Читать книгу Captains of Souls - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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MR. STEPPE had a house in Berkeley Square which he rented from its lordly owner. Beryl had dined there before, and it had been a baffling experience, for in no respect did the personality of the tenant find an opportunity of expressing itself. The furnishings and colour-schemes of the landlord had been left as they had been found, and, since the atmosphere of the place was late Victorian, Mr. Steppe was unconformable to his surroundings. Beryl thought of him as a sultan amidst samplers. Sir John Maxton was talking to him when they were announced. One of the greatest advocates at the bar, Maxton was tall, slender, aesthetic. His gentle manner had led many a confident witness into trouble. He had a reputation at the Bar as a just and merciless man; a master of the art of cross-examination. "The doctor told me you were likely to be here," he said, when she had escaped from Steppe's thunderous civilities. "I hoped Ronnie would have come—have you seen him lately?"

"Only for a few minutes on Monday. I met him in the park. I didn't know you were a friend of his, Sir John?"

Maxton's lips curled. Beryl wondered if he was trying to smile, or whether that twitch indicated something uncomplimentary to Ronnie.

"I'm more than a friend—and less. I was one of the executors of his father's will. Old Bennett Morelle was my first client and I suppose I stand in loco parentis to Ronnie by virtue of my executorship. I have not seen him for quite a year. Somebody told me that he was scribbling! He always had a bent that way—it is a thousand pities he didn't take the law seriously—an occupation would have kept him out of mischief."

"Has Ronnie been called to the Bar?" she asked in astonishment."

Maxton nodded. "Just before the war, but he has never practised. I hope that his newspaper connection will keep him busy."

"But Ronnie works very hard," she asserted stoutly. "He has his company work, he is a director of several, and chairman of one, I believe."

Maxton looked at her with the faintest shade of amusement in his eyes. "Of course," he said dryly, "that is an occupation." He lowered his voice. "Do you mind if I am ill-bred and ask if you have known our host very long?"

"A few years."

He nodded. Beryl, glancing across at her father and Steppe, saw that the doctor was talking earnestly. She caught Steppe's gaze and looked back to Sir John. "I have been fighting a case for him. Rather a hopeless proposition, but we won. The jury was wrong, I think, in giving us a verdict. I can say this because the other side have entered an appeal which is certain to succeed."

Jan Steppe must have heard the last sentence. "Huh? Succeed? Yes, perhaps...it doesn't matter very much. I had a verdict, a disqualified winner is still a moral winner, huh, doctor? You used to be a racing man; what do you think?" Dinner was announced whilst the doctor was disclaiming any knowledge of the Turf or its laws. The dinner was exquisite in its selection and brevity. Mr. Steppe had one special course which none of the others shared. He invited them and showed no regret when they refused. A footman brought a silver dish piled high with steaming mealie cobs. He took them in his hands and gnawed at the hot corn. It was probably the only way that mealies could be eaten, she told herself...no more inelegant an exhibition than the sword-swallowing manoeuvre which followed the serving of asparagus.

"Sault?" Mr. Steppe was wiping his fingers on his serviette. "You asked me once before, Beryl...where was it? In the park. No, I haven't seen him. I very seldom do. Strange man, huh?"

The butler had attended more frequently to Dr. Merville's wineglass than to any other of the guests. His gloom had disappeared and he was more like the cheerful man Beryl remembered. "Sault is a danger and a menace to Society," he said. Steppe's brows lowered but he did not interrupt. "At the same time, he can exercise one of the most beneficent forces that Nature has ever given into the care of a human being."

"You pique my curiosity," said Maxton, interested. "Is he psychic or clairvoyant?...from your tone one would imagine that he had some supernatural power."

"He has," nodded Merville. "I discovered it some time ago. He lodges with a woman named Colebrook in a very poor part of the town. Mrs. Colebrook suffers from an unusual form of heart disease. She had a seizure one night and Sault came for me. You will remember, dear, when I was called out in the middle of the night...a year ago. The moment I examined the woman, who was unconscious and in my opinion in extremis, I knew that nothing could be done. I applied the remedies which I had brought with me, and which I had thought, from his description of the seizure, would be necessary, but with no effect. Sault was terribly upset. The woman had two daughters, one bedridden. His grief at the thought that she would die without her daughter seeing her was tragic. I think he was going upstairs to bring the girl down, when I said casually that if I could lend the patient strength to live for another hour, she would probably recover. What followed, seems to me even now as part of a fantastic dream."

Beryl's elbow was on the table, her chin in her palm, and she was absorbed. Maxton lay back, his arm hanging over the back of his chair, weighing every word; Steppe, his hands clasped on the table, his head bent, sceptical. "Sault bent down and took the inert hands of the woman in his... just held them. Remember this, that she was the colour of this serviette, her lips grey. I wondered what he was doing...I don't know now. Only her face went gradually pink and her eyes opened."

"How long after he took her hands?" asked Maxton.

"Less than a minute, I should think. As I say, she opened her eyes and looked round, and then she nodded very slowly. "What do you think of that, Dr. Merville?' she said."

"She knew you, of course?"

"She had never seen me in her life. I learnt that afterwards. Sault dropped her hands and stood up. He was looking ghastly. Not a vestige of colour. I said to him: 'Sault, what is the matter?' and he answered in a cockney whine, that was 'h'-less and ungrammatical—Sault never makes an error in that respect—'It's me 'eart, sir, I get them attacks at times—haneurism'."

"Sault?" Steppe's face was puckered into a grimace of incredulity.

"Go on, please, father!" urged the girl.

"What came after was even more curious. Mrs. Colebrook got up quite unaided, sat down in a chair before the fire and fell fast asleep. Sault sat down too. I gave him some brandy and he seemed to recover. But he did not speak again, not even to answer my questions. He sat bolt upright in a wooden chair by the side of the kitchen table—all this happened in the kitchen. He didn't move for a long time, and then his hands began to stray along the table. There was a big work-basket at the other side and presently his hands reached it and he drew it toward him. I watched him. He took out some garment, I think it was a nightdress belonging to one of the girls. It was unfinished and the needle was sticking into it...he began to sew!"

"Good God!" cried Maxton. "Do you suggest that on the touching of hands the two identities changed?"

"I suggest that—I assert that," said the doctor quietly, and drank his wine.

"Rubbish!" growled Steppe. "What did Sault say about it?"

"I will tell you. Exactly an hour after this extraordinary transference had been made, I saw Mrs. Colebrook going pale. She opened her eyes and looked at me in a puzzled way, then at the daughter, a pretty child who had been present all the time. 'I always 'ave these attacks, sir', she said, 'a haneurism the doctors call it'."

"And Sault?"

"He was himself again, but distressingly tired and wan."

"Did he explain?"

The doctor shook his head. "He didn't understand or remember much. The next day out of curiosity I called at the house and asked if he could sew. He was amused. He said that he had never used a needle in his life, his hands were too big."

Beryl sat back with a sigh. "It doesn't seem—human," she said. The doctor had opened his mouth to reply when there was a crash in the hall outside and the sound of a high aggressive voice. Another second and the door was thrown violently open and a man lurched in. He was hatless and his frock coat was covered with the coffee-coloured stains of wet mud. His cravat was awry and the ends hung loose over his unbuttoned waistcoat. A stray lock of black hair hung over his narrow forehead. He strode into the centre of the room, and with legs apart, one hand on his hip and the other caressing his long brown beard, he surveyed the company with a sardonic smile.

"Hail, thieves and brother bandits!" he said thickly. He spoke with a slight lisp. "Hail, head devil and chief of the tribe! Hail, Helen—"

Steppe was on his feet, his head thrust forward, his shoulders bent. Maxton saw him and started. There was something feline in that crouching attitude. "You drunken fool! How dare you come here, huh?"

Mr. Moropulos snapped his fingers contemptuously. "I come, because I have the right," he said, with drunken gravity; "who will deny the Prime Minister the right of calling upon the King?" He bowed and nearly lost his balance, recovering by the aid of a chair-back.

"Go to my study, Moropulos, I will come out with you," Steppe had gained control of himself, but the big frame was trembling with pent rage. "Study—bah! Here is my study! Hail, doctor, man of obnoxious draughts; hail, stranger, whoever you are...where's the immaculate Ronnie? Flower of English chivalry and warrior of a million flights—huh?" He bellowed his imitation of Steppe's grunt and chuckled with laughter. "Now, listen, confederates, I have done with you all. I am going to live honest. Why? I will tell you..."

"Moropulos!" Beryl turned quickly toward the door. She knew before she saw the stolid figure that it was Sault.

Moropulos turned too. "Ah! The Faithful Ambrose...do you want me, Sault?" His tone was mild; he seemed to wilt under the steady gaze of the man in the doorway. Ambrose Sault beckoned and the drunken intruder shuffled out, shamefaced, fearful.

"Quite an interesting evening," said Sir John Maxton, as he closed the car door on the Mervilles that night.