Читать книгу WAX (A British Crime Thriller) - Ethel Lina White - Страница 6

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Early next morning, Sonia arrived at the offices of the Riverpool Chronicle. It was a ramshackle building in the old part of the town, and not far from the Waxwork Gallery. The district itself was rather unsavoury. Instead of attaining the dignity of age, it seemed incrusted with the accretions of Time, as though the centuries—tramping through it—had spattered it with the refuse of years.

But Leonard Eden—the owner and editor—liked the neighbourhood. His paper was not only a rich man's hobby, but a refuge from a talkative wife. He was happy in his shabby sunny room, overlooking the stagnant green river, for he was not allowed to talk at home, and he had views which he liked to express on paper.

He left the practical end to his staff; young Wells, the sub editor; Lobb, the reporter; and Horatio, the office boy and the office authority on spelling. If they were not enthusiastic over his news of an amateur addition, Leonard appeared blandly unconscious of the fact.

He was a numb, courteous gentleman, with a long pale face, a monocle, and a stock; and, although he was popularly credited with the brain of a sleepy-pear, his hobby cost him considerably less than a racehorse or a lady.

When he interviewed Sonia at his London hotel, she believed that her appointment was due to the fact that he recognised her flair for journalism. Bubbling with enthusiasm, she lost herself in a labyrinth of words to which he barely listened.

He belonged to a generation that delighted in a pretty ankle, and resented that fact that when skirts rose, imagination ceased to soar. So he admired Sonia's lashes, while he decided that it would be a kindly deed to let her rub off her rough edges for a few months at his office, at a nominal salary. Besides being his god-daughter, he was a relative; her father had recently remarried, and the family horizon was dark with storm.

As for her fine future, he was confident that some young man would soon remove her, painlessly and permanently, from the sphere of journalism.

He lost no time in taking her to the main office and losing her there. Lobb was out, but Wells' dog occupied the editorial chair, while Wells scraped his pipe as a preliminary to work.

Leonard murmured a languid introduction.

"Mum-mm Wells. Miss Thompson. Did I mention her to you, Wells? Mr. Wells will find you some odds and ends and explain anything. Don't overdo it to-day."

There was a moment of stunned silence after the door had closed, while Horatio, in the background, hurriedly smoothed his hair with moistened palms.

"Didn't you expect me?" asked Sonia.

"Well, we'd heard a rumour," replied Wells, "but we didn't actually believe in you."

"Isn't that like my cherished Leonard? By the way, what d'you call him? The 'Chief?'"

"No. 'Buns.'"

"Oh...Well, will you call me 'Thompson,' and treat me just like a man? I mean, I don't want to cramp your style, or have preferential treatment."

In spite of her overture, young Wells already felt the first hint of restriction as he looked at her. She was an attractive young creature, with slanting butterfly brows, generous red lips, and the greyhound build of her generation. She wore the standardised fashion of swagger-coat and small hat, tilted over one eye, but her vivid face saved her from the reproach of mass production.

Young Wells knew instinctively that she was free from herd instinct. She would lead—and he would follow. She would smash precedent, create chaos, upset routine.

Perhaps, he heard, too, faintly in the distance, the clang of closing doors, and fought against his fate; for man is, by nature, a free animal and dreads the thought of the inevitable cage.

But while he regarded her bleakly, he found favour in her eyes. He was rather short and thickset, and she liked his broad shoulders and three-cornered smile.

"It's the dream of my life to work on a paper," she said. "What are you, by the way?"

"I'm rather a composite person," Wells told her. "I'm the sub and the sporting editor, and Kathleen, and Uncle Dick."

"I'll be Kathleen."

"No you won't. You're too young for the Women's Page. You have no idea of the questions you'll have to answer. I've come to the conclusion women have no refinement."

"Don't be absurd...Are you all the staff?"

"No. Lobb's our star turn. He's out now. He covers the water front and I cover the pubs. And here's Horatio."

Soma's smile made Horatio—who was impressionable—her slave.

"Are you going to be a journalist, too?" she asked.

"No, miss. An editor. My mother says there's always plenty of room at the top."

"You go and tell that to the old man, and study his reaction," advised Wells. Then he glanced at the clock. "Ten to eleven, you young slacker."

The youth vanished, after another languishing glance at Sonia. She looked around the big untidy room, with the frosted-glass windows, the sun-blistered paint, the ink-stained table, the battered typewriters—and then she sighed.

"Not a bit like the Pictures?" asked Wells. "One more illusion gone west?"

"It's very peaceful. But I did think of it like—like you said. You know. Telephones ringing like mad and every one using language. Doesn't a big story ever break?"

"Oh, yes. Sometimes a woman sets her chimney on fire on her neighbour's washing day."

"Then—it's not, a real newspaper office?"

"Yes, it is—if you're a real journalist."

There was a rasp in young Wells' voice, which Sonia resented in spite of her plea for non-preferential treatment.

"Well, I've had no experience," she confessed.

"But you're here. That's your answer."

There was a brief silence. Then Wells' dog got down from his chair and pointedly laid his head on Soma's knee, after a preliminary sniff. Young Wells took the hint and relented.

"You shall be Kathleen," he said. "As a matter of fact, a lady has just told Buns that she reads my page to get a good laugh. He had me on the carpet. He's very sensitive over the paper, remember...And you can have the Children's Corner, Film Notes, Poultry World, Gardening—"

"But I don't know—"

"Just lift them from any reliable source. Three parts The Gardener, and one part Beverley Nichols is the mixture for our Gardening Column—"

He broke off at a tinkling sound outside the door.

"Miss Thompson," he said solemnly, "you are about to share in our great moment, when the whole building vibrates with dynamic life."

"Oh, do you mean going to press?" asked Sonia eagerly.

"No."

"But—it can't be putting the paper to bed?"

"Where did you learn your weird language? No. Here it is." He flung open the door. "Eleven o'clock cocoa."

He laughed at Sonia's disappointed face, as Horatio entered with a tray and three steaming cups.

"It's an inspired idea," he said. "Buns always has it, so we have it too, to keep us from going Red."

Sonia enjoyed the cocoa-party, even while she dimly resented it. She had pictured her plunge into journalism as a dive into molten emotions, and a frantic race against time, to the stamp of overdriven machines.

But, even while she sipped her cocoa, while the clock ticked lazily on, a new element was creeping into her life. Young Wells looked at her with fresh interest.

"I'm wondering why girls leave home," he said presently.

"Meaning me?" she asked. "Well, you shall have the story of my life, but I warn you it's pathetic...Nobody loves me at home. The only time I was popular with my father was before I was born. I believe he mistook me for a boy. And he's just gone and married a girl who was at school with me."

"Poor girl," said Wells with feeling. "I bet you gave her hell."

"You bet I did." Sonia added, "For one ghastly moment, I thought you were going to pity me. Such a lot of men have poor-kidded me since the marriage. And I loathe it."

"I knew that. Here's Lobb. Trust him to turn up in time for the cocoa. He's a meal hound."

Sonia looked curiously at the tall gaunt man who had just entered. He was a striking figure for Riverpool, for he wore a cape and slouched black felt hat. Yet, in spite of appearing shabby, unhappy, and ill, his ravaged face held some of the dark broken beauty of a fallen angel.

"This is our Miss Thompson," said Wells. "She's real."

Sonia saw the light leap up in Hubert Lobb's sunken eyes, like fire rising through charred ash. He stared at her almost thirstily, as though he were refreshed by her youth.

"We'd come to regard you as fabulous. Rather like a unicorn," he explained, as he dropped down on a chair and drank his cocoa quickly, draining his cup.

Sonia, who was watching him, wondered compassionately whether he had come out without a proper breakfast. After glancing at his dusty coat, she decided that he was at the mercy of a neglectful landlady.

He met her speculative gaze with a half-smile.

"A new venture, isn't it?" he asked. "I hope you'll let me help you in any difficulty. But—you won't be here long."

"No," Sonia spoke eagerly. "This is only a jumping-off place for Manchester or Birmingham. After that, London."

"Ah. If I'd one grain of your enthusiasm, plus my weight of failures, I should be—" He pointed upwards and added, "Not here. As things are, Horatio has the only chance of being in the first flight."

"All the same, I rather envy you. You've lived. I feel so—unbegun."

Young Wells, who had noticed Sonia's interest in his colleague, thought it time to intervene.

"How's your wife, Lobb?"

"Not too well, thanks."

"And the kid?"

"Perfectly fit."

"Coming home for the holidays?"

"I suppose so." Lobb rose, the light in his eyes extinguished. "I suppose I must do some work—. or what passes for work here. By the way, Mrs. Forbes, wife of the chemist in Flannel Street, had her bag snatched last night."

"That's new for Riverpool. We're looking up. Does she know who lifted it?"

"No, too dark. She says someone snatched it and was round the corner in a flash."

"Much chink?"

"The week's housekeeping money...Do you want to see me, sir?"

He spoke to Leonard Eden, who stood drooping in the doorway.

"No, Lobb. Sonia, my wife is expecting you to dinner. As early as you can get out. Better not start here to-day. Just get the feel of things. Wells will give you a copy of the Chronicle for you to study. If you want anything for the office, my wife has an account at Cuttle's. Have it charged. Good-bye, my dear...Wells, downstairs, please."

Leonard drifted from the room, and Wells prepared to follow him. He stopped, however, to speak to Sonia.

"What's wrong here? Do you really want to shop?"

"Of course. I simply must have an amusing waste-paper basket. And a vase. I can't work without flowers. And a cushion. Shall I get some for the rest of you?"

"Please do." Wells spoke with deadly sweetness. "My colour's blue. I can't work unless everything's blue. But it must match my eyes."

As the door slammed, Horatio, who had been typing furiously to impress Sonia, moistened his lips nervously.

"Oh, Miss Thompson, if you got him a cushion, he'd pitch it into the fire. Why, he's the best centre-forward the team's ever had. And he's captain."

"Then he should play back. I always did. Hockey, I mean. We'll discuss the point one day, Horatio. Good-bye, angel."

She patted Wells' airedale, whose name was "Goal," and then glanced into the inner office, where Lobb was rattling away on a defective machine.

"Apparently a story has broken at last," she murmured.

Since bag-snatching had become epidemic, she could not enter into the general excitement, although she realised that it was a local novelty.

But no one, with the exception of the victim, knew of the exceptional feature connected with this special theft.