Читать книгу The Salt Of The Earth - Fred M. White - Страница 5

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Adela groped her way to a chair, as if she were blind or fumbling in the dark. It never occurred to her to doubt what the intruder said. She took it all absolutely for gospel. There was no hint of mirth about the speaker. Evidently he was in deadly earnest. He stood with his hands under his long coat tails like a statesman in the hour of his triumph. The leering look of affection was on his face. Adela shuddered as she wondered whether he would expect her to kiss him.

But one fact stood out as clearly as a beacon light on a stormy sea. The man was a criminal. He had not told her so, but Adela knew that as plainly as if the facts had been proclaimed in a court of law. The veriest tyro in crime would have stigmatised Burton as a shy man with a shady reputation. He had the tone and accent of a gentleman, it is true, and he had passed most of his time, doubtless, in cultivating refined society. But there was no getting away from the hideous suggestiveness of his mouth, and the wicked cunning in his blue eyes.

Nor could she escape the fact that this man had loaded her with benefits. If this were Sam Burton, and the girl saw no reason to question it, she was under a debt to him that she could never repay, and she could not even claim relationship. For years past he had devoted his life to her happiness and comfort. He had educated her, paid her extravagant bills unmurmuringly, surrounded her with every luxury and extravagance that the heart could desire. He had confessed to being a sentimentalist. This was the one clean, sweet romance of his otherwise spotted existence. He had been carried away by the genius and power of Charles Dickens' work. He had elected to play the role of the old convict, and Adela was Pip in another form. Was this a ghastly tragedy or a screaming farce?

For the first time the girl laughed. It was a hard laugh with a touch of hysteria behind it. She glanced from the self-satisfied figure standing before the fireplace to the evidence of wealth and refinement around her. She could see the outlay of a fortune almost within reach of her own slender ringed fingers. This picture had a history of its own, and the halo of the big cheque about it. There was a carpet, which had cost half a score of lives to make. Here was a piece of statuary beyond the purse of anyone but a millionaire. And this was only Adela's country cottage. There was a flat in St. Veronica's Mansions, Westminster, compared with which this bungalow was simplicity itself. Every penny of the money had come from the pockets of the imagined millionaire, but was probably the fruit of audacity and crime! Possibly the stranger had a suspicion of the trend of Adela's thoughts, for he stretched out one of his long, slim fingers and pointed to a Corot half hidden behind a feathery bank of palms.

"I remember that picture," he said. "It used to hang in the house of a virtuoso in Florence. You would laugh if you knew how it came into my possession. Didn't I send it you on your twentieth birthday? Yes, I am sure I did. I remember it because I forwarded those old Dresden beakers at the same time. We got lots of stuff from the chateau of that mad Hungarian Prince when his castle was burned down. As a matter of fact, there wasn't any fire at all. I think that was about the best and most simple scheme I ever invented. Over forty thousand pounds' worth of plunder, and no one so much as suspected. I sent you a certain trio of Rembrandts, too. Where are they?"

"In my London flat," said Adela feebly. She was past emotion, or anger, or tears. She lay back in her chair limp and listless, fascinated in spite of herself.

"That's right," Burton said encouragingly. "I am glad you are taking it in the right way, because, you see, the game is pretty well played out. I am not the man I was, and if the doctors tell me truly I haven't very long to live. I daresay you remember that business a year or two ago in Paris over the Countess De Trouville's diamonds. I believe the affair created a considerable sensation. I got it bullet in my left lung then, and have never quite recovered. But for that I might have kept up the glorious game to the finish. But, what does it matter to a clever girl like you? You are in the very first flight. You pass for a girl with a fabulous fortune. You are even more beautiful than I expected you to be. Ah, the salt of the earth—that's what you are—the salt of the earth."

The speaker turned the phrase around his tongue a dozen times, as it he liked the flavor of it.

"You'll get nothing more from me," he said. "I am played out. I have enemies, too, ready to give me away. The police know that I am in England. It was only by the greatest good luck that I escaped them to-night."

The speaker stopped to cough again. Once more he pressed his handkerchief to his thin lips. For the first time Adela noted how white and drawn he was. She became conscious of his labored breathing. She was recovering, now. The first crushing weight of the blow was passing away. No wild desire to cross-examine troubled her. She knew that this man was speaking the truth. She felt very much now as Pip had felt when the hunted convict turned up in the old chambers at the Thavies Inn.

At one stroke the whole fabric of her dreams had been shattered. As a matter of hard, cold fact, she was not the salt of the earth at all. She was merely the offspring of some impossible creature whose face had been her fortune and whose audacity had been her bank-book. Of all the carved and gilt frauds at present haunting London she was the worst. For the last year or two she had been courted and flattered, she had basked in the smiles of royalty, she had been the guest of more than one ducal house. Modern society without Adela Burton seemed almost impossible. Of course, there had been a good deal of anxiety of late, especially since the American remittances had ceased. But Adela had not seriously troubled about that. She had looked forward to seeing her benefactor, but she had never dreamt to meet him in a guise like this. Now she knew she was an big an impostor as himself.

Her path lay clear before her. But would she take it? In her heart of hearts she knew she would do nothing of the kind. Besides, she could always fall back upon Mark Callader. Callader was going to marry her for her money. Indeed, he had made little disguise of the fact. On the whole, Adela would have the best of the deal.

"Won't you sit down?" she asked.

Burton did not appear to be listening to her. He stood up rigidly, as a fox might do when he hears the hounds. His tense expectation, the hard, drawn lines of his mouth filled Adela with apprehension.

"There is nothing to be afraid of," she said.

"Not for you, my dear, you are all right. The police don't know everything yet. Little do they dream of the connection between myself and Miss Adela Burton. But I should like to know—what's that?"

Adela heard the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel, the quick, impatient ripple of the front-door bell. The whole aspect of the man changed. A cruel, vengeful light lurked in his eyes. He was breathing thick and fast. A moment before he had been holding an envelope in which something sparkled. He placed the contents in his breast pocket, but the envelope slipped, unnoticed by him, to the floor. Before Adela could speak he had vanished in the direction of the bath-room. Then she heard the front door open, and a man strode into the roam.

"Are you quite alone?" he asked.

"Yes," Adela said mechanically. "But what are you, of all men, doing here?"

"I came with the police. There is a man I am looking for. I ran against him by accident at Victoria, but he managed to elude me. I suppose he hasn't been here?"

"Is it likely? Is it a new society fad to hide criminals? Doesn't it strike you that you are behaving absurdly, Mark?"

Mark Callader shook his head doggedly.

"I am sorry," he said. "Of course I had no business to come in like this. But we actually found that fellow's foot-prints in your garden. Funny thing he should have come here, wasn't it?"

"Very," Adela said indifferently.

Mark Callader frowned. He stood there big and strong, a little embarrassed, and conscious of the fact. He was clean-shaven like most of his sort. He had the face of a pugilist, the heavy square features of the man who gets his living in that way. There was a blue tinge on his skin, which was slightly indented like the rind of an orange. One could imagine him in evening dress, spending his time in a sporting den, and gloating over the sickening spectacle of two human beings pounding each other to a jelly for a purse of gold. The same type of face and form is familiar at race meetings. For the rest, he was well-dressed, and up to his neck had the semblance of being a gentleman. Mark Callader could boast of a long line of ancestors, and the possession of considerable property. But there the resemblance to the man of high caste ceased. He had the courage and dogged resolution that distinguish his class. He was always at one end of the gamut of passions. There was no limit to his love and his hate, and Adela could imagine him like another Othello with his hand on the pillow and murder in his heart, should the Desdemona of the moment play him false. To sum up, he was rich, and in the smart set to which he belonged this covered a multitude of sins. A sullen, sleepy look of admiration lit up his eyes—the small, deep-sunk eyes, which he turned upon Adela. Perhaps because she loathed the type and the manner, Mark Callader fascinated her; but it was largely the fascination the snake has upon the bird.

"I am sorry I intruded in this fashion," he stammered. "But you know I never stop to think."

"Oh, I know that; I was merely thinking it strange you should have traced this fugitive here. I am afraid you have had your journey for nothing, as far as I an concerned."

"Sure you haven't seen him?"

"My dear Mark, have I not already said so?" Adela responded. There was nothing for it but to lie. However she might despise herself, she must be loyal to her convict. "As a matter of fact, you are detaining me. I ought to have gone out before now."

A sudden suspicion seized Callader.

"Then why are you not dressed?" he retorted. "You can't go out and spend the evening in that rig."

Adela would have given anything to get Callader out of the house. She hoped he would not see the evidence of her falsehood, proof which literally was at his feet, for upon a Persian prayer rug lay Burton's stained handkerchief, and close beside it the envelope which had dropped from his pocket. If Callader saw either he would never rest till his suspicions were dispelled or confirmed, and even as Adela was racking her brain for some plan to induce him to leave, he stooped down and picked up the envelope from the floor. She could see it shaking in his hand, and noticed how the blunt thumb-nail was pressed into the thick, white paper.

"What's this?" he said hoarsely. "An envelope addressed to Douglas Denne, and something inside it, too. Hang me, if it isn't a Mazarin ring—the Mazarin ring, mind."

The tiny circlet of gold glittered in the air as Callader held it up to the light. The gold workmanship was quaint and artistic. A series of claws held three engraved diamonds in a kind of cluster. Adela recognised the ring at once; indeed, everybody with any knowledge of art had heard of the Mazarin ring. It was no time to wonder how it got there, to marvel how it had come into Burton's possession, or how it managed to slip from his pocket. It was fortunate, perhaps, for Adela that Callader was gazing at it with rapt admiration. His love and knowledge of antiques of all kinds was the man's one redeeming feature. There was no dealer in London or Paris who could teach Callader anything on the subject of art. He had the Renaissance at his finger tips. His own collections were well nigh priceless. It was known to a few that he made large sums by dealing. If he cared to run any risk to mortgage his soul for anything, it would only be for a piece of rare furniture or a famous picture. Mephistopheles himself would have chosen such bait for him.

"How did this come here?" he demanded.

"The thing speaks for itself," Adela said. She had recovered her self-possession. "Mr. Denne has been here this afternoon with some of the others playing bridge. No doubt he dropped the ring and envelope out of his pocket. Perhaps it is a good thing I have found it. Now, if you don't mind—"

"Oh, I am going. I suppose I shall see you at Denne's dinner to-morrow night. You will have a good opportunity to give him the ring back."

The front door closed. Adela was alone at last, and threw herself into a chair. She tried to analyse her confused and painful thoughts. She was like one cast away and derelict on a dark and stormy sea.

"Is it tragedy or is it farce?" she pondered. "So I am the salt of the earth? What would they say if they knew?"