Читать книгу The 12.30 from Croydon - Freeman Wills Crofts - Страница 4

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Some four weeks before Andrew Crowther’s tragic air journey his nephew Charles Swinburn sat in his leather-covered chair in the head office of the Crowther Electromotor Works at Cold Pickerby gazing unseeingly at a Thorpe Engineering Company’s calendar which adorned the opposite wall of the somewhat dingy room. Above the neatly lettered card headed ‘August’ was a spirited reproduction in bright flat colours and jet shadows of a titanic crane hoisting a Brobdingnagian locomotive over the cliff-like side of a mammoth ship. Yet this spectacular feat did not rivet Charles Swinburn’s attention as it deserved and had been designed to do. In the first place he had seen it every day for nearly eight months, and in the second he had something more pressing to think about.

Something serious surely, to judge by the harassed expression on the man’s face. He was in his early prime: as a matter of fact he had just celebrated his five-and-thirtieth birthday. The skin of his pale oval face was still unmarked by lines of care and his dark hair remained free from grey. Beneath his high, if somewhat narrow, forehead his eyes, sparkling with intelligence, looked out upon the world. Good features these, as was his nose. But there was a falling off in the lower part of his face. His mouth was not firm enough and his jaw was too narrow. The face indeed showed a strange mixture of intellectual power and moral weakness.

Charles Swinburn had cause to look anxious. He had cause to look more than anxious. For he was pondering a very dreadful problem. He was trying desperately to find a way in which, with safety to himself, he could bring about the death of his uncle, Andrew Crowther.

To murder his uncle! That had lately become his obsession. Slowly the desperate circumstances in which he found himself had forced him to the terrible conclusion that if his uncle’s life were not forfeit, he would lose his own.

A fortnight earlier no thought of crime had entered his mind. A fortnight earlier this terrible solution of his difficulties had not even occurred to him. Then, as now, he had sat in his office with an equally harassed expression on his face, but his anxiety had been then the anxiety of an honourable and law-abiding man.

There was good cause for his distress then, as now. Charles Swinburn was suffering from an extremely common complaint, so common indeed as to justify the adjective epidemic. He was in fact hard up. For some months things had been growing steadily worse, and now he was actually in sight of ruin.

He was the sole owner of the works, in the private office of which he was now seated. He manufactured small electromotors for driving low-powered machines from klaxons and gramophones to the more modest forms of machine tools. When he had received the business as a legacy from his father it had been small but flourishing. It was still small, but now its prosperity had departed. With the slump had come a gradual reduction of orders, Charles’s profits had diminished till at last came the unhappy time when he found himself actually at a loss on the week’s work. At first he had made good the deficit from his private account, but as things continued to grow steadily worse he saw that he could not continue to carry the business. His private fortune was practically gone and he was in debt to the bank, and if things did not mend he would be faced with the necessity of closing down.

With an abrupt movement he rose to his feet, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked a safe which stood in the corner of the office. The room was of fair size with two tall windows, facing which was Charles’s table desk, with the usual shaded light, telephone and wicker correspondence baskets. Beside the fireplace stood a deep leather-covered arm-chair, provision both for Charles’s less energetic moments and for his more important clients. More humble callers were accommodated on the small chair before the desk. The furniture was good, but the paint was shabby and the walls required repapering.

Charles took from the safe a locked book bound in black leather, placed it before him on the desk and opened it with a small key. It was his private ledger, of the existence of which neither his confidential clerk nor his manager had any idea. In it were recorded the damning facts which were now giving him so furiously to think. His staff knew that things were in a bad way, but no one but himself had any inkling how serious the position really was.

For some time Charles continued working with the figures in his book, then he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Before calling ‘Come in!’ he slipped the book into a drawer and became immersed in the papers which had been beneath it. A thin elderly man in threadbare black, with a pessimistic expression on his sallow face, entered and stood in a hesitating way before the desk.

‘Well, Gairns?’ said Charles, contriving to banish his depressed expression and to speak cheerily.

James Gairns was the chief of Charles’s clerical staff, nominally confidential clerk, accountant, and general office manager, really Charles’s office boy and general attendant. Charles made a show of consulting him on everything, but he actually did all the important business himself. Gairns was utterly honest and trustworthy and carried out his routine duties efficiently enough, but he had no initiative and could not be trusted with power. With resignation, but an obvious expectation of the worst, he followed Charles’s lead in anything outside the ordinary course. Professionally speaking, he was as old as the works themselves, having been a foundation member of the staff. For ten years he had remained a clerk, then in a moment of mental aberration Charles’s father had promoted him chief, and he had occupied the position ever since, a matter of three-and-twenty years.

‘Well, Gairns?’ said Charles again.

Gairns slowly rubbed the palm of his right hand with the tips of the fingers of his left, a trick which from much repetition had got on Charles’s nerves.

‘I wondered, sir, if you had heard from Brent Magnus Limited lately?’

‘I lunched with Mr Brent yesterday.’

Gairns continued to rub his hands. ‘Oh then, there’ll be nothing in it,’ he went on despondently.

‘Perhaps,’ Charles suggested, ‘you’d tell me what you’re talking about?’ When in Gairns’ company Charles always felt at his mental and moral best.

‘It’s only that I saw Tim Banks.’ This was the Brent Magnus Ltd head clerk. ‘I had occasion to slip round to the bank; about that cheque of Fleet’s: you know, sir?’

‘I know. Yes?’

‘On the way back I met Tim Banks. He was just going into the bank. He stopped and we chatted for a moment.’

‘Well? For goodness’ sake, get on, man!’

Gairns began to rub his hands again. ‘He asked if we’d heard from Mr Brent yet. I said, not so far as I knew. He said, well, we would be hearing soon. I asked what was up and he wouldn’t say; not at first he wouldn’t. But I pressed him and then he gave me the hint. “Mind you,” he said, “I’m only giving you a hint and you don’t know nothing till you hear from Mr Brent.” ’

‘What was the hint?’ Charles demanded patiently.

‘We’ve lost the contract.’ Gairns shook his head sadly.

‘What!’ Charles exclaimed. ‘You don’t say so! Was Banks sure?’

‘He seemed so.’

Charles made a sudden gesture. ‘Damn it all, Gairns, that’s pretty bad news!’

Gairns shook his head hopelessly.

‘What was our tender?’ Charles went on. ‘Seventeen hundred and ten pounds! Good heavens, Gairns, we can’t afford to lose a seventeen hundred pound contract these times. It was going to be a help to us, that contract.’

Charles sprang to his feet and began to pace the room. This was certainly very unexpected and disagreeable news. The firm of Brent Magnus Ltd was an important toy-making concern, employing a large staff. The machines for making the toys were all small, and were operated by an elaborate system of shafting, the driving of which consumed nearly as much power as the machines themselves. The directors had just decided to throw out this shafting and to replace it by a separate electromotor for each machine. They had advertised for tenders for the work, and as the largest motors made by Charles were just big enough, he had tendered. He had cut his price to the last sixpence and had been hopeful of success.

It was a blow, and Charles could not entirely hide the fact. He presently ceased his pacing of the room and threw himself once more into his chair. ‘Sit down a moment, Gairns.’ He pointed to the small chair. ‘We must talk this over.’

Gairns seated himself gingerly on the edge of the chair and sat waiting for what was to come. Here was a difficulty, and it was Charles’s part to meet it and his, Gairns’s, to assist by doing what he was told. The idea of offering a suggestion did not occur to him. It was fortunate for him that he was not called on to do so, for as a matter of fact he had none to offer. Indeed he did not even see that there was anything to discuss. The order was lost. Very regrettable, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Charles, however, had other ideas.

‘I’m afraid, Gairns,’ he began, ‘that this affair will bring up a question which I have been thinking over for some time, and which I’d much rather not mention. Which of those two clerks, Hornby or Sutter, is the better man?’

Gairns slowly rubbed his hand. ‘Hornby or Sutter?’ he repeated. ‘Well, they’re both good young fellows enough, as young fellows go in these days, that is.’

‘I asked you which was the better.’

‘Hornby’s better at the books. His posting’s neat and he doesn’t make mistakes, or not many of them anyhow. But Sutter’s the best man when it comes to handling anything out of the common. If you have a message up town you send Sutter.’

Charles saw that he must get down to it. ‘The reason I ask you is that I’m afraid you’ll have to let one of them go.’

Gairns was appalled. He blinked at his employer. ‘Let one of them go, sir? That wouldn’t be easy with all the work that has to be done.’ He could scarcely believe Charles was in earnest. There had always been the typist, the office boy, and two clerks, and to make so fundamental a change would alter the whole of the established routine.

‘I know it won’t be easy,’ Charles went on. ‘I hate to think of getting rid of either of them, for I know they’re both good men. But I’m afraid we can’t help ourselves. We simply can’t afford to go on as we are doing. We’ve got to save somewhere. You know as well as I do that every firm’s doing it.’

The old man was actually trembling. Charles, who overlooked his annoying little ways in remembering his devoted service, was sorry for him.

‘We can’t help it, James,’ he said kindly. ‘You go off now and think how you’re going to manage with one clerk. There’s less correspondence now than there was and Miss Lillingstone can help with the books. And that boy Maxton can do more than he’s doing. Think which of those two you’d like to keep and let the other go. I don’t want him taken too short. You may give him a month’s notice.’

Charles was a considerate employer and hated turning into the street a man who had served him well. But for some time the dwindling work had been forcing him to the conclusion that the office was overstaffed. The loss of the Brent Magnus job had simply brought the matter to a head.

For Charles had no doubt of the truth of Gairns’s story. He had been afraid of that very thing happening, and he knew that the confidential clerk, Timothy Banks, was a highly reliable man.

When Gairns left the office, the expression of worry and care settled down once again on Charles’s features. This hiding of his troubles from his staff and turning a smiling face to the world was a wearing business. And yet he must go through with it. He had a special reason why no whisper that all was not well in the Crowther Works must get abroad, an overwhelming, all-compelling reason. For Charles Swinburn was in love, desperately, consumingly in love. And he knew that Una Mellor would never marry a poor man.

Six months previously Colonel Mellor had moved to Cold Pickerby, and a week later Charles and Una had met on the golf links. She played a good game and so did he, and the meeting was followed by others. For Charles it was love at first sight. Till then he had been comparatively free from attachments, and now when he caught the fever the attack was correspondingly severe. Una instantly saw what had happened—and laughed at him. But this, instead of cooling him, still further inflamed his passion, till the winning of the tantalizing young woman became the one thing he lived for. After weeks of discouragement he began to think he was making progress, and latterly he had been sure of it. But he knew that the mere suggestion of financial difficulty, not to mention bankruptcy, would remove her as far from his reach as if she lived in the moon.

For some time Charles remained sitting motionless at his desk with bowed head and despondent features. Then with a half-shrug he rose, locked away his book, took his hat and went out.

Though a big Scotsman named Macpherson served him in the nominal capacity of works manager and engineer, Charles was his own manager. The works were his hobby and his baby as well as the source of his income, and he enjoyed pottering about in them and watching what was going on. When work in the office was slack he was to be found ‘down the yard’. When his thoughts in the office became too bitter he would take refuge in the same sanctuary. So it was on the present occasion.

He passed through the store, nodding to the storesman and running his eye along the shelves with their load of wire, castings, bolts, terminals, and spares of all kinds, and in another section the finished motors, stacked according to size and winding. Charles was very proud of his store, with the continuous card indicator system he had introduced by which at a glance the exact amount of everything stocked could be read off. Also it pleased him to see the neat way in which everything was stacked, and he complimented the storesman on his well-swept floor and tidy shelves.

From the store he glanced into the tiny foundry, exchanged a word or two with the solitary pattern maker, and then wandered across the yard to the winding shop. Here the armatures and the field magnets were wound. Charles rather aimlessly stopped before a small machine and stood watching it work.

It was winding a coil with copper wire of the thickness of an extremely fine hair. The fairy-like thread, after coming off its reel, was carried through a bath of insulating varnish, dried in a current of hot air, and wound on the coil, all just as if the machine was a human being. The way the coil was turned to take the successive layers fascinated Charles, and he invariably stopped to watch the operation.

‘One of the distance relays for yon Dalton pit job,’ a voice said presently in deep Scottish tones. ‘A bonny wee machine, that.’

‘I could stand and watch it all day, Sandy,’ Charles admitted.

‘So I’ve obsairved,’ the Scotsman returned dryly.

‘I want to see that relay scheme fitted up and tested before we make too many of them,’ Charles went on, and they began to discuss technicalities.

Alexander Macpherson, after visiting most of the maritime world in the engine-room of a tramp steamer, had suddenly fallen in love with and married a Glasgow girl. Evincing a desire to settle down, he had turned in his extremity to advertisement. The Crowther Electromotor Works, being at that precise time without an engineer, had had recourse to the same medium, with the result that Macpherson became works manager and engineer, to the lasting advantage of both himself and Charles Swinburn.

‘Strictly between ourselves, Sandy,’ Charles said at last, ‘I’ve had a bit of bad news. I hear we’ve lost that Brent Magnus job.’

The engineer stared. ‘Lost it?’ he repeated in surprise. He shook his great head. ‘That’s no’ so good, Mr Charles; no’ so good. We canna afford to lose a job o’ that sort these times. You’re sure of it, I suppose?’

‘Well, Tim Banks told Gairns. He’s usually pretty reliable. I’ve not heard officially.’

‘Oh, aye; Banks is all right. Man, I’m sorry about that. I was counting on yon to keep the big slotter going.’

‘I was counting on it to keep more than the slotter going,’ Charles returned. ‘We’re going to have to reduce, Sandy.’

‘Reduce?’

‘Reduce hands. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way.’

The engineer nodded. ‘I was feared of it. Aye, I’ve seen it coming. And there’s not a man I want rid of. They’re a good crowd.’

‘I know they are, poor devils. I don’t want it any more than you. But we can’t help ourselves.’

They had left the winding shop and were pacing up and down in the yard between the buildings.

‘There’s the alternative of a cut in wages,’ Charles remarked.

‘No good. We hav’na the war-rk. We’ll have to lay some of the fellows off. That Brent Magnus job would ’a’ just saved them.’

‘Well, turn it over in your mind and let me know what you propose. We’ve got to save as much as we can.’

For once Charles found his remaining round of the works buildings irksome. He could not bring himself to watch his men and receive their salutations, knowing that a number of them would be without a job in a few days’ time. He contented himself with a glance through the machine and erecting shops, then returned with a heavy heart to his office. A letter from Brent Magnus Ltd had just come in.

We much regret to inform you that at their meeting yesterday the directors found themselves unable to accept your tender for the proposed alterations to our works, as it was considerably above the lowest.

Charles sighed as he pushed the letter into one of his baskets. That was that.

He felt up against it, and for a few minutes deliberately allowed himself the luxury of day-dreaming. Instantly Una Mellor filled his mind to the exclusion of all else. He dreamed about a Una who was always kind and glad to see him, about a Una who had accepted him, about a Una who had married him! Longingly he pictured Una in his home. What a heaven it would then be! He could see himself returning to it with the feelings of the parched and weary traveller who at last reaches the oasis which had so long eluded him. Una...

Presently he was brought with a jar to earth. There was a knock and Macpherson entered. He closed the door carefully behind him, came over to the desk and sat down without being invited.

‘I’ve been thinking again, Mr Charles,’ he declared. ‘There’s one thing would save us sacking any men, as I believe I’ve mentioned before. If you could raise that wee bittie o’ capital and get those two or three machines, we’d beat the Parkinson crowd. Our costs are about the same as theirs now, and if we had that slotter and the two lathes we could undercut them.’

This was an old question. For several months Macpherson had been advocating replacing three of their present machines with new ones of a more up-to-date pattern. Charles had agreed with him in principle, but had made no move. He didn’t see where the money was to come from.

‘Talk sense, Sandy,’ he said now. ‘Who do you think’s going to put capital into a works like this at the present time? I know all about what the machines would do, but we can’t get them.’

‘They wouldna cost so verra much,’ the engineer persisted. ‘A couple o’ hundred for the slotter and, say, six for the two lathes: less than a thousand altogether, fixing an’ a’.’

‘I doubt if they’d have got us the Brent Magnus job all the same.’

The Scotsman twisted his head sideways to express pitying contempt. ‘Would they no’?’ he retorted witheringly. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘yon’s no’ the only job that’s going. If our costs were a bit lower, we’d have plenty of work.’

‘You may trust me, Sandy. If they can be got, I’ll get them, but I don’t believe there’s the slightest chance.’

Still the engineer waited. ‘Of course,’ he said at last, ‘it’s no’ my business, but ye wouldna think o’ putting that wee droppie in yoursel’? What would a thousand be to a man like you?’

Charles winced. There was a time, not so long ago, when that remark would have been justified. But neither Macpherson nor anyone else, except Charles and his bank manager, knew how many of those thousands had been swallowed up in keeping the business going and how many still remained. He shook his head.

‘I’ve put enough into it,’ he declared. ‘No, Sandy, there’s no way out but what I’ve said. Think over who you can spare and let them go.’ He paused, then went on. ‘Why are you so sure we’d be all right if we had the machines?’

For the first time the Scotsman seemed satisfied. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a bundle of papers.

‘That’s what I came in to show you,’ he said. ‘See here. Here’s the make-up of our tender for that Hull job, total £1,275. But Parkinson’s people got it at £1,250. But if we’d had those machines our figure’d ’a’ been £1,190. See? And here’s another case.’

Charles grew more interested. Their two heads drew together over the table. For half an hour they talked, then Charles, in a different tone, said he’d consider it further.

Just then the one o’clock horn blew. Macpherson nodded and withdrew, and Charles, after locking his safe, put on his hat and followed his workers from the enclosure.