Читать книгу The Man who was Two - Fred M. White - Страница 4

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The two men regarded each other with strained anxious eyes. Sir Marston was as if suddenly ten years had been added to his life. He was white and haggard behind his glasses, whilst Gilette, standing there, seemed to be unconscious of the paper cap that he was still wearing.

"For heaven's sake, take that thing off," the artist groaned. "It looks so horribly cold-blooded, well, callous."

Almost mechanically Gilette lifted his hand to his head. He crushed the gaudy tissue and flung it at his feet. A small Eton boy of his acquaintance grinned amiably, obviously waiting for the nod of recognition from such an athletic god as Gilette. But the little man in the white waistcoat might have been so much thin air so far as the object of his admiration was concerned.

The brilliantly-lighted rooms were filling up fast now and in the distance a band was playing some alluring dance music. From where he stood Gilette could see the two girls still seated at the table watching the gay throng and smiling as a child in shimmering hair and silken stockings threw herself with a cry of delight on Hetty Bond. It seemed almost impossible to couple all this abandon of happiness and gaiety with a sordid crime.

"Tell me all about it." Gilette asked, "When did it happen and where? What did Rivers say? I can't believe it. I have always heard people speak so well of Mallison. I was looking forward to meeting him to-night if only for Miss Ferriss' sake."

"I have known Mallison ever since he was a child," Sir Marston went on in the same absent, tired voice. "His father died before he was born--a man in the army he was, and made a runaway match with his wife. They were poor enough because Mrs. Malllison's father cast her off when she married and would never see her again. A sort of foreigner he was--half Spaniard, who made a great fortune cattle ranching in the Argentine. Proud as Lucifer, I'm told. They say that there was nobody good enough to associate with Marne."

Gilette stiffened as if a spark of fire had scorched him.

"What name did you say?" he asked thickly. "Marne! Why, that is the name of the man you followed for me just now. Sir Marston, my big story turns on a man called Marne who lives in the Argentine. I mean the super-film I told you about. This is amazing. My story--but go on. Tell me all about Mallison. His father died, yes?"

"When he was a child," Sir Marston proceeded. "Leaving his widow very poor. All this took place a year or two before I took that studio of mine in Merston. I mean the old house where I do my painting all the summer. You've been there often enough."

Gilette nodded. Well enough he knew that smiling paradise where Sir Marston painted and golfed and recuperated all through the long golden summers. There was no more romantic or beautiful spot in the British Isles. Occasionally Gilette picnicked there in Manley's absence yet, strangely enough, he had never met the unhappy Mallison or the girl he was engaged to until the last fortnight, when Peggy had come to town from Herston to spend a few days with her old school friend, Hetty Bond.

"Well," Sir Marston muttered. "Miss Mallison and her boy--that is the poor chap we are speaking of--lived at Merston on a small income allowed by her father so long as she did not bother him and so long as she stayed in the heart of the country. Until the time of her death she never saw her father, and he refused to do anything for his grandson directly he was old enough to get his own living. Probably, old Marne is dead and buried by this time."

"I'm sure he isn't," Gilette exclaimed. "But that side of the story we shall come to all in good time. But what about the tragedy in Rutland Inn? Did it happen in Rutland Inn? Was Rivers looking for me when you saw him here just now?"

"So I gathered," Sir Marston said. "He says that you were one of the very last to see Walter Pennington this afternoon and when he heard what had happened, he came here at once, because you had told him that you were dining here with a party to-night."

"Did Rivers say anything more?"

"Very little. From what I can gather, Pennington got back to his quarters in Rutland Inn about seven o'clock and proceeded to his bedroom over his professional chambers at once. He told his man that he was dining out and that he needed nothing. A little while after the telephone bell rang and Fisher, that is Pennington's man, answered it. The message was for himself, to the effect that his brother wanted to see him for a moment and would he, Fisher, step round to the 'Green Man,' a little respectable public house in Armory-street. Fisher went up and, knocked at his master's door and got the requisite permission. He was away perhaps for three-quarters of an hour and came back a little annoyed at the discovery that the whole thing was a hoax, indeed, he found out that his brother was not even in town, but that he had gone off for a few days' work in the country. When Fisher found that his master's evening overcoat and silk scarf were still hanging up in the passage he began to get alarmed. Getting no reply, after knocking at the door of Pennington's bedroom, he went in and found Pennington dead on the floor with a ghastly wound on the back of the head."

"Yes, but where does Mallison come in?" Gilette asked abruptly.

"Ah, that is the worst feature," Sir Marston went on. "As Fisher was hurrying along the corridor in the direction of Pennington's suite he met Mallison coming along as if he had been calling on Pennington. He had a little black bag in his hand, and seemed in a great hurry. Fisher was rather surprised, because he knew that his master and Mallison had been on extremely bad terms for some time, and therefore, he took particular notice. He says he spoke to Mallison, who seemed disturbed at being seen there, and he made no response. But Mallison was also recognised by two other members of the inn, and they also spoke to him. In each case he made no reply, but pushed on hurriedly into the darkness. These two men were the first to turn up when Fisher gave the alarm, and at once suspicion attached itself to Mallison. He was arrested in his rooms about an hour ago, and as he could not, or would not, give any account of himself until he came to dress for our party, the police took him to Brent-street station, and he is there now. I must go and see him in the morning, for I am convinced that there has been some lamentable mistake somewhere."

Gilette stood there for a few moments in anxious thought. It seemed almost sinful to him that all this mad gaiety was going on at a time when a fellow creature was beginning to fight for his very life. From where he was he could see the slim, graceful figure in pink and watch the happy laughter in Peggy's eyes. The fun was now reaching its height, the band played on alluringly, the giddy throng floated across the floor--a light foaming sea of rainbow hues, with the shimmer and point of diamonds here and there. The incongruity of it seemed to shriek alone in Gilette's ears as he watched.

"Not to-night," he protested. "You can't possibly see Mallison to-night. It's almost cruel to leave that poor girl there smiling and happy when there is this hideous thing to face. Will you go and fetch them out, or shall I?"

"No, no, I'll go," Sir Marston said. "It is old folk like me that understand sorrow best. We learn that sort of thing as we grow older--there are so many breaks for us. No, I'll go, Roy."

Gilette stood there anxiously waiting. He had learnt a lot to-night, far more than had been dreamt of in his philosophy. That story of his founded on tragic and criminal facts gleaned in the Argentine was following him even to London. The blazing trail had hit him full in the eyes not an hour ago. And in a dim way he was beginning to see the connection between this new and startling development and the history of Mallison's misfortune. Gilette had an unerring instinct for the psychology of crime, and already his mind was subconsciously piecing the scattered fragments together.

Then he put it out of his mind resolutely. There would be ample time for that. What he wanted now was to get this ghastly business of breaking the news to Peggy Ferriss out of the way. He saw her come along presently smiling and dimpling, with a little girl hanging on either arm. Hetty followed on close behind more sedately, but with an approving gleam in her eyes, too. The painter, white and agitated, brought up the rear. It was no easy matter to choke off the fairy manikins, but it was done at length, and then Sir Marston led the way to a secluded corner of the lounge. And it was not till then that Peggy grasped that there was something wrong.

"Why, what's the matter?"' she smiled. "Oh, you have heard that Raymond is not coming. What a shame! And Mr. Pennington, too."

"No, he is not coming, my dear," the painter said gently. "I want you to be brave, Peggy. Something has happened."

Peggy of the pale cheeks and dewy eyes seemed to divine the root of the trouble at once. She caught her lip between her white teeth.

"It's Raymond," she said. "I have had the feeling for the last hour. If he is dead, tell me at once. I shall know how to bear it."

Then, very gently and tenderly with tears in his eyes, the old man told Peggy all that he had learnt. He saw the pallor washed off her clear pale cheek by the rising red tide of anger and indignation. It was just as he had expected.

"They must he mad," she cried. "Oh, the idea of Raymond even thinking of such a thing is fantastic. Sir Marston, I must go to him. You must take me there at once. He would expect me."

Sir Marston shook his head sorrowfully.

"I am afraid that is impossible," he said. "The authorities do not allow that sort of thing. We will do everything that is necessary in the way of employing counsel, and in the morning I will see what else can be done. Perhaps If I call on the Home Secretary he may give me a special permit to visit the--I mean Mallison. My dear, you are the bravest girl I ever met. And God knows you want that courage."

But Peggy broke down badly enough once she was in the taxi on her way home with Hetty. Then it was that the precious solace of tears came to her aid, and she flung herself, weeping passionately, on the sympathetic breast of her companion. And far into the night she and Hetty discussed the tragic situation.

"He couldn't have done it," she said for the fiftieth time. "I say he couldn't. Ah. You don't know Raymond. Nobody knows him as I do. Oh, it's maddening to sit here doing nothing and Raymond perhaps imagining that we have all deserted him. Yes, I know that there was bad blood between Raymond and Walter Pennington, but it was only some silly quarrel over some statement that Raymond made in a criminal case where the poor boy was giving scientific evidence. Raymond thought that Mr. Pennington was trying to discredit him and he resented it. Then they carried it on in the club, and there was a bit of a scene. Talk about women gossiping."

Hetty sat there powerless to stop the flow of Peggy's grief. There was nothing to say or do until, utterly exhausted, Peggy allowed herself to be put into bed, where she declared she could not sleep. And almost immediately she fell into a deep, but restless, slumber. Then Hetty stole away, her eyes dim and aching with sympathy.