Читать книгу A Clue In Wax - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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As Clifford and his companion left the restaurant, a pair of bold eyes followed Evelyn's retreating figure with a mixture of boldness and malignant intensity that would have caused Clifford's blood to rise if he had only seen it. Then the door closed behind them, and the tall man with the magnetic eyes turned to his companion.

"That is the girl," he said. "I spotted her when I was down at Sandchester last week. Funny that I should have run up against her here to-night. I wonder who her companion was."

"Oh," the other man said. "That chap Canton, I suppose."

"Oh dear, no. Canton is a different type altogether. I saw him on Sandchester links, too. He is fair, with grey eyes and a yellowish hair that curls a bit. You saw Miss Marchand's friend was dark, and I should say a real he-man by the look of him. Pleasant enough in his way, but an awkward customer to tackle. When I run up against a man with a mouth like his, I always give him a wide berth, if possible. It's a dashed funny thing, Dan, but I have an idea I have seen that guy before somewhere."

"Oh, is that so, Walt?" the other man drawled. "If so, it must have been in the States. Bit awkward, if he recognised you, wouldn't it? Rather spoil our game, eh?"

Walt Bradmain smiled reassuringly. He was a fine figure of a man, well set up, cultured and easy in conversation, with every suggestion about him of one who has been accustomed to mix with good society all his life. His companion, Dan Cleaver, was of shorter, stouter build, but not without natural advantages, for he would have passed anywhere as the type of Englishman who is quite at home in country houses where horses and the performance of them on the racecourse is the main topic of conversation. Altogether, two very presentable individuals, as was testified by the assiduous way in which the waiters attended to their wants. Still, in a flashing glance he had of them as he passed out, Clifford Cheriton had sized them up in his mind as two exceedingly choice specimens of the higher strata of criminality. In which he was not far wrong. But it took a trained eye like Clifford's to see under the hard and glittering surface, and it was only when the waiters had retired from the table that the two occupants relaxed from their splendid superiority and aloofness into what nature had intended them to be.

"So that's the girl, is it?" Cleaver asked.

"That's the peach," Bradmain responded. "Yes, and I guess one of the ripest on the tree. A real good looker if ever I saw one. And it is she who is going to spill the beans for us unless I am greatly mistaken."

"But, say, old hoss," Cleaver responded. "What's that young woman gotter do with it? Why, old man Seagrane didn't know she was alive a few months ago. He was going to leave everything he had got to young Andrew Canton as we know. Didn't he tell Nance Carey so? And didn't she pass the word on to you?"

"Yes, that's right enough," Bradmain said. "But then old man Seagrane is not the first venerable ruin that fell for a pretty face, and, mind you, Canton is playing a fool's game. The old man has paid his debts for him twice and it won't be long before he is asked to do so for the third time. Guys that make their pile hard ain't fond of pulling out their wads to pay a lot of cardsharps and moneylenders. Course, we know he made his will in Canton's favour, and we know pretty well where that will is to be found. But if the young cub kicks over the traces too far, and that lovely bunch of flowers we saw go out just now plays her hand right, then Seagrane might change his mind and she will get away with the lot. And if that happens, where do we come in? Mind you, we took a risk in coming over here—"

"Did we?" Cleaver grinned. "I thought we left the States more or less for the benefit of our health."

"Well, something like that, perhaps. But not entirely. I figure it out like this, Dan, we pool our capital and come over here to put it over old man Seagrane. And I reckon we've only got about four thousand dollars left. It costs big money to hit the high spot in this country, playing at being rich colonials and staying at the best hotels. What we have got to do is to clear out of here as soon as possible and go down to Sandchester for two or three weeks' golf. We can put up at the Dormy House there on the cheap, and get away with about forty or fifty dollars a week. Don't you forget that if old man Seagrane dies without a will, practically all that he has got goes to the State."

"But we know he has made a will, Walt."

"Oh, we know that," Bradmain said impatiently. "But what is to prevent the guy altering it? And if he does, Canton will get next to nothing, and we shall be in the soup. Four thousand dollars clean wasted. That is where the danger of the girl comes in. When I was down at Sandchester, I kept my lamps skinned, and I see a few things. And I kept my ears open and I heard a lot more. I tell you, that peach is the real nigger in the woodpile if you know what I mean."

Cleaver drummed thoughtfully on the table with his finger nails. He looked up furtively.

"You are not suggesting any violence, are you?" he whispered. "Because that ain't in my line, pard. Besides, it's crude and too much like Chicago for my taste. Don't you forget we are not gunmen, whatever we used to be in the happy past."

For some time the two men sat there talking in undertones, and keeping a sharp look-out lest the waiters who hovered about their table should catch a word here and there that was not intended for alien ears. Outwardly, at any rate, they were almost faultlessly correct. They had just that air of bland patronage and familiarity which is permissible between servants and their masters amongst those who have been born to the purple. Then presently they paid their bill and passed out into the road, where they took a taxi to the nearest music hall, and, for the rest of the evening, gave themselves up to the pleasures of the West End. They were in no hurry, whatever their quarry might be, and now that they had made up their minds what to do, and how to accomplish their end at a minimum outlay, there was nothing else to worry about.

Meanwhile, Cheriton had accompanied Evelyn back to her hotel and said good-night to her on the doorstep. As he turned away and strolled off in the direction of his rooms, he told himself that he was the happiest man in Europe.

Not that he was unduly elated or in the least carried away by the wonderful spell of good fortune which would have overwhelmed a less level-headed individual. But then, Cheriton had been through the mill for three years, and a hard battle he had found it. To begin with, there was the stern, rigid discipline of the police force—hard enough to a young man who had left school with apparently all the world before him, only to find, a little later on, that the sudden death of his father had left him penniless. Everybody had been astonished to discover that one of the most brilliant men at the English Bar, and one in the enjoyment of a princely income, should have frittered everything away in a series of the wildest speculations. But there it was, and Clifford had had to make the best of it. Nor was he the type of youth to turn to his father's many friends for assistance. He would fight his own way in the world and, like many an ambitious youth of the same bent, he thought he could see his way to fame and fortune through his pen. And now, at long last, that weapon had proved a trusty one. Now he could go to the superintendent in the morning and tell him that, so far as he was concerned, the police career was at an end.

Not that the time had been wasted, because Clifford's intimate knowledge of crime and criminology, obtained at first hand, was going to stand him in good stead in the line that he was cutting out for himself. Almost before he had reached his lowly lodgings, he had sketched out the rough outline of a plot for his next story.

And yet, he was dimly aware that there was a fly in the ointment somewhere. It was all very well to step into a fortune and find the girl he had been unconsciously looking for almost at the same moment, but there was more to it than that.

Had he found her too late? Three years is almost a lifetime to a woman between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two, and it was plain enough that Evelyn had developed amazingly in that time. She had grown from an exceedingly pretty child into a divinely beautiful woman, and, moreover, it had been plain enough to Clifford that her mind had developed almost as perfectly as her body. She had rather fenced with him when he had had the temerity to ask if she had bestowed her affections in any particular direction, and he remembered how she had flushed when she had parried the question. Then, again, there was the fortunate individual named Andrew Canton who had been marked out to succeed to the Seagrane estates and the huge income that went with them. What sort of a young man was he? Evelyn had spoken fairly well of him, with a hint of that motherly suggestion that so often leads to a deeper and warmer feeling. Anyhow, Clifford was going to find out. As soon as he had freed himself from his responsibilities he would go down to Sandchester and spy out the land for himself.

With this resolution uppermost in his mind. Clifford let himself into his apartments with his latchkey, and half an hour later was in bed and asleep.