Читать книгу Anybody's Pearls - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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From his post of observation in an obscure corner of the lounge, Dick saw Michael Rulon descend to the men’s restaurant for his dinner. He followed. Messrs. Filbert et al, whose friendly attentions had now become rather embarrassing to Dick, were out of the way for the moment, having gone to don their dinner coats, so they could sit in the main restaurant, and overlook the girls.

In the smoking room, as it was called in this hotel, Rulon chose a little table with the panelled wall at his side. Dick sat in the centre of the room, and a little behind him, where he could watch his man without himself attracting his attention. He was impressed anew with the man’s power. He had shoulders on him like a mantelpiece. True to his upbringing, Rulon ordered a great beefsteak which was served half raw, followed by pie. He stoked it silently, looking neither to the right nor the left.

What does such a man think about? Dick wondered. The spectacle of one so perfectly self-contained, made the youngster feel sophomorish and frothy. He doesn’t give a damn! Dick thought with a sort of awe. How foolish for a kid like you to think of handling such a case-hardened guy! But Dick couldn’t leave him alone, either; the man fascinated him. Dick had no working plan now; but only an overmastering desire to learn the inwardness of this situation.

After he had finished eating, Rulon sat on, smoking long black cigars, and ordering up one double Scotch after another. He drank his whisky straight. Sipping his ginger ale, Dick watched him put down the potent spirit with growing astonishment. Apparently it had not the least effect. Rulon betrayed no interest in his surroundings, but kept his head slightly lowered as if brooding on his own thoughts. It must be getting him, Dick thought. I know the type. Whisky makes him quieter and quieter, but he’s like a raging furnace inside. A word may set him off.

A long time passed. Dick could not leave Rulon alone. The thought of bracing that lowering desperado gave him the cold shivers, but he knew he would have to do it in the end. Dick never had been able to take a dare from himself. Once a dangerous thought suggested itself, it teased him until he gave it its way. After several false starts, he got up with a fast beating heart and making a detour around the room, shaped a course that would bring him back alongside Rulon’s table.

“Hello, you’re an American,” he said.

Rulon slowly raised his sullen glance. “Well, what of it?” he said coolly.

“So’m I,” said Dick, pulling his well-known cheerful idiot stuff, “and as the two of us seem to be playing the title rôle in Alone in London, I thought ...”

“I don’t feel the need of company,” said Rulon with a hard look.

Dick, all panicky inside, nevertheless sat down opposite the other. “Oh, you can’t strike me,” he said. “I used to sell lightning rods. What are you drinking?”

Rulon stared at him grimly and queerly. Evidently he was not accustomed to be thus bearded by youth. Evidently it amused him rather. “Double Scotch,” he growled. “The damn stuff is watered.”

“Double Scotch for my friend,” said Dick to the waiter. “Bring me the same as I had before.”

Dick perceived that Rulon, lacking his hat, was at least twenty years older than he had appeared on the street. But marvellously well preserved. It was only his expression that revealed a half a century of cruelty and cynicism. To look straight into his face was like getting a glimpse of hell. The influence of the whisky was apparent, too. He was poisoned with it. His eyes were bloodshot and full of subconscious pain, and his lip curled. If I said the wrong word he’d think nothing of leaning across the table, and smashing my skull with a blow, thought Dick.

“Well, it’s good to hear the old twang,” said Dick, hoping that his voice did not sound as hollow as he felt.

“Huh! there’s no lack of it around here,” rumbled Rulon. “This joint is run exclusively for American suckers. Makes me tired the way they rush over here and ask the English to do them.”

“Well, you’re here,” said Dick.

“I come here to make money out of the English, not to spend it on them.”

“What’s your business?” asked Dick with great carelessness.

Rulon held his glass up to the light, and simply ignored the question.

Dick’s heart missed a beat in sheer fright. Ah, go slow! go slow! he warned himself.

It occurred to Dick that the best way to lead a man to talk about himself, is to talk about yourself. “I’m flat broke,” he said with a laugh.

“I don’t lend money,” said Rulon cooly.

“Wasn’t asking you for any,” said Dick. “I’ll get a cable to-morrow. I only mentioned it to explain why I had to hang around this hotel all evening, where I can sign cheques.”

Rulon was perfectly indifferent to Dick’s affairs. “You don’t have to pay for mine,” he said, holding up his finger for another.

“We’ve pretty near got the place to ourselves now,” said Dick, glancing around. “Everybody’s gone to a show or something. That’s what attracted my attention to you. Why should a man stick around home unless he’s broke.”

“Aah! what has London got to show to a man like me?” growled Rulon. “London’s a sort of doll’s town, all so proper and cleaned up. The police are the bosses of London. The people’s spirit is broke. It’s not what I call a man’s town.”

“What’s your home town? Chicago?” asked Dick.

Rulon cooly stared Dick down, and did not reply.

Nevertheless Dick was assured that he was making progress. He rattled on. The mere fact that Rulon tolerated his impudence gave him heart. Dick was accustomed to having people like him. Good looks are a passport everywhere. By and by Rulon growled:

“Bright as a newly-minted dime, ain’t yeh?”

It was said with a sneer, yet he meant it too. Indeed a sort of irascible fondness began to appear in Rulon’s bloodshot eye. I’ve got him going, thought Dick. Dick was sensible of the fact that it was more dangerous to have Rulon like him, than to be indifferent. Like making friends with a tiger.

Later still, Rulon, now pretty drunk, but still holding himself stiff and wary, said: “Say Kid, stick around to-morrow, will yeh? Whether your cable comes or not, I’ll buy you all you want to drink. Makes the time pass. I’m fair sick of this hole. And I got three more days to put in, before my ship sails.”

“Sure thing! Anything to oblige a good hundred-per-center!” said Dick. “But why stick around the hotel?”

“Because I choose to,” said Rulon with his hard stare.

“Well, you needn’t jump down my throat,” said Dick. “It’s nothing to me one way or the other.”

Rulon grunted.

“I like to walk around this town,” Dick went on in his giddy fashion. “They have such swell layouts in the store windows. Take that cluttered-up alley they called Bond street. Talk about your diamonds and pearls. I never saw anything in New York like that.”

“What do you know about pearls?” growled Rulon, with a sharp look.

“Not a thing in the world!” said Dick with an innocent air. “But you gotta admit they’re pretty to look at. I’d like right well to hang a string of them ‘round my girl’s neck if I had the price.”

“Yes,” rumbled Rulon, scowling, “there’s hundreds of thousands in pearls displayed in those windows along Bond street, and not a crook in London with nerve enough to heave a brick through the glass. It’s never been done.”

“Well, let’s you and I try it on, just to create a little excitement,” said Dick.

Rulon only growled inarticulately.

“Not but what the phony pearls at a guinea a string look just as good to me!” said Dick flippantly.

“You must be blind,” said Rulon scornfully. “In the fake pearls the shine is only pasted on the outside. In the real ones it comes from the heart of ’em!”

“You seem to know!” said Dick.

“I do know!” said Rulon irascibly. “You asked me what my business was. I’ll tell you. I’m in the jewellery business.”

Dick’s breast tightened up with excitement. “That so?” he said carelessly. He bit his lip to keep from smiling at the picture that rose before his mind’s eye, of the terrible Rulon round-shouldered behind a jeweller’s counter with a watch-repairer’s glass screwed into his eye. More likely his business was done on the other side of the counter, with a gun in his hand. “Where’s your place of business?” asked Dick.

“Don’t need any,” growled Rulon. “I trade on’y on commission. Big orders. Rich man comes to me for a string of pearls and I buy ’em in the market. Sort of broker.”

“That so,” said Dick.

“Want to see something?” said Rulon, glancing cautiously around him. He thrust his hand into the inner breast pocket of his coat, and drew it out with his fingers hooked in a glittering snarl of moon-drops. He cupped the mass of beaming cream globules in his two hands, so that nobody else in the room except Dick could have seen what he held. Dick looked at them with an inward cold shiver. Suppose Rulon repented of his imprudence during the night, and killed him next day just for having seen them. But oh, Heaven! how beautiful they were! A double handful of fairy moons! a myriad little balls of frost heaped in the sinewy brown hands, so delicate and cool, yet glowing too, with a dusky, inward fire.

Rulon was looking down at them with an insane joy. “There’s the real thing!” he rumbled, like a tiger purring. “A hundred thousand dollars, Kid!”

“Oh, for God’s sake put them away!” said Dick. “No wonder you don’t want to walk out in the streets!”