Читать книгу The King Diamond - Fred M. White - Страница 4

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FOR the moment, at any rate, the office in Bishopsgate- street with all its responsibilities was forgotten. There and then in the sunshine on the crowded pavement Stella could see nothing but the young man before her and a dim background of pleasant memories with which he was intimately connected. The fields and the woods and the light falling on old-world gardens and pleasant intimacies in the ancient rooms where the Ravenhills and the Blys had foregathered for centuries.

Quite a presentable young man, too. Just a typical Englishman to his finger-tips, with that clean and wholesome look that goes with the better brand of Briton the world over. Not dressed after the manner of Bond-street on a summer morning, but with a certain air of distinction that is at once so marked and yet so absolutely indescribable. Not handsome, either, but with the brand of sterling integrity and a pair of eyes that looked everybody smilingly and bravely in the face.

And what he saw was a young woman in the first flush of her beauty. Rather tall, not too fashionably slim, but eminently what she appeared to be. And in her eyes was a smile of welcome and on her cheek a flush that was not due to the perfection of health entirely. And that glorious smile of hers seemed to light up the whole dingy thoroughfare.

"Lionel," Stella cried. "This is quite unexpected. And yet none the less welcome. But what is the meaning of this? Have you taken a day off?"

"Well, not exactly that," Bly laughed. "As a matter of fact my old man is busy on some important experiment, so I am free for an hour or two. That is why I came round here this morning, knowing that you always had your lunch at 1 o'clock, in the hope that I might take you to lunch at the Ritz."

"Ah, that is quite impossible," Stella said. "I always go as far as Oxford-street and take my modest repast at Pagani's. You see, I am so important a person that my employer must know where to find me, even when I lunch. It isn't often he disturbs me, but that is our arrangement. I go by tube to Oxford Circus, because I feel that the little change does me good and the lunch-time music at Pagani's is excellent."

Bly responded eagerly to the effect that it was all the same to him so long as Stella and himself were alone together, and, a few moments later, they found themselves seated in the famous restaurant at a little table laid for two which an infatuated waiter usually retained for Stella. And there they sat for half an hour, listening to the music and discussing their modest lunch, so absorbed in themselves that they might have been absolutely alone so far as the rest of the company were concerned.

It was only when they were sipping their coffee and Stella was enjoying the one cigarette she allowed herself during the course of the day that it began to dawn upon her that Bly was unusually silent and preoccupied. So different to his usual flow of sparkling and enlivening conversation.

"There," Stella said. "That is the second time I have asked you a question you haven't answered. I hope you haven't got anything on your mind, Lionel."

"Well, I have and I haven't. All the same, I did want to consult you about something. To tell you the truth, I am rather worried about my old man."

Stella was all attention at once. She was faintly conscious of some vague trouble in the air, something connected with the story that Sir Samuel had told her that morning. And now, here was Lionel Bly, more or less leading up to the same subject.

"I don't quite understand you," she murmured.

"Well, perhaps I ought not to tell you," Bly went on. "But then, I always tell you everything. I suppose Sir Samuel does, for that matter? Being his confidential secretary, I dare say you learn many things that the public would be glad to know."

"I am absolutely in my employer's confidence and proud of the fact," Stella said. "Why, only this morning—"

She checked herself and broke off abruptly. But Bly was too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice.

"It wouldn't matter," he said thoughtfully, "if it didn't affect my future to a great extent. And when I say my future, I mean ours. He is a wonderful man in many respects, is Sir Hercules, and in certain circles he carries tremendous weight. That is one of the reasons why I have stuck to him so long. He has always promised to do something big for me one of these days and I believed him. But now I am not so sure. The last few months I can't make him out at all. He dragged me down from the Congo Belt, where we were making the most important investigations, and insisted upon settling down close to those diamond mines at Maggersfont. By the way, isn't Sir Samuel Oscar one of the big noises in connection with that mine?"

Stella suppressed a start. Here was Bly, absolutely ignorant of the really startling story she had heard from her employer's lips that morning, actually leading up to another variant of the same amazing narrative. And yet he could not possibly know, even in a small degree, anything connected with the matter which had reached Bishopsgate-street from South Africa that morning. Neither could Stella give him a lead. She could trust him of course, and trust him implicitly, but then to do that would be to betray an almost sacred confidence. It was with a feeling of some uneasiness and discomfort that Stella sat there waiting to hear what her companion was going to say. And, whatever he told her, and whatever light his information would throw upon the mystery of the Maggersfont mine, her lips were sealed. She must listen to all he had to say without response. It seemed almost like treachery, but she had no alternative.

"Don't tell me if you don't want to," she said. "Perhaps you are unduly worrying yourself."

"I don't think so," Bly muttered. "You see, it is like this. I could not for the life of me understand why Sir Hercules suddenly turned his back on the Congo. He was getting on splendidly and his enthusiasm was like that of a schoolboy. He has got some queer ideas, amongst the rest being that he can turn a nigger into a white man in two generations. I mean that in the course of thirty or forty years the coloured races of the world will disappear—so far as their outward appearance is concerned. Of course, it might be all nonsense, but, on the other hand, I have seen with my own eyes three generations of pure black African rats turned into white ones. And not in the tropics, either, but here in London, within a mile of where we are seated. Perhaps I ought not to have told you that, and I shouldn't unless I felt sure that you will never breathe a word of this to a soul. You will see where it comes in presently."

Again that feeling of uneasiness swept over Stella. She might be wrong, of course, but it seemed to her that she ought not to listen to these confidences, without being able to return them and that she could not do so long as she was bound to respect the interests of her employer.

"Do you actually mean that?" she asked.

"Certainly I do," Bly replied. "Mind you, I am no scientist, and I have only obtained the information I am giving you by keeping my eyes open. I don't suppose Sir Hercules realises that I have taken so much interest in his scientific research. You see, my business is to look after the camps, and give orders to the bearers, and all that sort of thing. I know enough native dialect for that, and I picked up most of it during the three years I was serving with the S.A. Forces in the Great War. Otherwise, I should not be with Sir Hercules at all. I dare say you will think I am a long time getting to my point, but I am coming to it now. Just as everything was going splendidly in the Congo Sir Hercules suddenly made up his mind to chuck everything, and go down to Maggersfont. When I asked him why, he told me to mind my own business. And, of course, a hint like that was good enough for me. When we got to Maggersfont Sir Hercules spent most of his time there in pottering about the diamond mines. He got a permit giving him permission to watch the Kafirs at work in the compounds, and he was there almost day and night. And all that time he was in a state of extraordinary nervous irritability. It was all very difficult for me, because I was practically in command of the expedition, and when I discovered that there was absolutely no money in the exchequer I began to get really worried. You see, there were all sorts of people to pay, and there was our hotel bill running on until the landlord began to be quite nasty about it. I hardly knew what to do, because every time I mentioned it to Sir Hercules, he would fly off the handle, and behave in the most extraordinary way. And then, all at once, money began to flow in from some mysterious source. My dear girl, I was more worried than over. Where had that cash come from out of nowhere? I knew that Sir Hercules had precious little of his own, and that he had borrowed every cent he could from his scientific and other friends. So long as we were up in the Congo it didn't matter, but when we were in the limits of civilisation then it was another question altogether. And then I began to hear extraordinary rumours. Rumours of the mysterious disappearance of diamonds from the compounds. Rumours of Kafirs who were swaggering about with their pockets full of money. There was one great buck nigger called M'Papo—"

Bly looked up suddenly, as Stella uttered a little cry and then glanced down demurely at her feet. For the life of her she could not suppress the exclamation, because in the letter she had read that morning from Washburn he had mentioned the name M'Papo as being that of the man who was so shrewdly suspected of being in league with the diamond thieves.

"Oh, it's nothing," Stella said hurriedly. "Go on, Lionel, you have no idea how interested I am."

"Well, as a matter of fact, there is not much more to tell you," Bly concluded rather lamely. "But Sir Hercules has been a different man ever since. He was always inclined to be secretive and suspicious, but now his manner is almost unbearable."

"But you really don't suggest—" Stella hinted.

"Indeed I do. You see, I have all the accounts through my hands and most of the correspondence, and if that money had come through an ordinary channel, I must have known it. And, mind you, Sir Hercules is a man who brooks no opposition whatever. He allows nothing to stand in his path where research concerned and, honestly, I don't believe would stop at murder if he thought it necessary. My idea is that he took advantage of his high position and his great name to get inside the diamond compounds with the deliberate intention of corrupting the Kafirs. And don't forget that he knows their habits inside out, and can speak their language like a native. Moreover, he has a wonderful reputation as a medicine man. There are millions of natives in Africa who regard him as a great witch-doctor, I don't suppose you have ever heard of a native legend called the King Diamond—"

But Stella was prepared this time, and made no sign. Horribly guilty as she felt in listening to these confidences, she was powerless to speak. She would listen on to the end, even if some of these early days the one man in the world she really cared for accused her of something like black treachery.

"Go on," she murmured, looking down and not daring to meet his eyes. "It sounds like a page out of 'King Solomon's Mines.'"

"Yes, by Jove, it isn't far off it. I can't tell you the legend now, because it would take too long, but I heard just before we came home—which we did as abruptly as we had left the Congo—that this wonderful legendary diamond had been found and mysteriously smuggled out of the country by a native. If that is true, then I am sure that Sir Hercules is at the bottom of it. He is spending money right and left now. Why, his flat in Devonshire Mansions costs him over three hundred a year. And before we left England he was trying to sell the lease of it. And now he has ordered the most elaborate apparatus from all over Europe, stuff running into thousands of pounds, and, what is more paying cash for it. And for the first time since I have been with him he has locked up all his private papers, so that I can look at practically nothing. And then he goes off on mysterious errands for hours at a time, and comes back in the vilest of tempers. There is something very wrong, Stella, and I feel most uncomfortable about it. I don't want to get mixed up in any trouble, and that is why I am thinking of chucking my job."

"Oh, you mustn't do that," Stella cried. "At least, not just yet. I mean that it would be very foolish of you to do so unless you have something else in view. You see—"

She stopped suddenly as a messenger boy came drifting through the room shouting her name aloud.

"Miss Ravenhill," he cried. "Miss Ravenhill. Wanted at the telephone, if you please."

"That is my employer," Stella explained as she rose to her foot. "I won't keep you a moment now."

She hurried off into the sound-proof box at the end of a corridor, and took down the receiver.

"Stella Ravenhill speaking," she said. "Who is that?"

"Oh, that you, Miss Ravenhill," came the familiar voice. "No, I don't want to interrupt you, because there is no occasion for you to hurry back. As a matter of fact, I am going to Paris this afternoon to see the French Foreign Minister in connection with those Waterhouse Concessions. I am flying from Croydon Aerodrome at 4 o'clock, and I expect to get back on Friday night or early Saturday morning. I have notified the staff, and I leave you to carry on the private business in my absence. But what I really rang you up for is this. I want you to arrange for a house party at Ravenswood for this week-end. I have already notified Lady Margaret Severn, and she will go down to Ravenswood on Friday. Also, she will get the house party together."

Stella murmured something appropriate. There was no reason for her to inquire who Lady Margaret Severn was, because she had known that popular society lady for years. And she it was who had invariably acted as hostess for Sir Samuel whenever he had a social gathering in the house where Stella was born.

"So that's that," the voice went on at the other end of the wire. "And now I come to the most important part of what I have to say. I have managed to get in touch with Sir Hercules Slaney over the telephone and he has promised to come down for the weekend. A sort of lion, if you understand me. Of course, he could not very well refuse after everything I did for him in Maggersfont, and I need not tell you that I have my own reasons for asking him down. In fact, I arranged the party on purpose. And I want you to ask that young man of yours to come as well. I daresay you can easily get in contact with him."

"Quite," Stella said demurely. "In fact, I am lunching with him at the present moment."

"Oh, the deuce you are! Then I don't think there will be much difficulty in persuading that young man to become one of the gathering. What's that? Oh, yes, quite so. I think that is about all. Here, stop a moment. I was actually forgetting one of the most important points. I have just had a cable in code from Washburn to the effect, that M'Papo, that is the Kafir who is the rogue in the play, disappeared twelve or fourteen days ago, and is believed to be on his way to England in a Cape liner. Washburn has good reason to believe that he is working his passage in the stokehold. This bit of information may or may not have some significance, but I thought perhaps you would like to know it. And now you can go back to your lunch."

Stella returned to her seat in thoughtful mood. It was almost amazing how these incidents were piling up one on the top of the other, and how sensationally events had begun to develop out of nothing, just as a thunderstorm piles up in a summer sky.

She would have dearly liked to say something about all this to Lionel Bly, but then, in the circumstances, it was impossible. And in any case, if Sir Hercules Slaney was the scoundrel he appeared to be, then it would be nothing short of criminal if she dropped any hint which would give the eminent scientist a loophole by which he might escape the consequences of his criminality. No, she must be forced back upon a policy of silence, though, later on, that policy might, in a measure, recoil on her own head.

But there was nothing on her face to show these feelings as she went back to her seat again. Lionel was sitting moodily there, gazing into space.

"Nothing wrong, I hope?" he asked.

"Nothing whatever," Stella smiled. "In fact, I can give you a little longer time than usual. But I have an invitation for you. Sir Samuel thought it would please me if you were invited to be his guest for the week-end at Ravenswood."

"Ask me?" Bly cried. "My dearest girl, there is nothing I should like better in the world. It would be better than a fortnight at the seaside to see dear old Ravenswood again, to say nothing of the sight of the property that used to belong to my reprehensible ancestors. But I am afraid it is out of the question. Sir Hercules would never let me go."

"Well, as a matter of fact, Sir Hercules is going himself," Stella explained. "It appears that Sir Samuel got in contact with him over the telephone, and asked him down, and—well, he consented. And I suppose Sir Samuel thought it would please me if you had an invitation too. Sir Samuel is something more than an employer—he is my very dear friend. But he knows all about us and how well we understand one another. I thought it was exceedingly kind of him."

"So it was," Lionel agreed heartily, "and I am most grateful. A week-end under the same roof as you! It seems almost too good to be true. Only I hope there won't be a big mob down there. I would rather not run into the old set."

"Oh, there will be no mob there," Stella explained. "Not more than half a dozen altogether. And Lady Margaret Severn always acts the hostess, and you know how perfectly she fulfils that role. She is an absolute dear, and nothing would please me better than to see a match between those two."

"But Sir Samuel is an old man."

"Nothing of the kind, my dear boy. He is barely sixty, and as active as a boy. And Lady Margaret must be at least fifty herself. I think it would be most suitable."