Читать книгу Who Killed the Husband? - Footner Hulbert - Страница 8

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On Sunday mornings Mr. Mappin permitted himself an extra half hour in bed, no more. If he had been up late on Saturday night, he found it refreshing to take a cat nap or a couple of cat naps later in the day. Having finished his breakfast by the fire, he was leaning back thoughtfully smoking a cigarette. Today the dressing gown was orange faced with black; the scarf and slippers scarlet. There was a line between his brows and he was not thinking serenely of his big book. What he termed to himself “that infernal Gartrey case” had driven it out of his head. He admitted, however, that l’affaire Gartrey was not as obvious and common as it had seemed at first. It had become a puzzle.

He heard the distant sound of the doorbell without concern. He kept his home address a secret so far as was possible and it, of course, did not appear in the telephone book. All sorts of nuisances occasionally came to the door, but he could depend on the efficient Jermyn to protect him. He was therefore surprised to see Jermyn enter, wearing an odd expression which suggested that something had turned up which was too much for him.

“What is it?” asked Lee a little sharply.

“If you please, Mr. Mappin, there’s ... there’s a young lady calling.”

“Good gracious, Jermyn! At nine o’clock on Sunday morning! What’s her excuse?”

“She didn’t say what she wanted, sir, but she wrote her name on a piece of paper.” Jermyn extended the paper.

Taking it, Lee read: “Mrs. Alastair Yohe.” “Jehu, Kingdom come!” he exclaimed. “This is impossible! ... This is a practical joker, Jermyn, or a newspaper woman in disguise!”

Jermyn shook his head. “No, sir! A very personable young lady, sir, and appears to be in great trouble.”

Lee noted that he had twice spoken of her as a lady. Jermyn was never the one to apply the term lightly. Lee was divided in his mind; curiosity was working powerfully; on the other hand, “great trouble” promised the kind of emotional scene that he detested. He said: “You’d better go into the kitchen where you can’t be overhead, and call up Inspector Loasby. You’ll find him at his home. Tell him who our caller is, and let him take what action seems best.”

Jermyn’s generally inexpressive face betrayed the keenest distress. “Oh, no, Mr. Mappin! If you please, sir! Oh, Mr. Mappin, you can’t go for to do that!”

“Why can’t I?”

“She has a baby, sir!”

Lee stared, openmouthed. “A baby, did you say?”

“Yes, sir, a fine, pretty child.”

“What’s a baby got to do with it?”

“You wouldn’t have the heart to turn them over to the police, sir.”

“Well ... well ...” said Lee pettishly, “you needn’t telephone to Loasby ... But I won’t see her! The baby is just an excuse for sob stuff. No sensible woman would bring a baby! Send them away!”

As Jermyn turned, Lee heard a gentle voice from the door saying: “Please, Mr. Mappin, I won’t make a nuisance of myself. I won’t stay but five minutes!”

Lee jumped up in great perturbation, drawing his dressing gown around him like a woman caught in her wrapper, and saying: “Really, young lady! Really! This is too much!” He looked around for Jermyn, but Jermyn had slipped incontinently through the dining-room door, leaving him to face the monster alone. Finding himself trapped, Lee looked the intruder straight in the eye.

“I know this is dreadful of me,” she was saying imploringly, “but I felt desperate!”

She was a pretty thing, small and young. Lee had not realized that girls so young had babies. The baby looked enormous; he didn’t see how such a little woman could possibly have produced it. “Well, as long as you’re here you may as well come in,” he said gracelessly.

She glided in and, dropping on a chair behind the settee, started nervously to unfasten the baby’s jacket and cap. “I’m not preparing to make a stay,” she said deprecatingly, “but I’m afraid he might catch cold when we go out again.”

Lee, inexperienced with babies, was very ill at ease in the presence of the unfamiliar. He had no idea how old the child might be; he was able to sit up but had clearly not reached the walking or talking stage. She took his cap off and smoothed down the fuzz on his head.

“Hasn’t got much more hair than I have,” said Lee grimly.

“He will have,” she said quickly. “See how thickly it’s coming in.”

Lee declined to approach. “How old is he?”

“Going on nine months ... Weighs eighteen pounds,” she added proudly.

“Good Lord, how did you do it!” said Lee.

She blushed. “That’s what everybody asks me. I guess the size of the mother doesn’t make much difference.”

The baby looked around the room with a bland expression. Lee, he ignored in the most insulting fashion, but that pleased Lee; at least, the baby was not going to try to get around him. When she had taken off his outer things, his mother planted him on the rug in front of the fire. It was a rare Bokhara.

“Hadn’t you better put something under him?” suggested Lee.

“He has his rubber pants on,” his mother said, a little hurt.

Lee blushed. There was a silence. The baby evidently enjoyed the fire for he crowed and bounced two or three times on his fundament. Lee felt softer feelings stealing over him. “What’s his name?” he asked.

“Alastair,” she said with a lift in her voice, “but we call him Lester.”

That name chilled Lee. Spawn of the devil! he thought.

“My name is Charlotte,” she added naïvely.

“Have you breakfasted?” Lee asked, with stiff politeness.

“Oh, yes, thank you.” Such a pretty little brown-haired girl, sensitive, prone to blush, her face revealing quick changes of expression.

Lee jerked his head toward the little Buddha on the rug. “Isn’t there something I can get for him?”

“A soda cracker, perhaps, if you would be so good. He’s always hungry.”

Lee rang for Jermyn and ordered soda crackers, looking very stern. Jermyn’s face was like wood. When he brought the crackers the young mother offered one to her child. He knew what to do with it. Calmly accepting it, he conveyed it to his mouth and returned his gaze to the fire.

After an awkward period Lee and Mrs. Yohe found themselves talking together naturally enough.

“You know why I am here,” she said simply. “It is to beg you to receive my husband. Our happiness, our very lives depend upon it.” She nodded toward the child. “And his. He has such a long time to live!”

“I’m afraid it is impossible,” said Lee.

“My husband is innocent.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me so.”

Lee smiled.

Mrs. Yohe blushed, but spoke up with spirit. “I’m not just a fond and foolish little wife. I have no illusions about my husband. He has told me many painful truths, heartbreaking truths, but he has never lied to me.”

“But in this case wouldn’t he be justified in lying?”

“Certainly. But I know him so well that if he was lying for the first time some change in his voice, in his expression would warn me of it.”

“If he’s innocent, for heaven’s sake why doesn’t he face the music?”

“Ah, he’s a strange, wild creature, Mr. Mappin. To be confined would kill him.”

Lee said nothing. His expression was politely incredulous.

“He has other reasons,” she went on. “I don’t know what they are, but they seem sufficient to him. I’m not claiming that he is very wise, Mr. Mappin. Like all manly men, he’s as stubborn as the devil. Oh, if you would only consent to see him; I am certain he would do whatever you advised. Look, he thinks you have one of the keenest minds of the day. If he were not innocent, would he be so anxious to put himself in your hands?”

Lee smiled. “Very subtle flattery, Mrs. Yohe.”

“I’m not trying to flatter you. Oh, if I could only find the right word!”

“Why doesn’t he write his story for me? I will guarantee that no eye shall see it but mine.”

“He says he can’t express himself properly in writing; that his brain seems to freeze when he takes a pen in hand.”

“He could call me up on the telephone. If he uses a dial phone the call could not be traced back.”

She still shook her head. “There is too much at stake. He must be able to see your face when he tells you. He wants you to question him.”

“Here’s a proposition,” said Lee. “If I consent to hear his story, will he agree to give himself up if I so advise?”

“He would give himself up, I am sure, but he would never bind himself in advance to do so. He doesn’t know you, you see, and after all, it is his life which is at stake. He is convinced that it would be fatal if he fell into the hands of the police now. He’d be railroaded, he says.”

“That’s as far as I can go,” said Lee.

Mrs. Yohe squeezed her hands together. “Oh, if he does not succeed, I know what will happen! He will leave Lester and me and start a new life far away. We will never see him again!”

“Abandon you!” exclaimed Lee.

“I don’t mean leave us to starve. There is plenty of money. But a man always has that way out, hasn’t he? Just to go away.”

“The search for him will never be abandoned!” asserted Lee.

“The police aren’t very clever, Mr. Mappin. Certainly not clever enough to take my husband unless he allows himself to be taken.”

Lee rose and paced back and forth. “Mrs. Yohe, what you have told me about your husband doesn’t make me feel any kinder toward him. Even before this happened, he appears to have treated you abominably; A secret marriage! I take it you are forced to live under an assumed name.”

She nodded miserably.

“It has cut you off from your own people?”

Another nod—but with firm lips.

“And, of course, you have to do your own housework besides caring for the baby. You couldn’t trust a servant.”

“I went into it with my eyes open, Mr. Mappin. He did not deceive me. He explained the kind of life he led and that the secrecy would be necessary until he had made a sufficient stake for us to get a fair start away from New York.” Her chin went higher. “And I’m not sorry for what I did, either! Even if the worst should happen, even if he leaves us, I shall not be sorry for what I did. And Lester won’t reproach me for it, either, when I tell him about it after he grows up.”

Lee paced up and down snorting with indignation. “But, my dear child, this is mere infatuation!”

“Infatuation!” she repeated with a scornful shrug. “That’s only a word! I don’t care what you call it. It is something that comes to only a few women. It has lifted me out of myself! It makes me feel rich!”

Lee could no longer trust himself to speak.

She partly broke down. “Oh, I have said the wrong things!” she mourned. “I wanted to make you understand what a dear he is! how tender and honest and goodhearted! And I have only made you angry! If you could see him and Lester romping together, it would melt your heart! A man who can laugh with a baby can’t be a bad man!”

This unhappy scene could have but one conclusion. She finally picked up the baby and started putting on his jacket with trembling fingers while the tears rolled down her soft cheeks. Lee felt like a louse; no good for him to tell himself that he was taking the only possible course. Word of this will be conveyed to Fanny and Judy, he thought, and my life at the office will be a purgatory. He rang for Jermyn. When Jermyn saw the wet cheeks, his eyes reproached his master too. Hell! thought Lee, was ever a well-meaning man put in such a box! As Jermyn showed Mrs. Yohe out, Lee thought: She will go blindly through the streets. If I sent Jermyn after her, she would lead him straight to Yohe. She’s undoubtedly hiding him herself. But, damn it all! I can’t do it!