Читать книгу The Green Bungalow - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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Hilton Blythe, soldier of fortune, card sharper, and man of the world, beautifully turned out and looking every inch the gentleman by birth and breeding that he undoubtedly was, turned into the dining-room of the Brighton Metropolitan the following afternoon to lunch as usual. He had come down there in search of a certain prey that had so far successfully eluded him, but now all thoughts of personal aggrandisement were thrown to the winds. With all that amazing courage and audacity of his, he was a kind-hearted man, loyal enough to his peers and ready to share his spoil with a friend. But there were bigger things to occupy his mind, ghosts from the past were rising and it behoved him to be up and doing lest one that he loved more than life itself was to find lasting unhappiness. In other words he had stumbled on the track of a very pretty conspiracy and he would not be content until he saw the righting of a wrong.

He passed along to the window seat that had been reserved for him as usual, hoping to see more of the young couple that had so intrigued him the day before. They would be lunching there again of course, for he had heard the arrangement made, but though he sat at his meal over long there was no sign of the lovers.

"I wonder," he muttered to himself, "I wonder if the game had begun already. But I hardly imagine that a criminal artist like Shute would do anything so crude."

A little anxiously he passed presently into one of the small rooms behind the famous palm lounge of the hotel with the intention of writing a note. The folding windows were open and he could see into the lounge. It was comparatively empty now for it was a fine afternoon and most of the hotel guests were out in the sunshine. But there almost under Blythe's eyes sat Harley and the girl who had so powerful an effect on the man who was spying on them at that moment. They could not see him in the shadow of the little room, but he could make out everything and hear every word that passed. Nor did it need much discrimination on his part to see that the two were in some bitter trouble.

"I couldn't get here before, I couldn't," Harley was saying. "I hope you didn't wait for me, dearest."

"In the lounge," Nettie explained. "When I realized that something had detained you, I went out and had a sandwich and a glass of milk. But what is it, Roy? You look dreadful."

"I came to tell you," Harley murmured. "I came as soon as I possibly could. My dearest girl, I hardly know how to begin. If anyone had told me yesterday that this trouble would fall upon me, I should have laughed. It would have seemed impossible, and yet, as I sit here before you, I am a convicted card-sharper, disgraced, and dishonoured in the eyes of my friends, and threatened with worse than that. I shall have to resign the membership of all my clubs, and, worse than that, give up my commission in the Guards. Oh, I don't say that this will be public property, because, if I do as I am told, or rather, commanded, the matter is going to be hushed up. But Prest was quite firm in his suggestion that I should throw up my commission and drop all my clubs."

"My dear boy, what on earth are you talking about?" Nettie demanded. "The thing is absurd—ridiculous. Why, if you told me yourself that you had done all these things, I wouldn't believe you."

"Yes, that is exactly as I hoped to hear you speak," Harley said, his face white and drawn. "So long as you believe in me, then there is something still left to wait for—I mean hope for. But I am so distracted that I don't know what I am talking about."

Blythe, half-hidden in the gloom of the writing-room, was following all this with the closest attention. There was a peculiar smile upon his face, and a certain grim look in his eyes that would perhaps have rendered Shute uncomfortable if he could have seen it. Quite unconsciously the two young people in the hour of their trouble were entertaining an angel unawares. It was Nettie, with that calm courage of hers, who first rose to the situation.

"Try and be calm," she said. "We are all alone here, and I want to hear everything. Nothing is quite as bad as it sounds at first, so, to please me, light a cigarette, and then tell me all about it. What is the trouble?"

"Well, it's like this," Harley said more calmly. "You know, I went off last night with the man you work for, to his bungalow at Shorehaven. Besides us two, there was Prest, who came at my invitation, and a man called Andrew Macglendy."

"I know him," Nettie said. "He is a traveller and a scientist who has taken a furnished house for the winter in Brunswick Square; a fair man, with a long, yellow beard."

"That's the chap," Harley said. "A very dignified man, who speaks with a strong Scottish accent. We went from his house in his car, and for an hour or two we played poker. From the very first I won steadily, I couldn't do any wrong. I suppose my luck was in, at any rate, I felt it was, and, after I knew that you cared for me, I had a sort of feeling that everything was going my way, and it did. Goodness knows how much I won, and the more I won, the more Walter Prest lost. I think the other two came out somewhere about equal. And then, all at once, I noticed that Macglendy had grown very quiet, and presently he stood out and watched us. Then, suddenly, he leant over the table, after I had dealt, and, in the coolest possible voice, said that the cards were marked."

"Marked!" Nettie exclaimed. "What does that mean?"

"Well, that they were gambler's cards, marked on the back with little signs of which a clever dealer could know exactly what cards his opponents held. Oh, it's quite an old trick, and has been worked over and over again. Of course, I jumped to my feet, and asked Macglendy to explain himself. Oh, he explained himself right enough—he proved his accusation up to the hilt, and, what was more, he accused me of having a missing ace in the pocket of my dining-jacket. And when I put my hand in to feel, sure enough the ace was there. Mind, I made no attempt to conceal it; I laid it on the table, and then you can imagine what happened. You see, unfortunately, they were my own cards—the cards that I bought from Weston's in Castle Square yesterday. I had taken them with me to the bungalow, and I broke the twine on them, and tore off the covers myself. The suggestion was that I had very cunningly opened both packs beforehand and doctored them, after which I had replaced the covers so carefully that they appeared to be intact. Heaven only knows how the whole thing was managed, but there it was. I had been caught cheating at cards, with two marked packs I provided myself, and I had won a lot of money from one of my very best friends. What could I say, Nettie; what could I do? I proclaimed my innocence. I swore that there must be some mistake here, but I hardly dared to suggest that I was the victim of a plot. You see, I was dealing with men of high repute, one of them being my oldest friend. You wouldn't suggest for a moment that Prest had anything to do with it."

"Oh, no," Nettie said. "Such an idea is unthinkable. Mr. Prest is a gentleman."

"And my rival," Harley said with a queer smile. "But I ought not to have said that. As a matter of fact, Walter Prest was the hardest of the lot. So far as Macglendy and Shute were concerned, they were quite satisfied to accept an apology from me, and an admission that I had done wrong. I was grateful for the way in which they behaved, but Prest was as hard as iron. You know what a keen soldier he is, you know how fanatical almost he is with regard to the honour of his regiment. Of course, he was most fearfully cut up, and in a great state of agitation, but, though he was quite willing that the matter should go no further, he was firm on the fact that I must send in my papers and resign the membership of all my clubs. As an officer in the Guards, he declared that he could do no less. He wanted to shake hands with me afterwards, and advised me to go abroad in the yacht for two or three years, until the thing was more or less forgotten, And, upon my word, Nettie, I was so broken up that I almost agreed. As I sat there with my miserable thoughts, it seemed to me that, at any rate, you might believe me——"

"Oh, I do, I do," Nettie cried. "I know that you are incapable of anything of the kind, and, even if it were true, then I would stand by your side and look the whole world in the face. We should be quite happy somewhere abroad, say South America, and we could see the world in that new yacht of yours. But then, you are innocent, Roy. I am convinced that you had nothing to do with this vile thing, and I am sure you will agree with me, when I say that this dreadful thing must be faced, and the truth brought to light."

Nettie spoke with a white, set face, and the suggestion of a tear in her eye, but the lines of the little red mouth were firm enough, and Blythe gently applauded her decision as he sat quietly at the writing table watching every change of expression.

"Now, that is just exactly what I expected you to say," Roy replied. "It makes me almost happy to hear you speak in that way. And you will be glad to hear that I refused the terms offered me. I declined to spend the rest of my life under a cloud, as I decline to accept your offer. I am not going to marry you and take you abroad, and leave scandalmongers to think that there is some guilty secret. I refused to entertain the suggestion and said that I should fight for my honour to the bitter finish. God knows how it is to be done, but there is no other way. And Prest was quite decent about it—he said he would give me a month to think it over; meanwhile, nothing would be done, and nothing would be said. I had half agreed to take Shute and Macglendy yachting with me, and perhaps I shall now, but this trouble has to be faced."

"Of course, it has," Nettie said warmly. "Do you think that there is anything wrong with these men? I don't mean Mr. Prest, but the other two. Isn't it possible that they have some design upon you—some reason for getting you into their hands? I feel in a mood now to suspect everybody. Oh, let's go outside and talk it over, I can't breathe properly here."

Blythe sat at the writing table after they had gone, turning what he had heard over in his mind. He had found something which he had more or less expected to find, and he was trying to see some way out of this tragedy into the light.

"I think I have heard something like it before," he muttered to himself. "Now, where have I heard of, or read about, a plot like this? It seems so familiar. Now, I wonder—ah! that's it. It's exactly the same thing over again. Now, what on earth is the name of that book, and where did I read it. I shall have to find out, of course, and it's any money that Shute has a copy. If he has, then so much the worse for him."