Читать книгу The Last Adventure and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

Table of Contents

MR. HOLMAN PREDELLE was a man who believed in straight talking. He had with the best of intentions stripped the beauty from mystery and labelled the raw understuff “knowledge”. And Mary sat at her sewing, with the dainty cambric close to her face, and listened to all the news that was fit to print.

She was not shocked; hurt a little, bewildered by the wide difference between her conception of John Calthorpe and the gross reality.

“That’s Selwyn’s brother,” he said grimly. “Hooch an’ everything! Well, that cuts down our acquaintance with Mr. John to ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good night’. It’s tough on Selwyn, just as the engagement was announced—in the same journal, by Christopher! And I guess you’d think that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth! Hit one of these guys with a bottle, too—it’s certainly tough on your beau, Mary.”

“I don’t understand it,” she said, shaking her head helplessly. “John isn’t that kind of man, daddy. He must have got into the place by mistake.”

“I’ll bet he did!” Mr. Predelle smiled unpleasantly. “Biggest mistake he ever made. Did I tell you what her ladyship said when she heard about it?”

“I don’t want to know.” She rose quickly. “Have you seen Selwyn?”

“Yuh I” he nodded. “The poor lad’s in bed—sick. Says the disgrace has made him ill. Do you wonder, honey? And he looks ill.” She said nothing to this.

“What did they do to John—you didn’t tell me that?” she asked at length.

“Fined him forty shillings—that’s about eight dollars. Can you beat it? Why, if that happened in New York he’d have been sent to the Island. They’re death on that kind of joint in our country, Mary. And rightly. Well, well ... and I thought he was a real nice boy!”

She put the sewing into her basket and closed the lid. “I’m going to Heverswood,” she said definitely, and he agreed.

“You’ll find Selwyn knocked out. A word from the girl he loves would do a whole lot to bring him on to his feet. Just say that it won’t make any difference....” She made a hurried exit, and going up to her room, rang for her maid.

“Tell Steele I want the car at once, Alice,” she said. “I want him to stop in Belford village. I have a telegram to send.”

“Yes, miss.” The maid was all a-twitter with her news. “Have you heard, miss, about Mr. Calthorpe— and him a gentleman, too, and brother to his lordship?” Mary’s face and manner were alike frigid.

“Alice, do you like this situation?”

“Why, yes, miss....”

“Then please don’t talk yourself out of it!”

Mary nodded to the door, and the affrighted maid escaped gladly. She had never encountered her mistress in this mood.

An hour before this John Calthorpe got down from his old car and, brushing the dust from his knees and sleeves, went leisurely into the hall. The face of Thomas the footman was inscrutable.

“Is her ladyship about, Thomas?”

“Yes, sir. Shall I ...?”He hesitated.

“Yes, tell her I am here.”

Thomas appeared in a short time at the library door, and the visitor walked in. Lady Heverswood was in her favourite attitude, bolt upright on the edge of an armchair drawn near the fire. Her coal-black eyes swept him as he drew near.

“Well?” she asked harshly. “You’ve got yourself into a mess, John!”

“Yes, I have rather.” His tone was airy, his manner indifferent. “Young blood, madam. Youth will be served.”

The eyes snapped at him, but she made no rejoinder. “And Selwyn has taken to his bed—dear, dear!”

He knew well enough that she was aware of the truth. She did not disguise her knowledge.

“How did you get him away? He says when he woke up he was lying in a yard with an ugly black man squatting by his side!”

John laughed softly.

“Bit of a shock for Selwyn. He must have thought that he had passed over and was getting acquainted with his new host! Poor old Selwyn!”

“Why did you go there at all—what right had you?” He seldom interrupted her. He broke his rule now.

“I knew the place was to be raided—it was high time the police took action. There was gambling in every other room. Madame will be lucky if she escapes imprisonment. I went to warn Selwyn, and somebody started something—I rather think it was I, but I have always hated people pawing me. The black man got Selwyn through the window and climbed down a drainpipe with him.”

Lady Heverswood shivered.

“He might have been killed!”

“Not he; these woodmen climb like cats. Oh, you mean Selwyn? There was no danger. Quio had his teeth in Selwyn’s collar.”

A silence.

“I presume your uncle does not know—yet,” she said.

“He wouldn’t believe it, anyway,” was the disconcerting reply. He looked at her thoughtfully. “I want you to do something for me, Lady Heverswood.”

So unusual a request opened her eyes.

“You see....” He was at a loss how to begin. “I don’t want Miss Predelle to believe that I’m the rascal I appear to be. After all, it is natural that I wish to preserve a little of her respect. I’d like you to tell her that—that it was quite an accident I was in that wretched house at all.”

“Why should I?” boomed the old woman.

“Well, if you don’t”—he seemed reluctant to put the alternative to her—”I’m afraid I shall have to tell her the truth.”

“She wouldn’t believe you—any more than your uncle would believe wrong of you.”

John smiled.

“Oh, yes, she would,” he said gently. “And there is Selwyn’s right roman handwriting in the visitors’ book—he must have been mad to sign his name. You couldn’t confuse his writing with mine. And Mary Predelle isn’t a fool.”

She pondered this, glooming into the fire.

“I’m sending you a cheque to-morrow for a thousand,” he went on. “The mortgage on Low Meadow was cleared to-day. And the trees are safe; I’ve finished paying off the bank, and that’s another little pillow lifted from the infant face of Heverswood—we’ll have the old place breathing naturally in a year or two. Can I see Selwyn? ‘ ‘

She jerked her head to the door impatiently.

Selwyn looked ill. The face that was upturned on the pillow was yellow in contrast to the snowy linen. John chuckled joyously.

“I’m ill,” snarled the invalid. “Fever or something “

“If ever I saw a man who looked like a poisoned monkey!”

“See here, John”—Selwyn struggled up on his elbow and spluttered in his wrath—”I didn’t ask you to come here. You damned gaolbird!”

The tantalizing laughter of the other roused him to madness.

“Get out I” he screamed. “Get out!”

His mother was in the room in a second; she must have been waiting outside the door, John thought.

“What is this—don’t you realize that Selwyn is ill? You great oaf! Come out or I’ll call the servants and have you beaten from the door!”

The man spun round.

“Call Li Sawder,” he said softly. “You found him useful once before, madam. Let him flog the man as he flogged the child.”

There was a deathly stillness in the over-furnished room.

“Get out,” whimpered Selwyn from his bed, and this time his brother obeyed. He preceded Lady Heverswood to the hall.

“I am staying here to-night. Unfortunately my— conviction has rather upset my plans. Even my constabulary bodyguard has lost faith in me and fears for his reputation at headquarters.”

She shrugged her massive shoulders.

“I will have your room put ready,” she said, and swept into the library.

A little later, John went up to his room.

“Keeper of the family conscience, guardian angel to rich American ladies, petty Don Quixote! I’d give a hundred for another punch at somebody’s head!” He spoke his thoughts aloud.

He had a bath and changed, for the journey down had been an unusually grimy one. He did not know that Mary Predelle was in the house until, coming downstairs, he saw her getting into her car and walked out to her. Lady Heverswood was standing by the door of the limousine and heard the footsteps behind her.

“Good-bye, my dear,” and, to the chauffeur, sharply: “Drive on, my man.”

“Wait!” Mary had seen him in the gloomy entrance hall and beckoned him. There was nothing of guilt in his face or mien. “I read ... all about it—at least, daddy read it.” She was a little breathless. “I’m so sorry.”

She held out her hand; he took it with great deliberation.

“I’m rather sorry, too,” he said, as deliberately he looked round at Lady Heverswood. “Her ladyship has probably explained? ...”

It was a question rather than a statement, and the girl’s embarrassment was all too significant.

“I told Mary that you were probably more sinned against than sinning,” said the old woman, defiance in her eyes and in her tone.

“Is that all?” he asked gently.

Lady Heverswood stiffened. She played the House— an unfailing card.

“It is not a subject that I cared to discuss with Miss Predelle,” she said. “Either you were an habitué or Selwyn was. His name was in the book and you admitted that it was your signature, John Calthorpe “

She had said too much; she realized it as she saw the sudden look of understanding in Mary Predelle’s face—a quick lighting up of the dark-grey eyes, a going and coming of the pink in her cheeks.

“Oh ... I didn’t know that ... about the book, I mean. Selwyn’s name was there!” She laughed softly, although she was not entirely amused. “How very funny!”

And with her understanding John fell into a panic. His own cursed vanity (so he called it), his desire to stand well in the eyes of has brother’s fiancee, had led him to betrayal of the House. He was undermining the foundation on which she was building her life.

“It was I all right,” he said, incoherent in his haste to correct the impression she had received. “I’m rather a night-club lizard. They have a fascination for me— the only thing I want you to believe is that I—that my interest in the establishment was a fairly wholesome one. It is very unfortunate, the whole thing. I went there to gamble ...”

Her eyes never left his face throughout his unconvincing narrative. When he had finished:

“Drive back with me to Feathers,” she said peremptorily.

Lady Heverswood was alarmed, and showed it.

“I will ask you to excuse him,” she said. “Selwyn is very anxious to see him—at once.”

“I’ll wait until he has seen Lord Heverswood—I have heaps of time.” And she settled herself back against the cushions of the car.

Lady Heverswood fixed her stepson with a baleful stare. Her lips were a little tight, the straight lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth were hard ridges of flesh.

“I can spare you—John,” she said. The words almost choked her.

It was not until the car was clear of the Bailiffs’ Gate that John Calthorpe spoke.

“I’d rather not see your father, if you don’t mind,” he said, and she nodded.

“I will stop the car and we will walk a little way—I want to talk to you.”

She pressed the indicator; the machine drew up by the side of the road and they alighted, walking on to the place where the stile of a fieldpath gave them an excuse for stopping.

“Now—what is the truth about your arrest?”

John Calthorpe had his story ready. He had called at Madame Bonnigea’s intending to pass an idle hour. There had been a fight and then the police had arrived. He was a poor inventor, she thought, and, thinking, said as much.

“Selwyn was there,” she accused, and now, when a plain, unadorned he was called for, he was silent.

“You are not being the kind of big little brother I wanted, John,” she went on, and the gentle reproach in her tone hurt him.

“I’m in the position of being big little brother to two people,” he was stung into replying. “Two people whose interests are in conflict.”

She was leaning backward against the stile, her elbows on the top rail, one hand playing with the rope of seed pearls that supported a splash of carved jade. Her eyes were on the ground; a thoughtful little frown furrowed her forehead.

“I hardly know what to do.” Her gesture was a despairing one. “I think I like Selwyn well enough—to make the experiment. I think so. But I want a lead, Johnny—somebody’s assurance besides father’s. It is a horribly dangerous experiment. Madame Bonnigea’s —well, that is part of a bachelor’s history. I wonder what advice your father would have given me if he ... were alive to discuss this thing?”

With a sinking heart John Calthorpe admitted to himself the ghastly truth.

“Miss Predelle, I will tell you what I think. If I were you ... I think I should go back to America and find a man of my own kind ... a decent-living gentleman....

He saw the millions fading from the Heverswood coffers and groaned in spirit.

“You mean that?” She had the uncanny gift of reading his mind. “You are trying to be horribly mercenary and selfish—and you are trying just as hard to be fair to me?”

“That isn’t so much of a trial, Mary,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to do Selwyn an injustice. Marriage may make him. He used to be quite a decent fellow—especially to me, and during a time when I hadn’t many friends. And marriages that look all wrong to the outsider are so often wonderfully successful. I’m vacillating like an old weather vane! And I admit that I am selfish. I’d be very proud to have you be my sister-in-law. That is only natural.”

She sighed and drew herself erect.

“I’ll go through with it,” she said, “only it seems—all wrong. I wish ... daddy weren’t so rich.”

There was a wistfulness in her tone which melted him. For a second he had the impulse to tell her the truth— that her fears were his certainties; that Selwyn had the mind and soul of the brute beast.

She turned away abruptly and walked ahead of him to the waiting car.

“You’ll not come to Feathers?” she asked, indifferently, it seemed. “Well—good-bye, Johnny. You are just a wee bit too unselfish, I think.”

And with this she left him, and he made his leisurely way back to the house.

He stood for a moment on the crest of the slope, admiring the big grey house. The evening sun had thrown the shadows of the tall poplars across the face of the castle so that it was barred black and orange—a prison-house, he thought. Here might a sensitive girl captured in marriage eat out her proud heart and none would guess her secret.

He was walking on when he saw, just ahead of him, skulking in the shadows of a box hedge, a man whom, despite his shabbiness, he instantly recognized, although he had lost sight of him for years.

For a moment he was too astonished to speak. Bertie Thrennigen was at one time a leader of the more hectic sets of society. He came of a good family, and although he had been expelled from his school, unfortunately for him he was never allowed to realize the seriousness of that happening. He was cursed with a fond mother who saw no harm in him; doubly cursed by reason of the great wealth which he inherited at her death, and dissipated a few years after he had gained control of the considerable property which came to him. A clever amateur, he had gone on to the stage, and had been moderately successful in a production which he himself had financed. The play was less successful than he; it ran for a few weeks, and took with it almost the last of his mother’s money.

All this John knew; but that the Beau Brummel of other days, the squanderer of thousands, should have come down to tramp level was astounding. He called him by name and the man turned quickly.

“And what the devil are you doing here on this fine day?” asked John.

Mr. Thrennigen was at first startled.

“How do you do—John Calthorpe, isn’t it? To tell you the truth, old boy,” he said, with great frankness, ‘I’m trying to touch Selwyn. I’m broke. There’s some money coming to me from Canada, but for the moment... I want to get next to old Selwyn.”

“Then why don’t you go up to the house and see him? He’s in bed.”

Bertie stroked his unshaven chin. He was one of the least desirable of Selwyn’s associates, and had not been to Heverswood Castle for years. In spite of the jaunty set of his hat and the startling brilliance of his cravat, John guessed him to be down and out.

“Well, the truth is, old dear”—he hesitated—”I don’t want to go up just now. What I wanted to do was to send a note up to the old boy. I want a hundred. Look at my clothes! Good Lord ... if people saw me!”

He went on to explain that he had just arrived from France. He had in truth returned from Germany, with consular aid.

As he was talking a girl came into view. She was walking slowly down a path towards one of the coverts which dotted the park.

“Who’s that, old boy?” asked Bertie with some anxiety as he peered short-sightedly at the figure.

“That is Miss Alma Keenan,” said John, and the words produced an extraordinary effect upon the man. He turned a shade paler, and the hand that went to his mouth was shaking.

“She’s not coming this way, is she?” he asked huskily. “She’s the one demnition female I don’t want to meet!”

“Why not?” asked John, astonished.

Bertie put his hand in his pocket and took out a crumpled letter.

“Give this to Selwyn, will you?” he almost pleaded. “I’m broke, Johnny—broke to the wide world! Tell him to send anything he can rake together by special messenger.”

“Do you want some money?”

Great as was his evident need, Bertie Thrennigen was in such a hurry to be gone that, with a wave of his hand, he jumped over a stile and half ran, half walked across the meadow.

What was behind this? Why was this man in such terror at the prospect of meeting Lady Heverswood’s secretary face to face? John speculated all the way back to the house.