Читать книгу The Last Adventure and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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HE lived in the unfashionable neighbourhood of Soho, in an ancient house which was part of the legacy his mother had left to him. He occupied the first floor, the ground space being let to a firm of lawyers. The floor above was in the occupation of a police sergeant, who lived rent free and acted as caretaker to the building. It was not a profitable arrangement, but it suited John. The rent of the lawyer more than paid the rates and taxes, and left a little over for renovations. The sergeant’s wife kept his little suite speckless and cooked what meals he had in the house.

He was at this time making a clear profit of eight thousand pounds a year. All of this, with the exception of a few hundred pounds to maintain him in the bare necessities, went to the relief of Heverswood. He grudged himself his club subscription, rode third-class when he journeyed by train; lived on a few shillings a day. His one luxury was his car. It had been his brother’s, and he had bought it from him at twice its value when Selwyn got his new Rolls.

In this spacious sitting-room John Calthorpe frequently sat up half the night studying the trade journals in all languages—he had learnt German to keep in touch with the foreign market. A busy afternoon awaited him at the docks, and it was nearly nine o’clock that night when he came into his ugly house in Fitzroy Square and went up the stairs a trifle wearily. When he rang the bell for his meagre meal he was surprised to see Sergeant Lane carry in the tray and arrange plates and cup man-clumsily on the table.

“My good lady has gone out to the pictures,” he said. “I hope I haven’t made the tea too strong, sir?”

John was reading one of the letters that were on the table, and shook his head.

“I didn’t think that I should be here at all,” the sergeant went on, setting knives and forks. “There’s a big job on to-night.”

“What sort of a job?” asked John, looking up.

“Raid,” was the laconic reply. “I can tell you, sir, because you’re not one of these flighty gentlemen.”

“What are you raiding—a night club?” asked John. The sergeant rubbed his chin.

“Well—it is and it isn’t. It isn’t supposed to be a club, but Madame Bonnigea—”

Madame Bonnigea! John Calthorpe was paralysed with amazement. It was to Madame’s that Selwyn was going that night—‘a very dear friend of mine’.

“Madame Bonnigea—in Harrow Square?”

The sergeant nodded.

“But, my dear man, she is a very decent member of society!”

And then the sergeant explained, and John Calthorpe’s eyes opened. That the place was a gambling-hell did not shock him. It was of Selwyn he thought—Selwyn and the girl—she in whose eyes he had read something of terror. Selwyn must not be there when the raid was made.

“We’ve had the place under observation for a long time, and we’ve given them warning,” the sergeant was saying. “I can’t understand good-class people going to what I might describe as a haunt of vice.”

The young man forced a smile.

“That sounds almost terrible,” he said, with an attempt at joviality. “And talking of haunts of vice, I’ve just remembered a theatre engagement. Would you of your kindness put out my dress suit?”

He wanted to be alone to think out the crisis. The police would not spare Selwyn if he were the heir to a dukedom. To-morrow his name would be in the newspapers, associated with that drab haunt—and Mary Predelle would see it and there would be the end. Suppose it were? His lips tightened at the thought. What better way of smashing this horrible bargain?

When Lane called him he did not move. It would be best for her; who knew that it would not be best for Heverswood in the long run? The girl would be saved from the humilation and shame that awaited her.

“Your clothes are ready, sir.”

He turned and walked into the bedroom, slipping off his jacket automatically. Heverswood must be first.

Madame Bonnigea rented a tall house in Harrow Square. Madame had never conducted a club—she gave parties to her friends. You could become a friend of Madame’s by the simple process of slipping a five-pound note into the hand of the footman who opened the door, and remain a friend by tipping the waiter who brought you your wine—providing the tip were big enough. If you complained at his extortions, Madame, a fleshy French Jewess with many chins and brassy hair, was patently shocked, and said that she would discharge the man toute suite—but the complainant was never admitted again. She liked young people around her—nice boys and nice girls. They could dance in the vast drawing room, play a little chemin de fer upstairs, flirt almost anywhere. A negro orchestra played with muted instruments (Madame never invited complaints from neighbours) and the floor of the silk-panelled dancing-room with its rosy lights was crowded with dancers whose loud voices quite drowned the music.

The waiters, swift-footed and deft of hand, moved along the settees that lined the walls, opening bottles, changing glasses. In the middle of the swaying dancers a stout man lurched drunkenly with his fair-haired young partner, whose hard lips were upturned in a smile appropriate to his folly. Pierre, Madame’s manager, a sulky giant, stood by the door watching the fat man’s antics with an expressionless face, ready to pounce on him and hustle him from the room when he grew too boisterous.

Two men were sitting. Selwyn had dined royally, but the thin-faced man who sat by his side was coldly sober. He had the pinched face of a jockey; his keen, small eyes surveyed the company as Selwyn spoke, though his mind was intent upon the stammered excuses of his companion. The man was a little overdressed; wore two glittering diamonds in his shirt-front, and had a trick of smoothing his face with his whole hand.

“It is a pretty serious position, old man,” he said, when Selwyn stopped to sip at his champagne. “This marriage, I mean. Certain people don’t believe it; they think you’re faking to keep your mother quiet. But if you mean it “

“I mean it,” said Selwyn doggedly. “There is big money in this. Why I’m explaining to a damn’ cad like you, I don’t know!”

The jockey-faced man did not move.

“Don’t lose your temper—I shall have to do a lot of persuading. You ought to be able to borrow a lot of money on the strength of this engagement. That would help.”

Selwyn cursed softly.

“They cleaned me out upstairs,” he said, with drunken gravity. “Ruined me, Jim—took the last of the family plate.”

“You shouldn’t play baccarat,” said the wizened man. “You can’t afford to lose.”

Selwyn grinned foolishly.

“That’s why I’ve got to marry—I’m sick of going hat in hand to that damn’ brother of mine—half-brother. If you knew the airs he gives himself—it’s humil—humiliating!”

“Who’s this bird?” the little man interrupted to ask.

The man who had come into the room stood out from that frowsy crowd. Tall, straight, perfectly modelled, his evening kit gave him an added dignity. Aristocrat to his finger-tips, John Calthorpe came like a clean ray of sunlight into a space where candles were burning.

Selwyn turned his head to follow the man’s eyes, and leapt up with an angry oath. In a second he was facing his brother, half sobered by the shock of his appearance.

“What do you want?” he asked. He seemed to forget that he had invited John that very day.

“You—come outside.”

The footman who guarded the front door had appeared and was talking excitedly to Pierre.

“Outside—what do you mean?”

“I want you to come with me, Selwyn—out of this filthy hole.”

The band had stopped playing; the dancers stood watching the man—too interested to demand the inevitable encore.

“Is that so? Wondered why you turned up,” sneered Selwyn, swaying unsteadily on his feet. “Father, dear father, come home with me now.” He wailed the old song, and then, with a ferocity that John had only seen him display once in his life: “Get out of here! Go to your spelling-bee or your sewing-circle, or wherever you get your fun, and leave me alone.”

“Pardon, m’sieur.”

Pierre’s hand dropped on to the young man’s shoulder.

“You are not a friend of Madame’s, I think—you pressed your way into this house. You will now retire, please.”

John did not turn his head.

“Take your hand from my shoulder.”

“You will now retire.” The grip tightened, but only for a second.

With a wrench John Calthorpe freed himself. Nobody saw him strike the blow that sent the big man crashing against the wall. There was a scream of fear from the women, and then two waiters sprang at him, but he stepped back, landed on the jaw of the first, and in another instant was at the curtains which covered the window at the far end of the room.

“I advise you ladies and gentlemen to get away before the police arrive,” he said, and his answer was a tipsy laugh.

“Bluff!” shrieked Selwyn. “You’re going through it, Johnny, and you’d better take your licking ... lesson to you ... you interfering fool! ...”

Pierre was advancing, a champagne bottle in his hand, his pallid face working convulsively. And the crowd stood and watched; evil faces of men and women grew eager at the feast of pain that threatened. The waiters had secured bottles; Madame, livid with rage, forgot the good name of her house and urged them on with little incoherent squeaks of fury.

John sidestepped as the first bottle came crashing to splinters against the wall. He lunged, and drove his left under the manager’s chin, and at that moment the nearest waiter struck.

John staggered back, the blood running down his face—and he put up his hand to guard his head as the second bottle rose....

And then somebody shrieked in fear—a woman. Through the open window came such a Thing as men only see in dreams: a half-naked brown man of terrible strength. He seemed to leap from the window-sill straight at the throat of Pierre. There was a strangled cry, a momentary vision of a flying body, and the big manager fell, a crumpled heap, against Selwyn, knocking him senseless.

“The police!”

The voice and the sound of a scuffle came from below. John dashed to the half-conscious Selwyn and dragged him to the window.

“Quick, hombre! What is your name?” John spoke breathlessly in Spanish.

“Quio, master.”

“Can you get him out—that way?” He pointed to the window.

Quio stooped and lifted Selwyn as though he were a baby. His short brown legs swung over the window-sill, with one arm he drew the bemused man through, and then, gripping the man’s collar with his teeth as a St. Bernard might hold a drowning man, he disappeared into the darkness, and in the pandemonium which followed the arrival of the police nobody noticed.

John turned to meet a familiar face.

“You, Mr. Calthorpe? I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I might say the same to you, sergeant,” smiled John. He was white and shaking, but he could smile.

“I was called out after you left,” said Sergeant Lane in a low voice. “I’m afraid I can’t do anything for you, Mr. Calthorpe; you’ll have to go to the station. And they tell me your brother is here—Lord Heverswood. His name’s in the visitors’ book.”

John Calthorpe looked the policeman in the eyes.

“My brother has not been here this evening,” he said steadily. “I always sign his name—for the swank of it!”