Читать книгу The House on the River - Fred M. White - Страница 4

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A little cry broke from Ennie's lips.

"Michel," she exclaimed. "How did you get here?"

"Oh, that was easy enough," Quint said. "I slipped into the taxi when our driver was fraternizing in the kitchen, and I trusted to the darkness to help me. Now, are you going to drive straight back to London."

"I don't know," Ennie said. "I picked up this taxi at the station. But what do you want me to do?"

"That I hardly know," Quint confessed. "It all depends upon circumstances. Let me try and explain, and when I have explained, we can either go back to London together or dismiss this man and return by train. Ennie, do you know that I am in danger of arrest at any moment?"

"Oh, Michel," Ennie cried. "What have you done? I can't conceive you doing anything wrong."

"I've been a fool," Quint groaned. "A perfect fool. You know all about me. During the year you've been sharing my sister's flat you have seen quite enough of me to know that I am a good bit of a rotter."

"You're nothing of the sort, Mickey," Ennie said indignantly. "You're one of the best and kindest men in the world. I know no one who has more friends."

"Ah, that's just it," Quint muttered. "I've got a jolly sight too many friends. It's all very well to be an International Rugger hero and an ex-amateur champion golfer, but you can't do that sort of thing on two pence per week. After all, any fool can be good at sport, though I've only come to realize it lately. But all this time when I've been a little tin god in my way, welcomed in country houses, and having my photograph in the paper once a week, I've been living on next to nothing. And I was never a sponge, Ennie, never. I ought to have passed my final medical examination by this time, instead of which I lave been running about the country with a bag of golf clubs, or posing to the gallery in Richmond Old Deer Park. Look here, Ennie, I haven't got a bob; worse than that, I owe a goodish bit. So when Ralph Enderby asked me to join him in a big sport's enterprise I jumped at it. And so did Ted Somerset. You know old Ted, one of the very best, but an awful ass, so far as business is concerned. Well, I got him to come in, too. I introduced that invention of his——"

"What invention," Ennie asked quickly.

"Well, I don't quite understand it, but it's something to do with films. Makes the characters talk and move as if they were alive. Quite a big thing, I believe."

"Ah, now I begin to understand," Ennie said. "That was the very thing that Enderby was talking about to me to-night. He told me it was as good as done. He told me he had all the plans and everything in his safe. I mean the safe that I burgled, with those tools you borrowed for me."

"And you did it jolly well, too," Quint said admiringly. "It was the real thing with real burglar's implements. Why, when I was watching you through the curtains, I forgot entirely why I came down here. For the moment, I though I was watching the real thing."

"Never mind that," Ennie said. "What are you going to do?"

Quint set his teeth together.

"There's only one thing I can do," he said. "I must do a bit of burglary on my own account. Now, this is Thursday night. I know that Enderby isn't going back to town till Monday, except to attend the Golfers' Association dinner at the Leinster Rooms on Saturday evening, after which he comes back here. That means that the papers I want will be in that safe till Monday morning, anyhow, and I'm coming here to get them. I must, Ennie, I must."

"Is it as bad as all that?" Ennie whispered.

"My dear girl, it couldn't possibly be worse. That scoundrel is going to ruin Ted Somerset and myself. He might leave me alone, only he knows that Ted and I are partners in that invention, and, therefore, both of us have got to be disgraced. It's a regular conspiracy between Enderby and two of his City friends to get Ted and myself a long term of penal servitude, and, with the evidence they've bought and paid for, it will be done. We shan't have a dog's chance. I haven't got to the bottom of it yet, but I shall know something before long. Once we are out of the way, Enderby will make a fortune out of that invention."

"It seems almost incredible," Ennie cried.

"Ah, not when you have to deal with two fools like Ted and myself," Quint said bitterly. "He laid that trap for us, and we walked deliberately in. And once the police are put on our track, we can't escape, at least, I can't. Why, everybody in the world of sport knows me, and like the idiot I am, I used to be proud of the fact. You can't pick up an illustrated paper—and they're all illustrated now—without seeing Michel Quint playing golf, or the famous international footballer, Michel Quint, in some attitude or another. Ennie, I think I am as plucky as most of them, but the mere idea of imprisonment takes all the strength out of me. I am an outdoor man, and I couldn't stand it. I should beat my brains out against the walls of my cell. It would be worse than death to me."

Ennie leant towards him in an attitude of pity and sympathy. She could feel the muscles of his arm tremble as she laid her fingers on it. For she loved this man, she had loved him from the very first, and, none the less because he had never treated her anything more than a friend.

"Is there nothing that can be done?" she asked.

"Nothing—unless we can get those papers back," Quint said. "If we could do that, then we might drive a bargain with the scoundrel. But they won't wait, my dear; they won't wait. Time is everything, and that's why I am going to use those tools I borrowed for you to come down here on Saturday night, when I know that Enderby will be at the golf dinner, and break into his safe. Till then I shall have to risk it. If there were only a place I could go to, and lie there for a week or two, without the chance of being disturbed, I should feel that I have a fighting chance. But where am I to go? Where is the sporting pal of mine who would run the risk of hiding me? And I have no money, I haven't a five-pound note in the world."

Ennie sighed in sympathy. She would have helped him if she could till the last farthing she possessed, but her case was no better than Quint's, for her salary, in most cases, was spent before she got it.

"Ah, if I could only assist," she said. "But you know what I am, Mickey, and I don't see any prospect of another penny myself for a least a week. And the allowance my father makes me is not due for quite a month. But, as to the other matter, do you know, I think I can see a way out. Did you ever hear me speak of an eccentric old uncle of mine who lives by himself in a house on the river not far from here?"

"Yes, I think I have," Quint said. "A sort of hermit who lives entirely alone and never see anybody."

"That's the man," Ennie said. "And we are within a mile of his house at the present time. Now listen, Mickey. You've got no head for business, but I have."

"That's why you're so well off," Quint said drily.

"Ah, but that doesn't prevent me having a business mind. All American girls have. My dear boy, you can't travel across London with those burglar's tools in your possession. It's all very well for me, because I can talk about what I've been using them for. But never mind that. Let's tell this man to drive us to Barnes Station, where we can dismiss him, then we can walk across the fields to my uncle's house and get a train a little later. It isn't ten o'clock yet. Now, please, don't ask any questions. I'll tell the man to drive to the station, and the rest you leave to me."

A little later and the two were crossing the common under the shelter of the fog until they came at length to a road which bordered on the river. Down the side of this road ran a narrow lane which formed a tradesman's entrance to several of the houses, all of which boasted lawns and gardens that ended on the stream. With her hand on Quint's arm, Ennie led him down the lane and through a dilapidated gate into one of the gardens, at the bottom of which stood an old boat-house, the mouldy timbers of which were half in ruins. Beyond this damp and crazy structure were a neat lawn, and a garden that seemed to be full of flowers. At the top end of the garden stood the house, an eight or ten-roomed house with a conservatory at the back, over which was what was probably a bathroom, and to the left of the conservatory a French window opening to the lawn.

"Now, what do you thing of this," Ennie asked. "Nobody comes here because my uncle does everything for himself. He hates visitors; in fact he gave me a pretty good hint the only time I came that he would prefer not to see me again. What I was thinking was this. If the worst came to the worst, and you had to go into hiding, you could sleep in the old boat-house, or, at any rate, I should know where to find you if you wanted me. I could come down here in an evening on the off-chance of seeing you, but, at any rate, you can hide those tools in the boat-house, and come and get them on Saturday night. It's a desperate enterprise, Michel, and it frightens me terribly."

"If you are really afraid," Quint said. "Oh, how selfish I am. I ought not to have brought you into this at all."

"I am not afraid in that sense," Ennie said. "Michel, whatever happens, I am going to be with you to the end."