix appointments. Not that he ever keeps them," he said, "but the clients fill in blanks—you understand, miss, the amount of money they want, the security they can offer, and all that sort of thing—and I leave them here in that safe for Mr Selim when he comes."

"When does he come?"

"God knows," said the other piously. "He must come, because the letters are taken away two or three times a week. He communicates with the people himself. I never know how much they borrow or how much they pay back."

"But when he wants to give instructions does he write them?" asked the girl, her curiosity getting the better other disappointment.

"He telephones. I don't know where from. It's a queer job. Only two hours a day, and only four days a week."

"Is there no possibility of seeing him?" she asked desperately.

"Not a scrap," said Sweeny, becoming important again. "There's only one way of conducting business with Abe—he wouldn't be mad if he knew I called him Abe, not at all—and that is by correspondence."

She dropped her eyes to the counter and stood awhile thinking.

"Is Mr Nelson quite well, miss?" asked Sweeny.

"Very well, thank you," she said hastily. "Thank you, Sweeny. I—" It was hateful to take a servant into her confidence. "You won't mention the fact that you saw me here?"

"Certainly not," said the virtuous Sweeny. "Lord, miss, if you knew the people who come up here you would be surprised. Actors and actresses, people you read about in the daily papers, ministers, religious ones—"

"Goodbye, Sweeny."

She closed the door on his recital.

Her knees wobbled as she walked down the stairs, which she took in preference to the lift, for she knew now just how much she had counted upon the interview. With despair in her heart she saw the iron inevitability of everything. What could now arrest the sword already swinging for the blow? Nothing, nothing! The man she wanted she could not reach—the only man, she told herself bitterly, the only man!

Looking up on the journey back she saw the white farmhouse and could have wept.

She changed at the junction and arrived at Beverley at five o'clock, and the first person she saw as she stepped off the train was the calm, capable, grey-eyed man. He had seen her first, and his eyes were on hers when she stepped down. For a second her heart stood still, and then she saw at his side the man with the handcuffs on his wrist—the Canadian professor! So that was whom he was after—the Canadian professor, who had talked so entertainingly on fossils.

Scottie knew a great deal about fossils; it was his favourite subject. In prison, if one takes up a subject, one usually discovers three or four books in the library that have a bearing upon the matter. On Scottie's other side stood a uniformed policeman. As for the criminal, he met her horrified glance with a bland smile. She supposed that people got callous and hardened after a while, and the shame of captivity ceased to be. But there must have been a time when even that lean-faced man would have dropped his eyes before the gaze of a woman who had so much as spoken to him.

She glanced quickly at Andy and went on. The relief! The dismal despair of the return journey was lightened. She was almost cheerful as she came up the rose-bordered path to the door.