Читать книгу The Grey Woman - Fred M. White - Страница 9

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After he had despatched his urgent telephone message to a mysterious individual somewhere in the background, Beaucaire washed his swollen face and sat down with what patience he could to wait for a reply. But though the hours and the minutes slipped on, no sign came, and Beaucaire was fain to retire to his room at length and try to sleep. He came back to his sitting-room some time in the middle of the morning, very stiff and very sore and still unrefreshed and uneasy in his mind, wondering why he had heard nothing from the man at the other end of the wire. Then at length he could stand it no longer and called up a number. An entirely strange voice answered him.

"Is Prince Sergius Phasy there?" he asked.

"No, he isn't, sir," came the reply. "He doesn't seem to be on the premises at all."

"Wasn't he there last night?"

"That I can't tell you, sir. The night porter said that he came in late and went out again about three-quarters of an hour after. Since then he has not come back. At least, he has not been down to breakfast, nor has he occupied his room. Is there anything wrong, sir?"

"Oh, dear, no," Beaucaire hastened to say. "Oh, no. Only I wanted to speak to him. Please don't bother. Very likely he will come round here in the course of the morning."

Beaucaire spoke confidently enough, but he was feeling uneasy in his mind. He knew perfectly well that it was no uncommon thing for this mysterious Phasy to be away from the obscure little hotel off the Strand where he resided. But it was certainly unwise to arouse suspicion in the minds of the people who kept the hostelry in question.

Still, there was no getting away from the fact that Beaucaire was both restless and uneasy. At his special request the man Phasy had set out to accomplish a dangerous errand, no less than a stealthy attack upon Musgrave, and, in the ordinary course of events, ought to have let him know the result of his adventure. Indeed, Beaucaire had expected a visit from his confederate on the night before. He had either succeeded or he had not, but, whichever way fortune went, he should have acquainted Beaucaire with the result of the encounter without delay.

And yet he had done nothing of the kind. He had not even been home. Nothing had been heard of him since, and where he was and what had happened to him, Beaucaire was utterly at a loss to understand. Neither could he do anything to find out. All he had to do now was to sit down patiently and wait for some sign of Phasy before he made the next move in the desperate game upon which he had embarked.

Perhaps, some accident had happened to Phasy, perhaps he had been caught in the act of assaulting Musgrave and promptly given in custody. It was no use looking in the morning paper, because the encounter, if there had been one, had taken place long after every news sheet had gone to press. And the last thing in the world that Beaucaire wanted was to take anybody else into his confidence. So he ate his breakfast and his lunch and sat brooding in his rooms waiting on events.

It was two hours later still, when his sitting-room door opened and a dapper little man with dark hair and curled moustache came smilingly in. Beaucaire jumped to his feet.

"Phasy," he cried. "Now, where the devil have you been? Not a word from you last night, though I sat up till daylight waiting for a message. I 'phoned to your pothouse, but they said you had gone out very late and had not come back. I dared not ask any further questions for obvious reasons. But you have given me no end of a fright. What happened?"

The little man with the dark hair and dark eyes sat down carefully in a chair, and rubbed the back of his head.

"From our point of view, dear friend, nothing," he said. "Oh, yes, I made the attempt. I ran Musgrave down and I thought I had got him. But I was what you call making a bloomer. Is not that the word, yes? Then he turned on me as if he knew I was behind and before I could get my knife——"

"Knife," Beaucaire echoed. "You don't mean to say you tried to assassinate him?"

"But yes, my friend," Phasy said tranquilly. "Not to kill, oh, no, but perhaps to stab him high up between the shoulders and rob him as he lay on the ground. It is not wise to what you call tackle the English athlete with the fist. Oh, no. In a duel with swords, then I would have him at my mercy. And you told me it was vital to get back that little gold box. So I make a blow at him and, before I know what was happening, behold me lying on my back as if I had been struck with a bomb. But for having a skull like that of a nigger, I should be a dead man at this minute. When I come to myself, I am in hospital with a lump on the back of my head as big as a football. And there I lie till an hour to two ago, when I make my escape. I get up and dress quietly and what you call sneak out of the hospital, because I want no questions asked. Once I am recognise, then everybody know that I am Prince Sergius Phasy, and that I have been made the victim of an attack in the street. The newspaper man come and they make what they call a story out of it. And I do not want to be the hero of a story like that. And that is about all, my excellent friend Beaucaire. I come round here as soon as I can to tell you that I make the mistake and talk with you to see if you can put it right again. But I have not the box, and I have not even the reason why you are so anxious to get it. It is a little stunt, perhaps, which you are keeping from your dear friend Sergius. Is not that so, yes? And your dear friend Sergius, though he love you very much, does not like little secrets between friends."

"So you think I am double-crossing you?" Beaucaire asked. "Is that what you have in your mind?"

"I am pretty sure of it," the other man said. "Until I know the truth, we go no further."

Beaucaire looked at the speaker out of the corner of his eye. He could see behind a certain lightness of speech a determination which he could not ignore.

"Very well, then," he said. "I will put all my cards on the table. You know all about me, Sergius, just as I happen to know all about you."

"That is quite right," Phasy agreed. "I am Hungarian nobleman before the war, rich and powerful, with property of my own in Roumania, and that was the property from whence I derived my big income. Then I fight with the Austrians in the lines with Germany, and when the war is over those Roumanian thieves they confiscate my castle and my land, yes, even all my securities and investments, and leave me in a lonely chateau in the Austral Tyrol which is worth perhaps a hundred crowns a year. I am ruined. I have my title and my ancestors behind me, and a great name. But, dear Beaucaire, I cannot live on a great name, and I have learnt to look after myself during the war. There is no honesty in the world, believe me, or perhaps we should not be talking together here as we are now. I come to England thinking perhaps that I shall find a rich wife among your bloated profiteers, who will be glad to call herself Princess Phasy in exchange for her wealth. And I fail. But because I can do anything with a pack of cards, I turn to them for a living. How have the mighty fallen, dear Beaucaire."

"Very likely," Beaucaire muttered. "I too, was fairly well off before the war. But everything went to rack and ruin whilst I was fighting. And when I got back to England again there was nothing for it but to starve in a land which was going to be made fit for heroes to live in. Nobody cared, nobody worried. What use had society for a broken soldier? But society might be made use of by a broken soldier and, for the last three or four years, I have taken a pretty good toll of it. I tell you, Phasy, I care nothing for my old name and what was once a decent reputation, so long as there are fools in the world to be fleeced. I suppose I inherited that talent from my north country ancestors in the days when they lived by robbing their neighbours. So, you see, there isn't much between us."

"Not very much," Phasy agreed. "Only you are a bit smarter than I am. But you are not smart enough to get me to risk my freedom, as I did last night, and think I am going to be put off with some fairy story about a gold snuff-box. Now, why did you want it? And what do you expect to get out of it?"

"Very well, then, I will tell you," Beaucaire said. "The gold snuff-box is part of a side show which I was going to keep to myself. A sort of insurance if you know what I mean. There is money in it, lots of it and, since I must share the plunder with you, I will. It is rather a long story and it concerns one of our oldest families whose seat is in Northumberland. Did you ever hear the name of Heronspey?"

"No, I can't say I have," Phasy replied.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. They date back to the Normans, a very fine old race, full of pride and tradition and absolutely bursting with money. The head of the family is an old man in his eightieth year, or thereabouts. He lives quite alone with a big retinue of servants, and I don't suppose he spends a tenth part of his income. He must be absolutely rolling in money."

"A most enviable condition, dear boy."

"Up to a certain point, yes. But the bigger the closet, the bigger the skeleton, and the skeleton is there in Heronspey Castle all right. If it were your case or mine, we should make nothing of it, but then, we are moderns and old Heronspey is mediaeval. A stain on the family honour is torture to a soul like that. And the stain is there, right enough. If you had been successful last night, we should have had the key to the secret in our hands."

"I smell blackmail," Phasy grinned.

"Call it what you like," Beaucaire muttered. "But, properly handled, there is a fortune in it for us."