Читать книгу The Thief in the Night and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 7

Table of Contents

"DO you know, Mr. Danton, I've been thinking an awful lot about you," said Barbara May, as the band finished with a crash and they walked out on to the terrace.

"I'm sorry I've been responsible for so much mental activity," said Jack.

"I've been wondering what is your job. Everybody knows that you have some mysterious employment—and now I've got it."

"The dickens you have!" he said coolly, sitting down by her side. "And what am I?"

"You're a policeman."

His look of dismay made her gurgle with laughter.

"Do I really look like a policeman?" he said.

"Not like an ordinary policeman, but very much like one of those very smart ex-officers who are joining the special branch just now."

"If I really was a policeman," he bantered, "I should feel that I had made a very bad beginning."

"But you are, aren't you?" she insisted.

"If I wasn't a policeman I should be very annoyed; and I couldn't possibly be annoyed with you, Miss May."

"The question is," she said, knitting her brows, "are you after the 'Candid Friend' or a bad, bold burglar?"

"Would Scotland Yard move in the matter of the 'Candid Friend' unless complaints had been made?"

"That's true," she replied. "Then you are after the bad, bold burglar, Mopley Mike."

"Do they call him that?" he said in surprise.

"I call him that," she said solemnly. "I almost wished you were after the 'Candid Friend.' I wonder who she is?"

"You think it is a woman, then?"

"Well," said Barbara May, shrugging her shapely shoulders, "'Cat' is written in every line of them, and they are really horribly wicked. You know she has parted the Flatterleys, and that Tom Fowler is suing for a divorce, and that Mrs. Slee has gone abroad—it is killing her mother."

He nodded gravely.

"I think that sort of crime is abominable," he said, unconsciously echoing Lady Widdicombe's words; "I can respect a burglar, but a slanderer—a person who stabs in the back—must be an obnoxious beast."

As she was going up to her room that night Barbara May saw Jack talking earnestly to Lord Widdicombe and smiled within herself.

"What is amusing you, Barbara May?" drawled Diana who was coming up the stairs behind her.

"Thoughts," said Barbara May.

"You're lucky to be able to smile," said Diana. "At the end of one of these evenings I am bored cold—bored to weariness—bored wide awake, if you can understand."

Barbara May turned and faced the girl squarely.

"Why do you come?" she asked quietly.

Diana's shoulders rose.

"One must do something," she said.

"Why don't, you work?" was the brutal question, and Diana shrank delicately.

She was the heiress of one of the richest landowners in the kingdom, as Barbara well knew.

Had Lady Widdicombe seen the two girls at that moment, she would have realized that the antagonism between them was not one- sided.

"What do you call work?" drawled Diana. "To join a nursing institution, or become a Foreign Office clerk or something?"

"Both of which I have done, said Barbara May, "and both are excellent sedatives. My experience is that the useless day produces the sleepless night."

"Barbara May," said the other with a laugh, "aren't you just a little—er—priggishly capable?"

"Don't taunt me with my usefulness." smiled Barbara.

Even the astute Mr. Jack Danton, had he overheard this conversation, could not have guessed that that scene on the stairs had been as carefully rehearsed and forced upon Diana as though Barbara May had spent the morning in teaching her her lines. For Barbara May had gone up those stairs, just a little ahead of Diana, determined to annoy her, and as determined to apologize for her rudeness.

Diana was in the hands of her maid when there came a knock at the bedroom door and Barbara came in.

"Diana, I've come to say that I'm so sorry I was rude to you," she said.

"My dear," smiled Diana sweetly, "it was quite my fault; I think one gets just a little over-tired about this time in the morning."

"What a beautiful room you have, and what wonderful brushes!" Barbara May admired the set upon the dressing-table. "If I have any fault to find with this room, the ceiling is a little low," she rattled on.

"I sleep with my windows open," said Diana, amused at the other's interest in trifling affairs.

"In spite of the burglar?"

"There isn't much danger, is there?"

Barbara looked out of the window.

"A man could hardly walk along this parapet," she said. "Your room is a good thirty feet from the ground."

She said good night and was at the door when she turned.

"Would you like a cup of chocolate?" she asked.

Now, Diana's weakness was for chocolate, as Barbara May well knew, but she was amazed at the invitation. The girl laughed.

"I've just made some in my room," she said. "I have an electric kettle and I'm supposed to make chocolate rather well."

"I should love some. I'll send Amile for it."

"It will be ready in three minutes," said Barbara. "Are you sure you've forgiven me?"

"If I hadn't forgiven you before, I should fall on your neck now," said Diana with a laugh.

And it really was delicious chocolate. Diana sat up in bed, a dainty, beautiful picture, and sipped the hot and fragrant fluid, and felt as near friendly to Barbara May as it was possible for her to feel. She finished the cup and handed it to the maid.

"I will put the light out and lock the door, Amile," she said. "Good night. I think I shall sleep."

Barbara May thought Diana would sleep too. She replaced a tiny bottle half-full of colourless liquid, which she had taken from her dressing-case, and looked at her watch. Then she threw up the window. Her room was on the same floor as Diana's and between her and the girl was an empty suite. She pulled down the blinds and undressed. From her wardrobe she took a pair of riding breeches, put them on and pulled thick woollen stockings over the silken hose. She stuffed her arms into a jersey coat, put out the light and sat down to wait.

At two o'clock she let the blinds up noiselessly and climbed out of the window on to the parapet. It was no more than twelve inches wide, but this girl had nerves like steel, and she walked without faltering along the narrow ledge.

A slip, and nothing could have saved her from death, but she did not hesitate. She came abreast of Diana's window and without a pause crept in. Diana was sleeping heavily, and Barbara May stepped to the side of the bed and listened. Her breathing was regular, and she did not move when Barbara laid her hand gently on her shoulder. The drug she had put into the chocolate had done its work most effectively, and she could, without danger, have switched on the lights, save that it might attract attention from anybody passing along the corridor who would have seen the gleam of light in the room.

She took an electric torch from her pocket and a small bunch of keys. She had only come into the room to apologize to Diana to discover just where Diana put her jewel case. The lock of the steel-lined box yielded after the third attempt and Barbara May made her selection, which was the plaque which had sparkled on Diana's breast. She was not, however, satisfied with this inspection and pursued certain investigations. They were well rewarded. Her work finished, she hesitated. Very carefully she unlocked the door and peeped out. Only a dim light was burning in the corridor. Should she risk it? Lord Widdicombe employed a night-watchman, but Barbara heard his cough in the hall below.

She closed Diana's door behind her and walked swiftly up the corridor to her own room, and was at the door, her hand on the handle, when she heard the swish of feet on the carpeted stairs. She turned the handle and could have screamed in her vexation. She had locked the door before she went through the window. She remembered it now, and raged at her folly. There was just one chance. It was that the door of the empty suite was open, and she ran quickly, though it was toward the stairs. The door yielded to her touch—and only in time. From where she stood closing the door she could see the back of a man's head coming up to the last landing on the stairs. It was Jack Danton.

She closed the door softly, and went to the window which, fortunately, was open. Her nerves were shaken, she discovered, when she again reached her perilous foothold, but she came to her own room without mishap.

From her trunk—the trunk which she had forbidden her maid to unlock—she took out a square black box of dull steel, and to this she added various articles which she laid on the table. From the steel box ran a long flex, to the end of which was attached a wooden plug, which she fitted into one of the electric light brackets. For two hours she worked, and as the light of dawn showed in the eastern sky she went out through the window, traversing the perilous parapet to Diana's room. She was back in five minutes and, putting away her apparatus, she carefully packed the diamond plaque in a small cardboard box and placed it under her pillow.