Читать книгу The Little Green Man and Other Stories - Edgar Wallce - Страница 4
II
ОглавлениеMr. Linden's agent in Bukharest was a lawyer, one Bolescue. He was a stout man, with a large, damp face, who loved food and music and baccarat. Otherwise he and discretion and probity might have walked hand in hand. As it was, he vociferated refusals, his countenance growing moister, talked wildly of "committees," fearfully of engineers, but never once of the majestic law, soon to be flaunted.
Charles Fathergill had a letter of credit for many thousands of pounds. His French was not too good; the money spoke with the purest accent. M. Bolescue, with his light heart fixed upon the gambling tables at Cinta, agreed that certain reports might be postponed, an engineer's emphatic opinion suppressed, borings now in progress slowed till the coming of Mr. John Linden, and then suspended.
"After six months' more time all subterfuges is impossibility," said M. Bolescue, who occasionally tried to speak good English.
"After six months nothing matters," replied the lank man.
His plan was to stay a fortnight in Bukharest, leaving for Constantinople to avoid John Linden. But a fortnight is a long time, and the joys of motoring in hired machines are too easily exhausted. Nor had beautiful Cinta in the hills, with its glorious surroundings of mountain and forest, any attraction for him.
On the eighth night he sent for the hall porter of the Petite Splendide, and the official came quickly, Mr. Fathergill being a lordly dispenser of tips. A short man, square-shouldered, bow-legged, resplendent in gold lace, he came, hat in hand—would have crawled.
"I'm bored, Peter," said Mr. Fathergill.
His half-eaten dinner was on the table. He had scarcely touched his wine.
"Ah!" said Peter, and beamed.
"I want amusing: somebody who can talk or sing. God! I'm sick of Bukharest."
He was justified, for into Bukharest seem to have seeped the dregs of ancient Rome—dregs that have gained a little foulness from Turk and Slav. A rococo Rome.
"Talk... seeng... hum!"
Peter's stumpy hand caressed two of his blue-black chins.
"The book I can bring... some beautiful ones—no? Talk and seeng—ah! Gott of Gotts!"
He resolved into a windmill of waving palms; noises of pride and exultation came from him.
"One who never came to the books! New—a princess, Mr. Fat'ergill! No! I swear by Gott"—he put his hand on his heart and raised his eyes piously to the ceiling—"I would not lie. You will say, Peter says this of all. But a veritable princess. Russian... from—I don't know—the Black Sea somewhere. You say yes?" He nodded in anticipation, and then his face fell. "You must be rich for this princess... wait!"
He rummaged in the tail pocket of his frock coat and found a packet of letters, fixed steel-rimmed pince-nez, and sought for something, his lips moving in silent speech—a comical, cherubic bawd of a man.
"Here—it is in French... I read. From she—to me!" He struck an attitude. "Irene... listen...."
He read rapidly. Charles could not understand half the letter: the important half was intelligible.
"All right; tell her to come up and have a glass of wine with me."
"I shall telephone," said Peter....
Ten struck when Irene came. Charles, reading a week-old Times, looked up over the newspaper at the click of the lock and saw the door opening slowly. She stood in the doorway, looking at him. Very slim and lithe and white. Her black hair dressed severely, parted in the center and framing her face. Clear-skinned, no art gave her aid there. The exquisite loveliness of her caught him by the throat. He rose instinctively, and then the faintest smile twitched the corner of her blood-red mouth.
Regal... and Russian. Russia was in her dark eyes—the inscrutable mystery of the Slav... a million æons removed from Western understanding.
"May I come in?"
Her voice was as he had expected—rather low and rich. There was a sort of husky sweetness in it that made his slow pulses beat the faster. Her English was faultless.
"May I have a cigarette?"
She was at the table, looking down at him, one hand already in the silver box.
"Sit down, won't you?" He found his voice.
He drew up a chair so that he faced her.
"Do you want me to sing—really? I'm afraid my voice isn't awfully good. Or don't you?"
He shook his head.
"What are you doing... here?" His gesture embraced not only the material part of Bukharest, but the place she occupied in its social life.
Again that faint smile.
"One must live... singing and... and talking to people. I have not really begun my career as... an entertainer. You are my first audience. It may prove to be very amusing after all."
"Very amusing," he repeated mechanically.
"So many things have seemed—impossible." She blew ring after ring of smoke between her words. "So many nights I have sat on my bed and looked at The Little Green Man and wondered... and wondered. Then I have put The Little Green Man under my pillow and said: 'Let me see tomorrow—it may be fun.'"
She was smiling at his perplexity, reached for the black velvet handbag that she had laid on the table, and, opening it, took out a small green bottle. It was fashioned like a squat Russian moujik, wearing a heavy overcoat belted at the waist. The hat was the stopper. As she held it up to the light, Fathergill saw that it was three parts filled with a fluid.
"In other words, poison. That's rather theatrical, isn't it?"
"Is it?" She was interested. "I don't know. Professor Bekinsky gave it to me the week before he was arrested. He was a Jew and a good man. They blew his brains out in front of the house where I was staying in Kieff."
Charles Fathergill was chilled: this was not amusing.
"Has it any special properties—arsenic... aconite...?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know. He called it 'knowledge'—he had a sense of humor." She made a wry little face at him, then laughed softly. It was one of those delicious chuckling laughs that are so beautiful when heard from a woman. "You would rather I sang?"
"No... only it is rather depressing, isn't it?"
She asked him who he was. On the subject of Mr. Fathergill he could be eloquent. To talk of himself without exposing his theory of life was difficult. She listened gravely. He felt that it was impossible that she could be startled.
Lovely, he thought as he talked—amazingly lovely. The contours of her face had some indefinable value that he had not found in any other. In a pause she asked:
"But you are ruthless!" (He rather liked that.) "You would stop at nothing to reach your end?"
"Nothing. Knowledge is power only when it can be utilized for the benefit of its holders."
She shook her head.
"That is strange—because it seems you have no objective. You wish to get nowhere, only somewhere better at all costs. I could understand if it was for a definite place."
He was flattered by her disapproval.
"Have you any objective?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Happiness... security. The security that a peasant workman could give his wife."
"In fact, marriage?" he smiled.
She nodded slowly and mushroomed the red end of her cigarette in the silver ash-tray.
"Yes... I would fight like a devil to retain that. It is my idea of heaven. I have a little sister—here in Bukharest."
She looked up at him slowly.
"A sister is like a baby: one does things and puts The Little Green Man under the pillow for her sake."
She seemed to shake herself as though she were throwing off an unpleasant garment. When she spoke her voice was almost gay.
"We are getting tedious. Shall I sing, or shall we talk?"
"We have talked too much," said Fathergill.
He walked to the window and pulled the curtains together.
