Читать книгу The Phantom Car - Fred M. White - Страница 9

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On the same afternoon that Faber was discussing the strange matter of the mysterious footprints with Manthon, Sebastian Wilde was sitting in his library working on an intricate maze of figures, whilst Ebbsmith sat at his comfortable seat in the window going through the household accounts. For a long time there was silence between them, then Wilde pushed his papers on one side and lighted a cigarette.

"That is as far as I can go for the present," he said. "If you have finished those books, Ebbsmith, I want you to give me your attention. How are we off for money?"

Ebbsmith turned away from the table and also helped himself to a cigarette from the box in front of him.

"Precious bad," he said. "Those people in London are worrying again, and here is a letter this morning from that electrical firm in the north declining to send that last lot of apparatus unless we forward a cheque. I don't think you quite realise how much it is the curse of scientists all the last couple of months."

"Money, what do I care about money?" Wilde asked impatiently. "It is the curse of scientists all the world over."

"Ah, that is all very well," Ebbsmith said, "but you can't cut much ice without it. Why don't you sit down to one of those practical inventions of yours and turn out something we can churn into cash, instead of worrying yourself to death over that inverse television of yours? Do you actually believe that one of these early days you are going to envelop a concrete form in an invisible sort of halo so that you, for instance, could walk about without anybody knowing you were there unless you came in actual contact with them?"

"Well, why not?" Wilde demanded. "If I had told you five years ago that I could flash a photograph of yourself across the Atlantic into a newspaper office in New York, you would not be a bit more incredulous than you are now. And yet the thing has been done. And so will this shielded invisibility be perfected by myself. It would have been done before now if it had not been through lack of means. Give me £50,000 and six months' peace of mind, and the problem is solved."

Wilde spoke almost passionately and, for once in a way, his philosophic calm seemed to have deserted him. Ebbsmith watched him with growing admiration.

"Gee," he exclaimed. "That would be a stunt. Why, there wouldn't be anything safe from you. And you mean to say you could actually do it if you had the money you speak of?"

"Beyond the shadow of doubt," Wilde said. "But, tell me where is that fortune to come from?"

"It looks to me as if the gods are actually chucking it at you," Ebbsmith grinned. "What about Miss Ferris? Almost aching to come under your influence. Longing to be brought in contact with her lover across the borderland and ready to believe anything you say. I have lived among crooks and thieves all my life, so I flatter myself I am a fair judge of human nature. And if Miss Ferris isn't both neurotic and romantic, then call me a fool, that is all. Here is a girl worth two hundred thousand pounds, absolutely in her own right, which is far more money than she can possibly want, and here are you, a scientist, ready to set the world on fire. You have the brains and she has the money. What more ideal partnership do you need? And you can get round her with your influence as easy as kiss my hand. And if your conscience troubles you afterwards, you can easily pay her back again when your invention comes on the market. Its possibilities are amazing. In my mind's eye I can see an invisible aeroplane, a death-dealing machine loaded with bombs floating over some doomed city and—well, I don't want to be poetical because it is not in my line. If you want to play the game with Miss Ferris, you can do it easily. I don't see why you need hesitate. If there ever was a case where the end justifies the means this is it."

For some time Wilde turned over this suggestion in silence.

"Yes," he said at length. "There seems to be a lot in what you say. I am not a sentimentalist, James, as you know. I am, first and last, an inventor."

"With something else in between," Ebbsmith grinned.

"Very likely, very likely. But that is because I cannot realise my ambitions in any other way. But if this thing is to be done on the lines you suggest, it will have to be achieved very cautiously. You seem to think that Miss Ferris is absolutely alone in the world, with the exception of that innocent old aunt of hers. Well, you are mistaken. There is Manthon, for example. A fine intellect that, James, a very fine intellect. I am not exactly afraid of him, but I have an uneasy impression that he has summed me up accurately. Moreover, he is over head and ears in love with Miss Ferris and, no doubt, hopes in the course of time, to make her his wife. He would fight for her to the death. He will come between the girl and ourselves at whatever cost to himself. At least, that is how I read his character. I shall have to think this thing very carefully out, James."

"Well, that is your side of the matter," Ebbsmith said. "But if Manthon makes himself very objectionable——"

"Now, none of that, none of that," Wilde cried. "No violence if you want to stay with me. Not a single step do you move without consulting me first. When my big scheme is through and you have more money than you can possibly spend, then you can leave me when you like. Really, I am ashamed of you, James. You talk like one of those crude burglars, who go about with loaded revolvers in their pockets. However, there is plenty of time. We have all the summer before us."

"Yes, but have we?" Ebbsmith urged. "Didn't I tell you just now that we were painfully short of ready money? Your balance at the bank in London is overdrawn, and I am instructed not to send in any more cheques. We have always paid our way since we came down here and it would look bad if we began to run up accounts now. What are we going to do about it?"

Wilde waved the suggestion aside impatiently.

"That difficulty we can get over in a day or two," he said. "You know what I mean. Don't worry me now; let me have just an hour to think things out. And while I am doing that, you might go as far as Trevor Capner's house and see if you can't get his housekeeper to give you that pamphlet on ballistics which I lent him not long before he left England. I want it to verify some calculations of mine."

Ebbsmith rose obediently and left the house in search of the pamphlet. He walked along the road until he came to Capner's residence, where he rang the bell and asked to speak to the housekeeper. So far, the establishment had not been closed, and servants had been kept on for the present by Capner's legal representatives. It would be some time before the court allowed the executors to presume the death of the airman and, meanwhile, the household went on much as if nothing had happened. It was just possible, too, that Trevor Capner was not dead, though the odds were overwhelmingly against such a supposition. Still, English courts of justice are slow to move in such matters, and it would probably be a long time before the domestic staff was disbanded and the house closed.

Ebbsmith found himself presently in the library in company with the elderly housekeeper.

"I am afraid I don't know what it is you want, sir," she said. "But you are quite at liberty to look for the book which you say Mr. Wilde lent my poor dead master. Nothing has been touched since he went away. In fact, I haven't had the heart to interfere with his papers. And a more untidy gentlemen, though I ought not to say it, never lived than Captain Capner. But you can see that for yourself, sir."

Ebbsmith nodded as he looked at the mass of papers and litter on the big writing-table in one of the windows. There were books on the shelves with manuscripts and pamphlets of all kinds which seemed to have been set down at random.

"Yes, I quite see what you mean," Ebbsmith said. "But don't let me detain you. From what I can see, I gather that it will take me some time to find what I am looking for. If I do find it, I will ring and let you know."

The housekeeper turned away, satisfied with this arrangement, and for a long time Ebbsmith ploughed through the litter on the shelves and on the table until nearly the end of a hour had passed when his eye lighted upon the dingy cover of the pamphlet. He was about to turn away with this in his pocket when, under a blotting pad he had just turned over, he saw what appeared to be a letter written to Capner, which letter was in a feminine handwriting. Without the slightest hesitation, Ebbsmith read it. When he had done so, there was a queer grin on his face, and he placed the letter in his pocket and, having signified to the housekeeper that he had been successful in his search, left the place and made his way home.

In the library at Monkshole, he found Wilde, still seated in the attitude of profound meditation. He took the letter from his pocket and thrust it under his employer's nose.

"Read that," he said curtly. "Read that and see if you can't use it. If you don't think so, I shall be very much mistaken."

Very slowly and carefully, Wilde read the letter which Peggy had written to Trevor Capner on the night when he had given her the agreed signal and dashed all her hopes of happiness to the ground. He read it twice before he looked up.

"Well?" Ebbsmith demanded impatiently. "Well?"

"Undoubtedly it will be useful," Wilde said in his thoughtful manner. "I can't quite see how we can turn it to account yet, but I shall before long. What are you grinning at?"

By way of reply, Ebbsmith bent down and whispered a few words in his employer's ear. Gradually a slow smile spread over Wilde's face, a smile of appreciation.

"Now, really, that is a great thought," he said. "One moment. Yes, I begin to see. Don't interrupt."

With that, Wilde propelled his chair across to the fireplace, and, bending over sideways, glanced up the wide, open chimney. Then he proceeded to open the big powder closets on either side. Once he had done this, he came to his desk and Ebbsmith could judge from the expression on his face that he had come to some important decision.

"Yes, I think you're right, James," he said. "But there will be two points to consider. I don't want anybody in this except you and myself. There is no third party I can trust, but I think, with a little rehearsing, that the business can be managed. The lawyers say time is the essence of the contract. When I say time, I mean that you and I must have two watches that exactly tally. Then we must have a kind of Bradshaw's guide worked out to the minutest detail, one copy of which you will keep and the other will be locked up in my desk."

"So you think it is a real brain wave?" Ebbsmith asked.

"I do, James, I do. Now collect me all the radio catalogues there are in the house and let me have them at once."