Читать книгу The Dawn of Reckoning - James Hilton - Страница 6

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Mrs. Monsell hastened out of the saloon, with Philip leading her and telling her what had happened. The American had spoken correctly; she was a remarkable woman. Finely built, finely dressed, fifty years old and looking twenty years younger, the possessor of a keen brain, a ripe experience, and an inexhaustible supply of energy, she was distinctly the kind of woman whom all other women dislike and whom men do not easily forget. Wherever she went, at home or abroad, she could not fail to be a planet of whom others were delighted to be satellites; and as she spoke French and German perfectly, and loved scandal of every type and nationality, it was easy for her to enjoy herself amidst the cosmopolitan crowd on the Danube steamers.

Philip led her to the huddled figure on the tarpaulin.

"Anything I can do, mother?" he asked eagerly.

She replied: "There's a bottle of sal volatile in my bag in the cabin. You might go and get it for me."

The cabin was on the upper-deck, and when he reached it he remembered that he had left the key in his raincoat-pocket, and that his raincoat was by his deckchair in the stern. He ran back, and along the gangways: as he reached his coat and got the key he felt the throb of the engines beginning again. It was pitch-dark now, and the lights of the boat shone out weirdly over the black river. Back again on the upper-deck he unlocked the cabin and sought for the bottle in the bag, but without success. Possibly his mother had left it in her handbag downstairs in the saloon; he would go and see. He did so, found it after a search, and rushed back to the steerage. The American alone stood where formerly the crowd had been.

"Wal," he said, still chewing his cigar, "I guess you're too late."

"Too late?—What do you mean?"

"She's all right now. They've taken her to a cabin an' put her to bed. An' your mother don't need the sal volatile—she borrowed it off somebody. By the way, did you know—"

The man from Chicago paused and spat vehemently on deck. Monsell looked up eagerly. "Do I know what?"

"Do you know it wasn't an accident?"

"Not an accident?—No, I don't know...Then what—what was it?"

The other answered gruffly: "Attempted suicide. That's what it was."