Читать книгу The Daughters of the Night - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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Frank, a tall handsome American of thirty-five, was coming back from the tennis court, and he greeted Jim and his sister nom afar.

"I've had a visit from your assistant," he said, after the horses had been taken away and Margot had gone into the house.

"From Sanderson?" said Jim in astonishment, "what the dickens did he want? Have you overdrawn your account?"

Frank grinned.

"Nothing so prosaic as that," he said. "No, it was on quite an interesting business he came. By the way he's something of an amateur detective, I suppose you know?"

Jim groaned.

"Good Lord!" he said dismally, "he hasn't been up here rustling clues or anything of that kind, has he?"

The other laughed.

"Not exactly," he said, "but a month ago he asked me for an introduction to a personal friend of mine. I happened to mention when I was talking with Sanderson at the bank that John Rogers, our District Attorney, was a friend of mine. Rogers has an extraordinary knowledge of criminals and has quite the best library on criminology in the United States. This was the fact I let fall to your Mr Sanderson and which resulted in my giving him a letter of introduction to John and his consequent visit today to see me. Apparently John has put him in possession of important data and Sanderson wished one or two matters explained—such as the functions of our State Governors and their power to grant pardons."

"What is he after?" asked Jim after a puzzling moment. "He never confides in me, you know; in fact, I rather jibe him about his criminal investigations, and, in consequence, we are not exactly the most intimate of friends."

Frank had led the way to his den as they were talking. He took up a sheet of notepaper from his table and read it over.

"I jotted down a few items after he had gone," he said, "and really, Bartholomew, your Mr Sanderson isn't as eccentric as he seems. This is the point. There is in England at this present moment what he romantically calls 'The Big Four of Crime.' Three of them are citizens of my own dear native land, and one, I believe, is a Wop—or a Spaniard—who poses as an Italian, named Romano. The fact that Romano is a criminal has been established. The other three, about whom there are known records, are a Mr and Mrs Trenton—Doc Trenton is the man—I've got most of these facts from Sanderson—and a particularly well-experienced forger named Talbot. These are the names by which they call themselves, of course, and I wouldn't vouch for their accuracy."

"But what on earth has this to do-" began Jim.

"Wait a bit," said Frank, "I want to tell you this much. I think your man has got on the right track. There's no doubt whatever about the existence of the four persons whose doings he is following. They are very much alive and kicking. The police of most of the countries in Europe, certainly the police of America, know them and their exploits very well, for at one time or another they have all been in the hands of the law: The work that Sanderson has been engaged upon, apparently, has been the identification of these four law breakers with a gang which, for the past year, has been engaged in jewel robberies in Paris and London."

Jim Bartholomew nodded.

"I have good reason for knowing there is such a gang," he said. "Almost every post from the Bankers' Association contains some fresh warning and some new particular of their methods. I suppose it was from these 'confidentials' that Sanderson got his idea?"

The "confidentials" were the secret documents which bankers in all countries receive, not only from their own associates but from the police headquarters.

"He told me as much," said Frank. "What Sanderson had really been doing is this. He has been canvassing the police forces of the world by correspondence, getting particulars of the jewel and bank thieves known to them and, when it is possible, their photographs. That is why I was able to help him with my friend the District Attorney who has written to Sanderson telling him that he has sent him on a batch of information and photographs. They hadn't turned up when Sanderson came here, but the American mail comes in scraps, as you probably know."

"What is Sanderson's idea as to the future?" asked Jim, puzzled. "Does he aspire to be a policeman? I suppose he didn't take you that much into his confidence?"

Frank laughed.

"That is just what he did," he said. "As a matter of fact, he unbosomed himself of his ambitions in a most highly confidential way but as he did not extract from me any promise that I would not pass the information on I can tell you. I can rely upon you, Bartholomew, not to rag him?"

"Of course," protested Jim. "Had I known he was taking the thing so seriously and doing such excellent work I would have given him all the assistance in my power."

"Sanderson's idea, and his chief ambition, is to create a Bankers' Protection Corps," Frank went on, "and it is quite an excellent scheme. His plan is to take the likeliest men from the banking world, clerks and so on, and train them to the detection of banking crimes—and here comes Jones to call us to tea."

He rose, and Jim preceded him from the room. In the hall Frank Cameron changed the subject abruptly.

"I shall miss you quite a lot," he said, "and I am hoping that fate will bring us back to this delightful spot."

Jim was as fervently hoping the same, but did no more than murmur a conventional agreement.

"The voyage is going to do my wife a lot of good, I hope. She has not been quite the same since her sister died."

It was the first time that Frank Cameron had mentioned his wife's illness, though Jim had had many talks with Margot on the matter.

"She died quite suddenly in the United States, didn't she?"

Frank nodded.

"Yes, we were in Paris at the time. One morning we got an urgent cable and Cecile went back to New York next day—she insisted upon going alone—she arrived there just in time, poor girl. She has never quite recovered from the shock. It has clouded her life most tragically—by the way you never talk to Cecile about her sister, do you?"

Jim shook his head.

"No. I have never mentioned her, and it is not a subject I should care to raise."

Frank nodded his approval.

Margot had changed from her riding kit and was sitting in the drawing-room with her sister-in-law. Mrs Cameron rose and came towards him with outstretched hands. She was a stately pretty woman of thirty with flawless features and dark eyes that had always seemed to Frank to hold the shadow of tragedy.

"Thank heaven, I've finished my packing," she said.

"When and how do you leave?" asked Jim. "Tomorrow?"

"Early on Saturday morning," said Cecile Cameron, handing him his tea. "We're going by car to Southampton and sending the baggage on overnight. I want to stay here until the very last moment and it will be rather fun motoring in the early morning."

"I have ordered fabulous sums to be at your disposal tomorrow," laughed Jim. "I don't know what my general manager will say when he knows that the bank has lost four such excellent clients."

"Four?" said Mrs Cameron. "Who else is leaving beside us three?"

"Mrs Markham of Tor Towers will be a fellow passenger of yours—and she's American, by the way."

"Markham? Do you know her, Frank?"

Frank Cameron shook his head.

"She is not a New Yorker," explained Jim. "I believe she comes from Virginia. She is a regular visitor to this country and as a matter of fact she is coming back to us and has deposited her jewels with us—I wish she hadn't. I hate the responsibility of carrying a hundred thousand pounds' worth of diamonds in my vault, and as soon as the good lady is on the sea I shall send them up to London for safe custody."

"Mrs Markham," said Frank thoughtfully. "It is curious we have never met her. Is she young or old?"

"Young," said Jim. "I have never seen her myself, except at a distance. She leaves the management of her domestic affairs to her butler, a pompous gentleman named Winter—a typical superior domestic servant. Sanderson has conducted all the business dealings we have had with Mrs Markham, so I know very little about her, except that she is a most agreeable lady, has tons of money, is a widow, and spends most of her time painting sketches of Dartmoor. But I don't suppose you three good people will want any fourth, and certainly you'll find scores of friends on the ship. Have you a suite?"

Frank nodded.

"We have Suite B, which is the best on the ship, and Cecile has a great friend going out, Mrs Dupreid—Jane is sailing, isn't she?" He turned to his wife.

"Yes, I had a letter from her this morning. You're quite right, Mr Bartholomew; one doesn't want a great crowd on a ship, and sea voyages depress me horribly. I don't think Jane Dupreid is going to be much of an acquisition to our party, Frank." She smiled quietly. "Jane is a bad sailor and takes to her bunk the moment the ship leaves the wharf and stays there until it passes Sandy Hook."

The conversation drifted to ships and passengers and their eccentricities, and was mainly between Frank Cameron and his wife and Jim. Margot Cameron was unusually silent and thoughtful, and it was Cecile who drew attention to the fact.

"You're rather quiet, Margot; what is the matter?"

Margot Cameron roused from her reverie with a start.

"How terrible that my silences are remarkable!" she said, with a little laugh. "I suppose it is rather like when the engine stops at sea, it wakes you up! To be perfectly frank, I was feeling a little sad at leaving this place."

Frank looked from his sister to Jim and back to his sister again and smiled.

"Oh yes," he said dryly.

"I think I must be getting old," said Margot, "but somehow of late I hate change."

"I rather dislike it myself," said Frank, "but either you or I have got to go, Margot. We have to settle up Aunt Martha's estate."

He saw Jim's eyes light up and grinned.

"That sounds as though we are going to make a short stay and then home again, but I really ought to see the mining properties I am interested in and that means spending the winter in California."

Jim groaned.

"Well," he said grimly "you'll find me here with the other permanent fixtures of the town, and maybe when you return you will find plates affixed to various buildings to commemorate your stay. I shall be a deadly dull man."

"Perhaps a circus will happen along," suggested Margot helpfully.

"There are two courses open to me," said the solemn Jim. "The first is to allow myself to get into the whirl of local gaiety and take up sheep breeding, and the second is to rob the bank and shoot up the town. There is every incentive to rob the bank," he added thoughtfully.

"The beautiful Mrs Markham's diamonds—"

"Why do you always prefix Mrs Markham with the word 'beautiful'?" asked the girl, not without a certain undercurrent of irritation.

"For lack of a better adjective," was the cryptic reply.

"Well, I shouldn't shoot up the town until we're well on our way," said Frank, passing his cup back to Cecile.

"Phew!" said Jim suddenly, "what a wonderful ring!"

He was looking at Mrs Cameron's outstretched hand and she flushed slightly.

"It is lovely, isn't it?" said Cameron quietly "Let me show it to Bartholomew."

She hesitated, then drew the ring from her finger and handed it to the visitor. It was a broad band of gold and had the appearance of having been cut rather than moulded. It was the design which had attracted Bartholomew's attention, and now he carried it to the window to examine it more carefully for the design was an unusual one. Three serpent-headed women, delicately and beautifully carved, every line of their sombre faces exquisitely modelled, though each face was not more than an eighth of an inch in length.

He examined it admiringly, noted the twining snakes and a hint of wings, and brought the ring back to Mrs Cameron.

"The Daughters of the Night," he said. "A beautiful piece of work!"

"The Daughters of the Night?" Mrs Cameron frowned.

"Yes, they are the three Furies, aren't they? The Roman deities who brought punishment to evil-doers."

"I never heard them called the Daughters of the Night," Cecile Cameron spoke slowly as she replaced the ring on her finger. "The Daughters of the Night!"

"My mythology is a little bit rusty," smiled Jim, "but that is the name by which I remember them. It is certainly a lovely piece of work."

"You are fortunate to see it," said Frank. "My wife only wears it one day in the year, the anniversary of her father's death. Isn't that so, darling?" Mrs Cameron nodded.

"Father gave one to my sister and myself," she said. "He was a great connoisseur and had had this ring copied from one which is now in the Louvre. It hasn't"—she faltered—"it hasn't very pleasant memories, but Daddy was so proud of them—it was his own work—that I wear mine once a year for his sake."

She did not mention her dead sister, but Jim guessed that that was where the unhappiness of the memory lay.

"It is rather valuable," said Jim, "because the ring at the Louvre was stolen in '99 if you remember, and today this is the only copy in the world." Margot had risen and walked to the piano and was playing softly and Jim had come to accept Margot's playing as part of the daily pleasure which life held for him. He pulled up a chair to her side.

"Play me something that will soothe my jagged nerves," he said.

"You've no right to have jagged nerves—a boy like you," she said, and stopped.

"This time next week where shall we be?" quoth he. "What ship are you going on?"

"On the Ceramia."

"On the Ceramia?" he lifted his eyebrows.

"Great Scott! Old man Stornoway is chief officer and old Smythe is chief engineer."

She turned on the stool, her hands on her lap.

"And who may these old gentlemen be?" she asked. "Frank!" she called over her shoulder. "Come and hear about the doddering friends of Mr Bartholomew."

"Well, they're not really old men," explained Jim, "but they are very great pals of mine. You see, during the war I was in the Navy. I was almost everything that you can be in the Navy from stoker to Intelligence Officer. Stornoway was the skipper of B. 75, which was a special service destroyer, and I was Intelligence Officer on her. We were running a patrol to the north of Scotland. Smythe was chief engineer and so we got to know one another rather well, and when we were picked up—"

"Picked up?" said the girl. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you see, we were torpedoed rather neatly one cold February day and we three were in the water together for about twelve hours, and naturally under those circumstances you get to know a man."

The girl laughed.

"Did you rescue them from a watery grave?" she asked sardonically. "Or did they rescue you?"

"Well, we sort of rescued one another," explained Jim hazily.

The girl sensed behind that awkward statement a story of unrecorded heroism and resolved to seek out Stornoway at the earliest opportunity and discover the truth of this incident.

Jim would have stayed to dinner but for the fact that he had a long report which must be written that night, and the girl walked with him down the drive.

"So you're going to be a bank robber after I leave, are you?" she said.

"Why not?" he protested stoutly. "It's easy. Do you know, Margot, I have a criminal mind."

"I've often suspected you of having a weak mind, but never a criminal mind," said the girl, "but I suppose that—"

"In what respect have I a weak mind?"

"Well," she drawled, "I think you lack resolution, and in some respects self-confidence."

"Good lord!" he gasped. "I thought I was the most sure and certain man in the world."

"In some respects you are. In fact, in some respects you are inclined to be bumptious," she went on remorselessly, "but in others—"

He stopped and faced her.

"Now you've got to tell me where I've failed. Don't leave me in this benighted land—for benighted it will be when you have gone—with that untold mystery taxing all my mental resources. In what respect have I failed?"

"I think you're very—English," she said.

"In other words, pudden-headed," said Jim. "But surely you are not going to blame me because I am a citizen of the most downtrodden race in the world."

She laughed.

"I think you're dense, that's all."

"Oh, is that all?" he said sarcastically. And then more seriously:

"Suppose I am willingly dense. Suppose I know that within my reach is the greatest prize in all the world?" His voice shook ever so slightly.

"Suppose I know there is somebody so generous and so fine and so immensely gracious that she would give herself to me—I who have just enough money to realise my poverty. Suppose I knew all this and had resolved in my heart that for her happiness and mine I must come to her with an accomplishment behind me, would you say that I lacked confidence?"

She did not speak, but laid her hand within his, and in silence they walked the rest of the way.

"I shall see you tomorrow," she said without looking at him. "You wouldn't like to come to Southampton to see us off?"

"That's an idea," he said. "It will be rather painful, but I—yes. I'll do it. I'll come down by the morning train."

"Why not come down by car with us?"

"I can't do that," he said. "I am due in London on Saturday morning, but I'll go up by the midnight train to London, see my general manager, and catch the boat train to Southampton. Good night!" He held out his hand and she looked round.

Behind them the groom was leading Jim's horse.

"Good night," she said, "and don't bring your horse tomorrow: I can't go riding."

"Will you come into town tomorrow with your sister?" he asked.

"Possibly," she nodded. He swung into his saddle and the girl was gently rubbing the nose of the horse.

"Jim," she asked suddenly "if—if you are going to make your fortune...you will try something very rapid, won't you?"

He stooped over and laid his hand upon her head and she raised her eyes to his.

"It will be something infernally rapid," he said.