Читать книгу Anybody's Pearls - Footner Hulbert - Страница 8

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Next morning Rulon was not in evidence. Sleeping it off, Dick supposed. Dick hung about the lounge of the Chester until eleven, and then, according to pre-arrangement, set off for Greatorex’s flat in Victoria street, to give an account of progress. Dick had still no idea of what he was going to do when the decisive moment arrived. He was just being carried along by the initial momentum he had acquired the day before.

Greatorex received him in a blue brocaded silk dressing-gown. This morning the sight of the elegant, slender fellow with the shallow black eyes affected Dick with an active distaste. Greatorex’s aristocratic anecdotes left him cold. There was something soft in the man along with his high and mighty manner. His voice, like the voices of so many elegant Englishmen (and their American imitators), had an unpleasant reedy quality. If this one’s bluff was called, he would probably begin to whine. Of the two scoundrels, give me the blunt one, thought Dick. However, he was careful to dissemble all this. As a matter of fact, Dick didn’t know where he was at. He felt something like a grain of wheat between two scoundrelly millstones.

He reported to Greatorex (a) that he had made himself solid with Michael Rulon; (b) that he had established the fact that Rulon carried the pearls on his person; (c) that it had seemed wiser not to press their new acquaintance too hard by trying to bring him to the Raquets Court the first night.

As to the last account, Greatorex agreed. “Bring him along to-night,” he said with an ugly smile. “We’ll be ready for him.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Dick warily. “He’s not exactly one of these pliable guys.”

“Oh, if you see that he drinks enough, you can do what you want with him. It’s worth a thousand pounds to you.”

“I have that thousand in mind,” said Dick.

Back at the Chester, Michael Rulon made an appearance at lunch time. His face was yellow and inscrutable; he still bore himself like an athletic youth. Dick awaited the encounter with a sort of breathless dread. Will he turn on me now? he thought. But no! actually a sort of bleak pleasure showed in that hangman’s face at the sight of the youngster.

“ ’Morning, Kid. Eaten yet?” he asked with a vicious nod.

Dick shook his head.

“C’mon downstairs.”

On the stairs Rulon laid a hand on Dick’s shoulder, and squeezed it until Dick thought the steely fingers were about to meet through the sinews. A cold shiver went through Dick—not at the pain, though that was considerable, but at the thought of the affection that his friendly grip implied. Good God! it was terrible to think of inspiring fondness in a savage breast like that. Dick had only too clear a picture in his mind of the fiendish rage that was complementary to such an affection. How vainly he wished himself clear of the whole business. He’ll kill me before he’s done with me! he whimpered to himself. Yet there was nothing he could do, but go on as he had begun.

They breakfasted or lunched, as the case was, in the lower restaurant overlooking the river. Dick had no eyes for the view. Yet to the outward seeming he was just a rattle-pated college boy without a care on his mind. He kept pumping it up. He was afraid to stop talking. Rulon paid very little attention, but apparently he liked it.

“Kid, your tongue is hung in the middle, and wags at both ends,” he drawled derisively.

“Sure!” said Dick, pulling down the corners of his mouth; “I was born talking. They had to stick a pacifier in my mouth so my mother could rest.” To himself he said plaintively: I wish somebody would tell my why I’m doing this. It’s no pleasure to me.

In short they spent the entire balance of the day together, without leaving the hotel. From the restaurant they mounted to the lounge again; from the lounge they descended at tea-time to the men’s restaurant (though not for tea) where they sat right through until dinner-time, and for several hours afterwards. By the end of that time, Dick’s brain was as weary from the strain as if he had been taking an examination in mathematics.

Dick lost all count of the drinks they had; presumably the hotel knew. To-day it was all put down to Rulon’s account. Dick stuck to ginger-ale which he had the waiter bring him in a glass. Rulon never noticed what Dick was drinking, so he got his own. It was astounding how little effect whiskey had on the man. To be sure, by the end of the evening he was drunk, but he had become so only by infinitesimal degrees—like water wearing away a stone, Dick thought. And there was mighty little change in him drunk or sober.

Hour after hour he sat opposite Dick like an image, with that expression of contemptuous indifference on his face. He rarely opened his lips, and then only to say something offensive. Once in a while, with a truly hateful expression, he would lean across the table, and with the flat of his hand push Dick’s face back until his neck was like to crack on the back of his chair, saying: “Get the blazes out of here, Percy!” Or: “I’m fair sick of looking at that smooth mug o’ yours.” Or something of that sort. Such were his demonstrations of friendship.

Dick began to hate him cordially. But he was fascinated, too. Rulon was no ordinary man. He was perfectly inhuman.

Eleven o’clock had gone some time, when Rulon suddenly bestirred himself and said: “What the blazes! I’m fed up with this joint, Kid. What say we go out and see the town. Know any place to go?”

By that Dick knew that he was thoroughly drunk. Like a thunderclap these words put the necessity of making a decision up to him. Well, he never hesitated. It was understood the man was a scoundrel, but at that, Dick had no intention of playing Judas for a thousand pounds, even if he got it. He couldn’t see himself selling out his countrymen to a pack of equally scoundrelly Britishers. So he said:

“Forget it, Mike. You’re drunk!”

“Drunk nothing!” growled Rulon. “I reckon I can take care of myself!” And he lugged an ugly, sawed-off automatic out of his hip pocket, and laid it on the table between them.

Dick shuddered. “Put that thing away,” he said. “I tell you, you’re drunk!”

“You’re a liar!” said Rulon, fingering the gun.

Dick fell into a profuse sweat. Gosh! he thought despairingly, am I going to get killed now for trying to save a man’s life? “Put that thing up,” he said aloud. “You ought to know you’re drunk, Mike. Last night you wouldn’t have gone out; nor an hour ago you wouldn’t have gone. If you drink any more you won’t be able to take care of yourself.”

“That’s never happened yet,” rumbled Rulon.

Dick was quite prepared to believe him. “All right, Mike,” he said. “If you’re bound to go, you’ll go alone. I won’t take the responsibility.”

For a long time Rulon sat there lowering at Dick from under black brows. Dick slouched in his chair, whistling between his teeth, and forcing himself to look away from the gun. Finally Rulon shoved the gun back in his pocket. Dick thankfully let the air escape out of his lungs. Rulon got up.

“Well then, I’ll go to bed,” he said.

He walked out of the room as sure-footed as a cat.