Читать книгу WAX (A British Crime Thriller) - Ethel Lina White - Страница 7

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Riverpool had already astonished Sonia by the unexpected size of its Waxwork Gallery and also of its chief hotel. It had a third surprise for her in Alderman Cuttle's shop.

It revealed him as a man of ambition and taste. Although not a modern trade palace of marble and metal, it was unnecessarily spacious and expensively decorated in grey and silver. The carpets were thick purple pile and the assistants all wore violet.

It was run on a skeleton staff, and when Sonia entered there were only a few customers. But the apparent slackness of trade did not worry the alderman, who was laughing heartily as he chatted to Miss Yates.

The daylight showed up the hardness of the woman's face and the patches of rouge on her high cheek-bones. She wore a skin-tight black satin gown, and spectacles with an orange frame to match her hair.

She took no notice of Sonia, but stared exclusively at her clothes—her eyes passing directly from her scarf to her hat, and leaping the gap of her face. But the alderman, who looked vast in long baggy grey plus-fours, gave her an impressive welcome.

"I'm honoured to see you here, Miss Thompson. I hope you will test my claim that you can do as well here as in London or Paris. Although we never tout for custom, I think we can satisfy the most critical taste."

"I'm sure you can if Miss Yates' dress is a sample," said Sonia diplomatically.

"Ah, you've got the name already. The journalistic instinct, I suppose. You see, we know all about you. Penalty of fame."

His laugh rolled down the building, as Miss Yates beckoned to an assistant and walked away. He certainly made Sonia's shopping easy, for he had a selection of articles brought from different departments. While she worked through her list, he lingered, giving advice and chatting casually.

Although she did not intend to be drawn, she thawed gradually under the geniality of his manner. His questions ceased to appear curiosity and became genuine personal interest.

"How do you stimulate your imagination?" he asked. "Strong tea? Alcohol? Or do you smoke opium like de Quincey?"

"I don't imagine." Sonia could not resist feeling flattered at being mistaken for an experienced journalist. "I just write up facts."

"I see. I do the murder, and you tell the tale. Ha, ha. Have you decided where you are going to live?"

"Yes. Tulip House."

"Oh, no. That's not quite good enough for you. They've just converted a house, and Nurse Davis has a charming flatlet there. Why not take a little flat?"

"I don't want the bother. And they say Miss Mackintosh makes her people comfortable. Besides—this is the real reason—I like the name of the house."

"Yes, that's how ladies generally pick a horse." He lowered his voice, although the assistant had gone to another department, "I often lay money for my lady customers. Not too profitable for me. They expect their winnings, but they usually forget to pay when they lose."

Again his loud laugh rolled through the shop.

"Thanks, but I don't bet," Sonia told him.

"No vices?"

"One. I write."

He cast her a penetrating glance from his small hazel eyes.

"Do you think you will like Riverpool?" he asked.

"I've hardly seen it yet. But I'm enchanted with the Waxworks. I intend to do a series of feature articles about it."

"Oh, good. I take an interest in it myself. I believe I am the only member of the council to use our private key. As future mayor, I believe these municipal relics should be preserved. Sometimes when I've an oddment of silk or velvet, and we're slack in the workrooms, I re-dress a model. At this moment, Parnell is wearing one of my suits. He was getting too much an advertisement for the Nudists."

"I'll look out for it," said Sonia.

"Mrs. Ames will show it to you. She's a character, but she has got to be watched. She clings to her old figures until they're nearly verminous."

"I know. She's terribly upset, at present, about Mary of Scotland. I suppose—you couldn't—"

"Mary? Ah, yes. She's about done for. She'll have to be scrapped."

For a moment, Sonia thought she surprised a gleam of cruelty in his eyes, as though he was discussing the fate of a real person who had displeased him.

"Absurd," she thought. "Why should he dislike a waxwork?"

Although her shopping was finished, the alderman still lingered. When the bill was paid and the assistant went to the cash-desk for change, he spoke confidentially.

"Quite made up your mind about Tulip House?"

"Quite."

"Then, there's an end of it. But I'd like to give you a word of warning under the hat about the other lodgers."

"Miss Mackintosh has already told me about them." Sonia spoke stiffly. "I understand Miss Blair is your mannequin, and Miss Brown is Dr. Nile's dispenser. She said they were both nice quiet girls."

"So they are. Bless my soul, yes. No, it's Miss Munro—the teacher at St. Hildegarde's College. She's peculiar—to say the least of it. Very peculiar. If you're wise, you won't get friendly with her."

Before Sonia could speak, he changed the subject.

"I expect you'll find it dull at first, with no friends. My wife will ask you to tea if you care to come. We're plain people—but she'll be your mayoress next year...Well, Bessie?"

He broke off, as a pale pretty girl approached with the stereotyped mincing step of a mannequin.

"Lady Priday is outside," she told him.

"I'll come at once."

The alderman strode down the aisle like a cyclone. He made Sonia think of a tempestuous draught which creates a vacuum in its wake, for directly he had gone the shop seemed empty and flat.

When she left a few minutes later, he was chatting to a lady who was seated inside an impressive Lanchester. They appeared to be on excellent terms, for her laughter mingled with his.

Apparently he did not notice Sonia; but, after she had passed, she turned suddenly and saw his reflection in a side-window.

He was looking after her with an expression of acute dislike in his eyes.

It reminded her of the flash of hatred with which she believed he had discussed poor Mary's fate; but this time it was not her imagination.

Apart from a shock to her vanity, she was principally perplexed, for she was used to rather more than her fair share of attention.

"If I'm not his type and he's bored, he wouldn't glare like that," she thought. "No. I've done something. What? I've spent money at his shop—but he can't hate me for that."

Before she had walked far, she believed she had found the solution.

It was the Waxwork Gallery.

"Of course," she decided. "He meets his ladies there. He is afraid I might attract other people if I write it up."

She tasted an anticipatory glow of the power of the press.

She went early to Leonard Eden's house, which was not the old Georgian mansion—indicated by his monocle and stock—but a modern sun-trap with butterfly wings. During dinner Mrs. Eden kept up her record for monologue, and Sonia realised the motive for Leonard's hospitality when she saw him steal happily away to his library.

Her hostess had talked her into a state of coma, when at last she was sent back in the car, for it was raining torrents. She thought, as she drove through it, that she had never seen any place more desolate than the dark deserted town, with its streaming pavements and puddled roads.

It was like the vision of a nightmare of a hundred years ago, and she was glad when she reached the Golden Lion.

"A dirty night," said the porter, as he opened the glass doors.

"Yes," she replied, "I pity any one out in this weather."

She regretted that it was her last night in the hotel, for her bedroom seemed doubly warm and luxuriant in contrast with the rain which lashed against her panes. It was newly decorated, with white walls, striped with silver, and cupids stamped over the blue bed-hangings.

On the dressing-table was a note which had been sent by hand. As she read it, she rather repented her criticism of the alderman, for it proved that not only were his impulses hospitable, but that he was prompt in action.

It was from Mrs. Cuttle, inviting her to tea at Stonehenge Lodge. She studied the note with interest, for already she was subconsciously concerned with Mrs. Cuttle. It was written in a thick, immature writing, with the backward slant adopted by some schoolgirls when they first try to make their script appear adult. The paper was thick and the address heavily stamped.

"I'll go," decided Sonia. "How that poor woman must loathe having strange girls wished upon her."

Although she was tired, she lay awake for a long time tossing in bed; and when at last she slept, she had confused dreams. She thought Mrs. Ames was showing her round the Waxwork Gallery. She was in the nude, but Sonia accepted it as quite the right conduct for a former artist's model. The figures were people whom she had already met in the town. Alderman Cuttle, glossily tinted and wearing grey plus-fours, stared at her with blind glass eyes. Hubert Lobb was crowned with an enormous black hat, under the shade of which his features were yellow wax.

The most appealing Waxwork was a shapeless figure, with a slit bodice which exposed straw stuffing.

"Poor Mrs. Cuttle," wailed Mrs. Ames. "She's doomed."

Then the dream shifted, and Sonia found herself in a shop, which stretched out in endless vistas after the manner of a nightmare. She had urgent need of a long list of articles, but she could not get served because all the assistants were Waxworks. She recognised Henry the Eighth behind the ribbon counter, while Elizabeth wore spectacles with orange rims.

Suddenly she was awakened by the sound of shrill ringing.

Her heart leaping from shock, she jumped up in bed, and snapping on the light looked at her watch. It was ten minutes past three. At that hour in the morning, there was an urgency in the telephone bell which she feared was the prelude to bad news.

In a panic, she picked up the receiver and heard the sleepy mumble of the porter who had connected the call with the extension.

"Hallo," she called.

A voice seemed to limp over the wire. It was faint and breathless, as though the person had been running.

"Are—you—there?"

"Yes," she replied. "Who are you?"

"Are you Room Eight, Golden Lion?"

"Yes. Who are—"

"I want to speak to my cousin. Miss Smith. She's staying here, in this room."

"I'm sorry, but you've got the wrong number," Sonia told the voice.

"No, please wait. It's so desperately urgent. Don't ring off...Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"So am I. So terribly alone."

The distress in the Voice touched Sonia's pity.

"Where are you speaking from?" she asked.

"From a call-office."

Sonia looked at the outside darkness with a shudder. The rain was still streaming down the glass. When she realised that a woman was out in merciless weather at that time of the morning alone—she felt almost ashamed of her own security and comfort.

"Why don't you ask the porter if your cousin is staying here?" she asked. "You've probably been told the wrong room."

There was no reply but a strangled sob. Sonia began to wonder whether the cousin were a fiction born of necessity.

"Are you in trouble?" she ventured.

"Trouble?" The voice laughed bitterly. "I'm drowning in deep water."

"Well." Sonia hesitated and then took the plunge. "If you'll come here and ask for me, perhaps I may be able to—to help."

"No. I'm past help."

"But—I don't understand—"

"You couldn't understand. I'm desperately lonely. I wanted to hear another voice. To know someone was alive beside myself. Devils are following me...I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of?"

Two words jolted over the wire so faintly that at the time Sonia could not distinguish them. Then silence followed. She spoke several times, but got no reply. Presently she gave up and rang off.

"Pray it was a practical joke," she muttered. She looked around her bridal blue and silver room, and the festive cupids for reassurance, before she switched off the light.

Just as she was dropping off to sleep, the last two despairing words stirred inside her ear like the murmur of the sea in a shell.

"I'm doomed."