Читать книгу Another Day - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 8

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Entered now Derek Ryerson, so elegantly slim that he seemed either extremely young for his age or much older than he looked; an altogether superlative creature in that he was too handsome as to face, form, and garments; whose dreamy glance was gentle and whose voice was a caress.

Mr. Ryerson smiled and bowed, Wilbur Chisholm did neither, he merely pointed at a chair into which his visitor sank, crossing his immaculate legs:

“I think,” murmured Derek Ryerson softly, “yes, I’m pretty sure you know what I’m here for?”

“Let’s hear!” answered Wilbur Chisholm, shortly.

“Well,” answered the other, smiling down at his own perfectly shod foot, “it concerns your son——”

“You mean Keith, Dallas, Chisholm.”

“Exactly. I mean your son, Keith.”

“Well?”

“Well, Mr. Chisholm, how much is his life and reputation worth to you?”

Wilbur Chisholm selected a cigar from a box on the table, pinched the end gently, lit it carefully and spoke:

“Nothing!” said he.

Mr. Derek Ryerson drew a thin gold case from waistcoat pocket, extracted thence a cigarette, tapped it delicately, lighted it and laughed gently.

“We estimate it at precisely one million dollars!” he murmured.

“We?” inquired Chisholm, his keen, grey eyes staring into eyes of soft, velvety blackness.

“I allude, sir, to his ... well-wishers, let us call them. You see, poor Keith is terribly involved—in Dutch, shall we say?”

“What d’you know?”

“On the contrary, Mr. Chisholm, it’s what you don’t know.”

“For instance?”

“For instance then, you think you got him safe away, you imagine your money, your almighty power and influence did the trick. Now I’m here to assure you that it was we who permitted his get-away—shall we say, connived at it and helped you fool the police.”

“Prove it.”

“Well, we know just where your son’s hiding, just where Keith’s lying doggo.”

“I’m listening.”

“He’s in Europe.”

“Well?”

“In England, at a place called Sussex.”

“Well?”

“And we can get on to him whenever it suits our book.”

“For what?”

“The murder of Red Rory M’Guire on the night of the third, last month, at Hetzel’s on Tenth Avenue and Thirty-fourth street.”

“A friend of yours, this M’Guire?”

Derek Ryerson laughed silently, at least his white teeth gleamed:

“Why no,” he murmured, “hardly that, not a friend of mine, no—he was more your son’s friend than mine, certainly—until they quarrelled and fought over little Olive Lemay. You know about her, perhaps?”

“Go on.”

“Well, sir, Olive was the Cause, the Reason, the Wherefore and the Why—cherchez la femme, d’ye see, Mr. Chisholm—and she was good, at least your son said she was and I guess ... well, she was near-good, all things considered, and Red Rory was a—he was just Rory and pretty ‘red’ in every way, and so your son licked him, thrashed, pounded and lambasted the—well, he certainly made a butcher’s shop of Rory that time, yes, sir, he made Red Rory redder than ever—blood, d’you see? But that was all of six months ago——”

“And now you’re wasting my time!”

“After that,” continued Ryerson, licking his smiling, shapely mouth with rosy tongue, “Rory quit chasing little Olive, and kept away altogether because your son Keith had threatened to shoot.”

“I’ll give you another five minutes!”

Derek Ryerson shook his sleek, black head gently, showed his perfect teeth again in pleasant, sleepy smile and went on, more deliberately than ever:

“And so, Mr. Chisholm, as I was saying, Rory quit chasing little Olive Lemay and made himself mighty scarce because your son Keith swore to shoot him if he didn’t—yes, sir, he swore to put Rory’s light out if he didn’t leave the girl alone. I heard him and so did others. Well, one night Rory, being full, came back! It was over at Hetzel’s, and we were sitting in a little game, just the four of us—your son, Keith, Whitey Neeves, Tosh Jennings and myself when, as I say, in walks Rory. Now, Mr. Chisholm, your son Keith had been acting kind of queer all night,—I’ll admit it had been a wet session, and when Rory walks in on us so sudden, Keith got mad, went in off the deep end right away, he slanged Rory and Rory, being lit-up, as I tell you, Rory argued back, and guessing there’d be trouble, we left them to it. But just as I reached the door I saw Whitey slip his gun to your son Keith.... And presently, sure enough, we heard a shot.... Well, sir, when we opened the door—there’s Rory stone dead, your son Keith laying across him and both smothered in blood—Rory’s blood!” Here Derek Ryerson touched rosy lip with rosy tongue again and sighed gently: “Yes, sir, Rory certainly—bled! And there lay your son Keith kind of dazed and with Whitey’s gun in his hand.”

“Dazed, you say?”

“Why yes, he seemed that way, perhaps it was horror, perhaps Rory had landed him one, but I guess it was merely booze! And he kept on saying, over and over: ‘Blood! I’m all blood!’ And, Mr. Chisholm, he certainly was!”

“Have you done?” inquired Wilbur Chisholm, glancing at his watch.

“No,” answered Ryerson gently, “no, not quite, but we’re getting there.... I’m telling you M’Guire was very dead and—bleeding! Now murder, even here in N’York, may be pretty serious for some folks,—but if the guilty party happens to be the only son of a Money King like Wilbur Chisholm, it can be got away with if the matter is properly handled. Now here’s your son Keith kills his man and——”

“Though,” murmbled Wilbur Chisholm from behind his cigar, “according to you, nobody actually saw the shot fired!”

“I didn’t say so,” smiled Mr. Ryerson. “Oh no no, because, as a matter of fact, I—that is—‘we,’ of course, have an unimpeachable witness whose evidence will surely send poor Keith to the Chair unless you close that witness’s mouth.”

“Ah, blackmail, of course!”

“An ugly word!” sighed Derek Ryerson, shaking his handsome head in gentle reproof. “Yes, a most unlovely word, to my thinking, but I suppose——”

“You?” growled the big man, square chin out-thrust, mighty shoulders squared, deep-set eyes ablaze with scorn, “you’re a Britisher—eh?”

“Well, no, Mr. Chisholm, no emphatically, for though my folks had the misfortune to be born somewhere over there, I am an American——”

“And a renegade also——”

“I count myself an American citizen, Mr. Chisholm.”

“Then God help America! You are the sort of thing a decent man treads on—hard.”

“Such a man is apt to get stung—sir. Oh quite unpleasantly. But business, Mr. Chisholm, business! What about your son?”

“Nothing!”

“Well, I guess a million will be nothing to you, and your son’s life won’t be dear at the figure, anyway.”

“Now see here,” quoth the big man with his most Roman look and gesture, “once and for all, I have no son, d’ye hear? I have absolutely and finally disowned him. So do what you will, his future is no concern of mine—none, d’ye hear? You and your blackmailing gang get nothing out of me—not one cent! Now—go! The door’s behind you.”

“Oh but think again, sir!” murmured Ryerson, gently blowing cigarette ash from his neat person. “You tell me you’ve no son—well, you can say so but I know differently, and the daily papers won’t believe you, dear me no! The day poor Keith is executed they’ll come out with: Millionaire Chisholm’s son expiates crime in electric chair—or some such squib——”

“And the door’s behind you!” repeated Wilbur Chisholm, and the Emperor Vespasian grimed with battle surely never looked grimmer. But this very modern, extremely bland young exquisite merely smiled, tapped another cigarette, and nodded:

“I remember just where the door is, oh quite!” said he, brightly. “But nothing shall prevent me sitting here and permitting you another chance of saving poor Keith’s life.... Think of it—your only son—a miserable million dollars! What truly natural parent could hesitate? Come, sir, what’s to prevent you signing a cheque and giving your son another chance of becoming your son ... of getting straight with himself and you, of——”

“And what,” demanded Wilbur Chisholm, reaching out his long arm towards the electric bell, “what is to prevent my ringing up the police and charging you with attempted blackmail?”

“Well, Mr. Chisholm, first—this!”

A white hand flashed, and Wilbur Chisholm was looking into the muzzle of an automatic pistol.

“And secondly,” murmured Ryerson smiling, “all the police in New York State wouldn’t hold me, they couldn’t because of—let us say, political reasons. All the same I don’t want the police dragged into this—just at present.... And now, Mr. Chisholm, seeing I’ve got you set, what’s to prevent me demanding that cheque right now or, well—plugging you for an unnatural father? Say now—do tell!”

Wilbur Chisholm shifted his gaze from that deadly muzzle to the eyes behind it and read in their velvety blackness a threat equally deadly.... And then—from somewhere in the air above was a metallic “plop” ... the weapon spun from Ryerson’s grasp and, uttering an inarticulate cry he lurched forward in his chair, hugging numbed fore-arm and shocked wrist.

“Purty fair, seein’ I has t’use a silencer in this gol-darned town!”

Glancing round and up towards the speaker, Derek Ryerson beheld one descending the gallery stairs, a small, white-haired, fierce-eyed person who, stabbing at him with small, bony finger, pronounced the single word:

“Git!”

Now in this person’s right hand was a heavy revolver known as a Colt’s forty-four, and in this person’s eyes a glare not to be mistaken; wherefore, speaking not, Derek Ryerson struggled to his feet, took up his eminently modish straw-hat and crossing to the door with uneven steps, was gone.

For a long, long moment after the door had closed was an irksome silence, for Jedidiah was staring hard at the nearest book-case with the glare still in his eyes, perceiving which, Wilbur glanced out of the window; quoth he at last and a little huskily:

“You ... you’re as sure as ever with a gun, Jed.”

“Ibetcha!” snarled Jedidiah. “But see here, Mister Chisholm, you can cut out the ‘Jed’—I’m Wollet t’yuh, yessir—Mister Wollet, d’ya get me?”

“Eh? Why ... why, Jed, what——”

“An’ see here again, Mister Chisholm, sir, ef you’ve disowned ya own son, turned ya damned back on Lucy’s boy, why lemme tellya I ’dopt him, yessir, here an’ now—I guesso!”

“But ... but, Jed, listen here——”

“Listen nothin’! Aw hell, I’m done wi’ ya. You stick t’ya railroads, an’ ships, an’ money, an’ when I’ve found Boy Keith—my boy, mindya—an’ proved him innocent, don’t yuh come monkeyin’ an’ nosein’ around or I’ll be apt to shoot ya up some, yessir—I guesso!”

So saying he turned his back, stumped to the door, swung it wide open and strode away, his large stetson hat cocked at ferocious angle.