Читать книгу Nighthawks! - John G. Brandon - Страница 7
ОглавлениеTHE INSPECTOR MAKES A MISTAKE—TWO, IN FACT
TO his considerable astonishment, the soft, limpid, dark eyes were fixed upon him, in them a strangely reflective light not untinged by what he could only read as perplexity—if nothing deeper. Which was strange, to say the least of it; but there was no mistaking the groove between them, or the more than thoughtful expression with which she was regarding him.
As two people with the one thought, both pairs of eyes were instantly averted as each met the other, but Dick Frayne would have had to be something more than human, which he was not, to resist a second surreptitious glance under his lashes to see if she had returned to her observation of him. She had.
Skilled in the art of keeping close surveillance upon people whilst apparently completely interested in some entirely different direction, he moved in his seat until he caught her in a friendly mirror in which, by turning himself nearly three-quarters away from her direction, he was rewarded by being able to study her without the slightest restraint.
He saw that no sooner had he altered his position than her interest in him became intensified. Leaning forward upon her elbow, her chin balanced in the hand that held the long cigarette-holder, she studied him intently. Then, as if of some impulse, she sat back again, the strained expression returning to her face, her eyes half closed in—what? Suddenly, she leaned forward again and taking one of the packet of letters before her, tore a blank sheet from one of them and placed the others in her bag. Slowly, thoughtfully, it seemed to Frayne, as though she were choosing her words with the greatest care, she began to write. Behind her as she bent over the table, he could see Villainy and Grotesqueness still in earnest conversation, discussing, he could fancy, some especially gifted performance achieved by one or the other of them, after the manner of their kind.
Without warning she suddenly got up, gathered her coat, or cloak, as he could see now that it was, about her, picked up her bag and moved slowly towards him, folding the paper upon which she had written into a very small compass as she came. With that trained sense of spotting instantly every detail, he noticed that her liqueur remained untasted.
Did she mean to address him, he wondered, considerably taken aback—until he noticed that his seat was directly in her path for the door. To get out at all she must pass close by him—she had no choice in the matter.
Watching her advance, he marvelled at her grace of movement, the well-nigh regality of her carriage. She seemed to glide rather than walk. More than ever he wondered who she was, what she was doing there.
Never once, as she approached did she give even a glance at him, but just as she was passing his table, a crumpled piece of paper dropped from her fingers and fell by the side of his cigarette-case. She passed straight on and out of the place.
Inwardly he smiled; the cynical smile of the man whose profession has left him remarkably few ideals where such things were concerned. An old story—for all a lovely face and particularly well-bred manner had led him astray. Had probably sensed him out for the one person here, not of the ‘profession’; in all probability picked him out for a person of some substance—some casual sightseer with money to spend upon pleasure. Again he smiled: at that moment, Detective-Inspector Frayne had about five shillings in his pocket. And she, in all probability, was waiting outside in a taxi to see if her bait had lured the fish.
He picked up the note and opened it—to sit transfixed with astonishment at its contents. It was written in pencil in the firm, refined hand of a woman of education. And by the quality of the paper which he had seen her tear from one of her own letters, her correspondents were of the same ilk.
It ran:
‘Mon cher Inspector of Police,
‘The two men seated behind me as I write are not only fully aware of your professional identity but from the tone of their conversation are anything but friendly towards you. I do not know, of course, if they are as dangerous as they sound, but, if so, you would do well to have great care for your safety. They mean harm to you. Please do not attempt to follow me, or question further. I have told you all that is necessary to warn you.’
Entirely disregarding this latter injunction, Frayne was upon his feet and at the outer door in quick time. Just what he proposed to do he had not the remotest idea, but the feeling was strong upon him that at the least he must offer some sort of thanks to this lovely creature who had shown such kindly interest in his personal safety. His thoughts of a moment ago concerning her smote upon him heavily. It only showed, he thought ruefully, that even a hard-boiled Inspector of C.I.D. can make errors as to people and motives as well as the next.
But of the lady in question, no sight or sign was there to be seen. A most casual-sounding inquiry concerning her from a uniformed commissionaire, elicited nothing but the fact that she had stepped at once into a taxi and been driven off. He had been lucky enough to slip and open the door for her for which he had been rewarded by a two-shilling piece; a most unusual grade of remuneration which left him in no doubt whatever as to her social status. She was, in his opinion, the perfect lady, and he wished that a few more of the same quality frequented the place. He had heard no direction given to the driver.
Was she a frequenter of the place? Commissionaire had never set eyes upon her before in his life—had not even observed her entrance; but he assured his questioner feelingly he would take remarkably good care that her next, and any subsequent entrances to the establishment, would be made under his direct personal supervision. Two-shilling pieces did not grow upon every bush, in fact, for giving-away purposes they were rare among the clientele of the place.
There being nothing in the way of serviceable information likely to be gained by further questioning, Dick Frayne returned to the saloon, or whatever it might be designated, and gave careful attention to the couple still in animated discussion at their table.
Looked at in the light of recent ‘information received,’ they presented quite different personalities to those his imagination had invested them with just a few minutes before. Stripped of the profession of which he had believed them to be ornaments, which covered a multitude of sins of appearance, they were, without question, as unpromising a pair of conspirators as any man wanted to run an eye over. And who were these worthies who knew who he was and, moreover, had something saved up for him?
Watching them through his friendly mirror, he ran his mental eye over such lists as had come in from European countries relative to visiting, or impending visitors of unpleasant proclivities. Nothing in any way answering to a description of them touched upon any part of his particularly acute memory. But, without question, they would stand looking into—unless the beautiful eavesdropper were a lady obsessed by that weird form of later-Victorian humour known as ‘spoofing.’ But this possibility he put entirely to one side after a moment’s reflection upon it; where would be the rhyme or reason in it—looked at from any angle?
His eyes went around in search of a telephone; and against the right-hand wall and at the head of some stairs leading downwards he saw a public box. So far, so good. There was plenty of time to have a reliable man along who would not let at least one of this pair slip him until he had tree’d him. As a preference, the Inspector fancied the lean, aristocratic-looking gentleman with the contemptuous eyes; he had the idea that if any real villainy was afoot, this sinister personage would not be very far from the head of affairs. To consider him in any other light but leader was quite inconceivable. What the powerful-shouldered man with the egg-shaped head would prove to be, remained to be seen, but not, in Frayne’s opinion, the one who supplied whatever brains might be called for in such nefarious schemes as they might be engaged upon.
But it was written down that his excellent intention was to be completely frustrated by one of the simplest commonplaces in the whole round of things: the ’phone proved to be out of order.
In a quandary, and noting that his men seemed comfortably ensconced where they were and showed no sign of moving, he determined on taking a chance. He must either make for the nearest telephone or slip across to Vine Street and commandeer the first available plain-clothes man he could lay hands upon. He decided upon the latter course.
Ten minutes later saw him returning post-haste across the Avenue, beside him Detective Harry Andrews, a gentleman known among his professional brethren as ‘Harry the Slink.’ He had not received this dubious-sounding cognomen on account of any slinking furtivity of either demeanour or expression, but on account of a natural genius for the shadowing of persons undetected. But at the first glance in the direction of the table at which they had sat, Frayne stopped dead. From between his lips came muttered sounds which his companion identified without hesitation as language of the class that most decidedly came within the meaning of the Act.
‘Must have slipped off the instant I turned my back,’ growled the Inspector.
‘Can’t have slipped far, sir,’ Harry the Slink whispered, hearteningly. ‘If you want to be away on other work give me the descriptions and I’ll rout ’em out before they’re so much older.’
Having received and digested the information required, he slipped out into Rupert Street, and when, a moment later, Detective-Inspector Frayne followed he had disappeared as completely as though he had never existed. Pursuing a thoughtful way towards Piccadilly Circus, the Inspector cogitated upon the singular events of the last half-hour. For some quite unaccountable reason it loomed far larger in interest than did the much more definite case upon which his whole day had been spent. But, then, in that there did not figure a very beautiful and mysterious female who looked like a princess in disguise.
Yes; she suggested very decided potentialities; as did also the Villain of the Piece and his confrère, the Man with the Egg-shaped Head.
