Читать книгу The Caravan Crime - Fergus Hume - Страница 3

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Chapter I

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Along a twisting country lane, warm and dusty, and richly colored by the dying radiance of a July sunset, jangled a battered caravan, as brown and worn as the ancient horse which lugged it reluctantly onward. From innumerable hooks on back, front, and sides dangled tin cans, iron kettles, bristling brooms, bundles of brushes, and such-like domestic necessaries, together with goat-skin rugs, woollen mats, reach-me-down suits, carpet clippers, and many pairs of stout boots. The whole crazy vehicle, with its hawkers’ stock-in-trade, creaked and groaned and labored complainingly, as if on the verge of disintegration.

Not so the driver—presumably the owner. He sat rigidly upright, holding the reins alert for adventure; slim and straight, and spare as a poplar; filled to the brim with the fiery wine of youth. Handsome, too, a woman would have declared at the sight of that clean-shaven face, bronzed, smooth-skinned, oval, with clear-cut features, and closely-clipped dark hair. The young man’s firm mouth, watchful grey eyes, strong jaw, and square chin revealed him as an inborn master of his fellows. He should have been commanding men in war, controlling some big business in peace; somehow governing, somehow dictating.

Yet here he was in a dingy grey riding suit and a shabby cap, with disreputable gaiters and heavy boots, driving an equally disreputable caravan for the traffic of gipsy merchandise. His being in such a galley would certainly have startled M. Jourdain, that innocent gentleman, who was only surprised when he found virtue in unexpected places. A country policeman, who was strolling along the lane, knew nothing of Moliere’s hero, but he felt much the same when the dreary old caravan rumbled round the corner. The enigmatic driver was the very last person he expected to meet in his back-water of Life’s tumultuous river.

On the instant Constable Selwin’s right hand went to his helmet, as his broad, round face expressed excessive and very natural surprise. “Mr. Lawson!”

“Selwin!” Lawson spoke in an easy, imperious tone, friendly, but with more than a hint of mastership. “We parted at Capetown five years ago to meet in this Rip Van Winkle country. What the dickens are you doing here?”

“Sarley village policeman, sir; married, with a family of two; got into the force six months after reaching Albert Docks. And you, sir?” Selwin ran an observing eye over the driver’s dress and the driver’s caravan. “Ain’t you doing this for a sort o’ bet, sir?”

“For a living, Selwin. After another hunting trip—sorry you weren’t with me that time—I took the trail to South America, and had a ton-hole time in the wilds. Came home last year to find father dead, leaving me nothing but his blessing.”

“The colonel dead, sir?”

“Two years dead. Lost all his money in some speculation, and I had to earn a living somehow. I saved a gipsy’s old mother from drowning, and when he died nine months ago he left me this caravan and the horse. As I couldn’t stick an office, I took to trading round the country.”

“But a gentleman like you, Mr. Lawson—”

“Oh, that’s all right, Selwin. I’m having a topping time, although I don’t meet with such adventures as we did when we were on that hunting trip in Africa. So there you are. I want to camp hereabouts tonight.”

“Sarley Wood’s the place,” volunteered the policeman, promptly pointing a guiding thumb over his left shoulder. “Quarter of a mile on, Sir; glade in the heart of it, sir, with water for the horse. And no one will say anything if I don’t—which,” added Selwin, viciously, “ain’t my style with a gentleman who saved me from being eaten by a lion like Daniel.”

“Who wasn’t eaten,” answered Lawson, with a laugh. “Look me up tonight.”

“Yes, sir!” Selwin saluted again. “Anything I can do, sir?”

Lawson fished out a shilling from his pocket. “Tobacco!”

“Navy cut, sir.” The policeman fielded the coin dexterously. “I know the sort, sir, none better, after two years of hunting and shooting along o’ you, sir,” and he stood looking after the caravan with an admiring air—for the driver—not for the vehicle—which excited his disgust.

Dick—that was the diminutive of Lawson’s baptismal name to his few and tried friends—easily found the wood, and less easily the glade in the heart of the wood. Here, near a pond of clear water and under the whispering foliage of a spreading beech, he halted his disreputable caravan to prepare camp as in old African days. But there was no ready-handed Selwin to assist him now, as then, and he regretted the lost comradeship. However, with the methodical thoroughness of long experience he unharnessed the ancient steed, haltered him, and selected a grazing ground. Nigh to this was a narrow tangled path—leading to nowhere so far as he knew—and he roped the animal to a birch tree at its entrance. Afterwards he lighted a fire, filled his kettle from the bubbling spring which fed the pond, and made ready the frying pan for eggs and bacon.

By the time he had arranged his tin dinner service, with knife, fork, and spoon, on a coarse white cloth spread over a convenient stump, the water was boiling and the contents of the pan spluttering. So Dick brewed hot and strong tea to enjoy a truly excellent supper, which was very acceptable after his long drive from Tarhaven to this hamlet in the wilderness. Not that he had seen Sarley Village, or wished to see it for the moment, but he knew that it was within exploring distance. Meanwhile he was very well satisfied with his solitude, and reclined lazily by the fire, smoking thoughtfully and considering a somewhat problematic future. The outlook was not encouraging, for he seemed to be at the bottom of the abyss. Regularly the distant Sarley church clock chimed the hours and the quarters; but so deep in thought was the young fellow that he was amazed when 10 booms of the bell wakened him to the swift passing of time.

“Ten o’clock, b’ Jove!” he said, speaking aloud after the fashion of the solitary, and rose to stretch himself with a comfortable yawn. “Time for bye-bye. Shall I sleep in the open, or under cover?”

A light hand swept along the grass told him that dew was beading every blade so Lawson sauntered into the caravan with an electric torch for his night-lamp. On the bed he found an envelope, which must have fallen unawares from his pocket. As it contained a possible answer to his cogitations regarding his future he took out the letter to refresh his memory. The epistle directed him to seek out Lady Hamber of Sarley Court, with a view to employment as a bailiff on her estate. Attached was a visiting card inscribed with the name ‘Oliver Bollerd,’ and a few pencilled words recommending the bearer. Nodding his head in approval, and wondering if the introduction would lead to anything, Dick restored letter and card to the envelope, that to his inner pocket, and yawned again as he proceeded to take off his Norfolk jacket. Before his arms were out of the sleeves he paused and listened, on the alert immediately, like a startled stag. In the stillness there came a cry to his ear—the cry of a woman in pain, such as he had heard several times in Africa. The note of suffering, strange in so solitary a neighborhood, sent him shuffling back into his jacket and headlong down the caravan steps. As he leapt towards the dying fire he heard a low moan in the dark distance, and flung on a bundle of brushwood to excite a blaze. But the sufferer was beyond the bound of the luminous circle, and only when Lawson heard her moan again did he discover her whereabouts. A few strides brought him to the entrance to the path near which the horse was tethered, and he swore inwardly at his neglect to bring the torch, which would have given him sufficient light for necessary examination of sex and condition. But it was a woman, sure enough, as he soon became certain when she explained her outcry. “I stumbled over the horse’s rope, and have sprained my ankle,” she murmured in a low and very musical voice.

“Sorry, Madam,” Lawson went down on his knees. “I didn’t expect anyone to come down the path, or I should have tied up my horse elsewhere.”

“You are a gentleman!”

“Of sorts, I suppose.”

“Oh, but you are. I can tell by your voice. Help me; my foot—” she moaned.

“With permission, madam.” Dick picked her up gently and carried her toward the fire, now blazing briskly. Yet even as he did so she feebly resisted his masterful action.

“No! No! No!” She spoke faintly but insistently. “Put me down.”

“Nonsense. I can’t leave you in the darkness with a sprained ankle!” He placed her beside the fire and ran back to the caravan. On the way he marvelled, as did Christabel when she met the Darke Ladye in the magic wood. This lady was not dark, but the fairest of the fair, as he knew from the glimpse he had caught of feathery golden hair; but she was just as lovely and just as richly dressed. What an adventure! Here was a straying damsel, arrayed in a fashionable dinner gown, and wrapped in a gold-embroidered cloak, coming from nowhere into his life. Dick, wondering profoundly at the beneficence of destiny, strode back to his angel, entertained unexpectedly, if not unawares, with an eiderdown quilt, a pillow, a bottle of embrocation, and a few hastily-contrived bandages. The girl, having drawn her glittering cloak closely up to her neck and over her face, so that only a pair of angry eyes were visible, greeted her good Samaritan in a few muffled words the reverse of sweet.

“I wish you wouldn’t!” she snapped, and her voice was as angry as were her eyes.

“My dear young lady, you don’t know what is good for you,” said Lawson, coolly placing the pillow under her head and the quilt over her body.

“If you are a gentleman you will let me go,” she flashed out indignantly.

“Oh by all means.” He rose from his knees and stepped back with a bow.

She made a valiant effort to rise, and failed. “You see I can’t!” she said crossly.

“I have seen that ever since I picked you up over yonder,” the young man assured her dryly, and thinking how excessively feminine she was, and how charming were her contradictions. “Let me have a look at the ankle.”

“No!” She tucked her slender feet in the smartest of evening shoes under the hem of her gown. “Go away. Oh!” Out came the right foot, for, very naturally, the change of position enhanced the pain.

“Don’t be silly,” said her comforter, roughly. “I must rub your foot with this embrocation and bandage it somehow.”

“Are you a doctor?” she asked mistrustfully.

“Would I be rambling round the country in a caravan if I were a doctor—”

“I don’t know—that is—”

“You don’t know anything, not even how impossible you are as an invalid.”

“Oh!” she frowned, and winced—”how very rude.”

“And how very true. Come now, I won’t beat you. Pull off your shoe and stocking.”

Daunted by his imperious manner, and feeling with feminine intuition that he was to be thoroughly trusted, she obeyed. Tenderly the man rubbed the delicate ankle with the strong biting mixture, bandaged it carefully, and stood up to let her put on her shoe; the stocking, of course, being impossible. Then he discovered that she had fainted with the pain and that the cloak had fallen away from her face.