Читать книгу Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel - John Russell Fearn - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

It was generally known among the students of Roseway College for Young Ladies that the Headmistress intended spending her summer vacation in the United States. This was decidedly intriguing. Irresponsible students spent much of the time usually devoted to soaking in French verbs trying to decide how the inexorable ruler of this South England school would react to American life.... Per­haps the most significant point of all was that Miss Maria Black, M.A., intended leaving for America before the usual time for summer holiday break-up. This suggested to various minds that there might be an easing up in the implacable discipline usually enforced from the gymnasium atop the college to the kitchens in the basement.

The climax to the hint-and-whisper campaign came when a command was issued for a complete gathering of the school in the Assembly Hall immediately after Chapel one morning. The teachers and Housemistresses gathered on the dais and sat like so many penitents. The girls themselves kept quiet, divided between boredom and interest, awaiting Miss Black’s inevitable appearance from the rear door of the hail. This was a melodramatic entrance she could never resist.

When later she arrived she swept in a breeze of black silk down the central aisle. The girls glanced sideways and saw that famous bun of black hair go speeding along towards the dais. A moment later Maria Black had mounted the four steps and then moved to the platform center, hands clasped in front of her, her compelling calm pervading the great room.

Her age was fifty-five, but only the Board of Governors knew that. She stood as erect as a general surveying a conquest, the no longer graceful curves of her figure somewhat camouflaged by the sweeping dark gown she invariably wore, relieved only by the gold of a slender watch-chain. Those outside her jurisdiction would probably have considered her handsome. One got this impression from her long keen nose. Her lips were strong, but stopped short of being cruel. Indeed there were times when she had been known to smile. Chiefly though it was her eyes that always got their victim—frosty blue, unwavering.

Had she allowed her hair to fall softly instead of scooping it back to scalping tension in an old-fashioned bun she could have possessed a mellow if rather aloof beauty.

Suddenly she spoke—and perfectly, for diction was one of her strong points.

“Young ladies, in two weeks you will depart for the summer vacation—but during those two weeks you will be under the control of Miss Tanby, who will become temporary Headmistress in my stead....”

All eyes turned to Eunice Tanby—a calm, pale-faced, highly algebraical spinster who definitely knew how many times X could make rings round Y.

“Therefore,” Maria resumed, “you will cease to regard Miss Tanby as Housemistress after today and will direct all matters of higher jurisdiction to her.”

There was a respectful silence. Maria fingered her watch-chain and swept her eyes over the assembly.

“I hope, young ladies, you will have an enjoyable vacation and will return here fully prepared for another term of work,” she said calmly. “You may dismiss....”

Then, turning to Miss Tanby: “Miss Tanby, if you will be good enough to come with me.”

The talking girls scattered immediately as Maria swept through their midst into the long, cool corridor outside the Hall. She entered her study and finally settled at her desk. Then interlocking her slender fingers she looked up at the pale-faced Housemistress who had followed her and nodded for the door to be closed.

“Please sit down, Miss Tanby....” And as the order was obeyed Maria went on pensively, “I would like to explain to you a few necessary points regarding my immediate departure for the United States. You see, my late brother’s lawyer has summoned me. My brother died quite recently.”

The Housemistress murmured a condolence and smiled in pale sympathy.

“This lawyer,” Maria went on, “asks me to present myself at the earliest moment in order to clear up certain details of identity and so forth, hence my reason for leaving before the actual term end.... My brother, Miss Tanby, was no ordinary man. He—er—” Maria paused and smuggled disfavor behind a cough. “He was the first man to produce tinned broccoli.”

“How remarkable!” Miss Tanby’s vocabulary could be devil­ishly limited at times.

“I thought so too as first,” Maria admitted, then she got up and started to prowl the carpet. It seemed as though she was lining up her thoughts for action. Then after a long interval she spoke again.

“My brother went to the United States at the time I became a junior teacher here. I have molded girls and he molded broccoli. The essential difference seems to be that he made a fortune whereas I— No matter! We are not here to discuss that. The fact remains that my brother is dead and there is a bequest to me which I must claim personally— But there is also something else!”

As usual, as she sensed the dramatic abyss before her, Maria’s eyes took on a gleam. Miss Tanby saw no such possibility. As a matter of fact her mind was rather beclouded with thoughts of the rumpus, which must now be reigning in the class where she should be taking square roots.

“My brother,” Maria resumed, with a grim tightening of the lips, “committed suicide. I tell you this because the details arc bound to leak out sooner or later into the Press, and if there should be any reflection upon me you will have the good sense to counteract it. You see, my brother was by far too important a man for the affair to be dismissed lightly. I repeat, he committed suicide. That was the official verdict. But my nephew thinks it was...murder!”

“Good heavens!” Miss Tanby exclaimed, as though murder were quite commonplace.

“It may only be a boy’s theory, for he is but twenty-five,” Maria mused; then realizing she was leaning too far on the maternal side she went on firmly, “But if he has the vaguest ground for his assertions I shall spend every second of my vacation getting to the bottom of the problem. Mysteries intrigue me, Miss Tanby—intrigue me immense­ly. Besides, I held my brother in high esteem for his purpose and energy, and if he did not die by his own hand—which I for my part cannot credit—then I consider it my duty to discover the real facts.”

“But—but Miss Black, isn’t that a job for a detective agency, or for the police?”

Maria smiled. It was that rare transfiguration. And it was the special smile she kept pigeonholed for moments of surpassing triumph.

“I have not devoted all my life to the teaching of girls, Miss Tanby. Observe to the right of my bookcase....” And the bun of hair jerked sideways.

Miss Tanby looked, even her scholarly eyes dazzled by an array of titles she had never noticed before. She whispered them— “Crime and the Criminal, Brains and Passion, Alderman’s Theory of the Recessive Unit— Good heavens!” She looked at Maria in blank amazement. “I never even suspected—”

“The skeleton in my educational cupboard,” Maria sighed, though it was clear she was reveling in the sensation she had sprung. “Frankly, I have quite a penchant for crime—in the right sense, you understand. I am fascinated—positively fascinated—by the hundred and one methods of committing a murder! My greatest interest is Van Furber’s treatise on forty-two different ways of producing stran­gulation. A most enlightening work, I assure you. Incidentally, I might remark here that I placed the Langhorn Cinema out of bounds for the girls because of the number of crime films they exhibit. I allowed the girls to have five local cinemas and kept the Langhorn for my especial patronage. I am—ah—not very well known there.

“I have seen many interesting crime pictures. I find there is a snap in the American ‘racket’ picture that is most satisfying. Such is the sum total of my weakness, Miss Tanby. But it is a weak­ness which I can now perhaps really turn to account.”

Tanby hurdled on the uptake. “In regard to your late brother, you mean?”

“Exactly! I understand crime, crime’s methods, and criminals. I know a variety of angles that will give me the chance to experi­ment. I am aware from what I have seen of American films that methods over there are very different from ours—that a man in so big a position as my brother was, for instance, might have been the target for numberless enemies. I do not say,” Maria finished modestly, “that I should become a detective. But at least I could er—snoop!”

“Snoop?”

“An American term for implying a sense of inquisitiveness. I could, for instance, look into the details of my late brother’s death. I am taking a vacation and a business trip and I shall turn them both into an experiment.... Now you know why I must leave so quickly. Every day is vital.”

“Yes, of course....” Miss Tanby hesitated over a presumption. Then she dived boldly, “Miss Black, maybe your hobby is not so secret as you imagine. After all—though I should not perhaps mention it—you are known among the girls as ‘Black Maria.’”

Maria smiled icily. “So I am aware. But I fancy that is because the reversal of my two names lends itself naturally to our slang term for a prison van, not because my hobby is generally known. After all, I recall that when I was a girl we used to call the Headmistress ‘Flannel Feet.’”

Tanby did not know whether to look amazed or relieved, so she sought refuge in a hurried assurance.

“I can promise you everything will be treated in strictest con­fidence.”

“Naturally. I shall expect that.” Maria gave a majestic sweep of her arm. “You have entire authority from now on, Miss Tanby. I shall be back here again for the next term. During the rest of my time here today I shall draw up a time-table for you to work from....”

Maria snapped open her watch. “Nine forty-one precisely, Miss Tanby. That, I think, is all.”

The Housemistress went out with odd notions chasing the algebra in her brain. She remembered Jekyll and Hyde but could not quite fathom how Maria had got that way too....

* * * *

Though Maria departed from the College with complete poker-backed dignity, though she maintained this attitude all through the car journey to Southampton—for fear the school chauffeur should note any lapses and trade them later as common gossip—she was glad to relax once she was within her cabin aboard the Queen Mary.... It seemed to her as the liner sailed on the late evening tide that the receding coastline of England in its soft glow of summer dusk was also taking away a mountain of cares and responsibilities, taking an immense slice out of herself. And deep down she was not regretful of it.

She stood at the deck-rail and watched the seething activity of the quayside fade slowly into a blur. It all became a mist, vanishing as though it had never been.

The next morning the ocean had completely replaced the land, and for five days and nights Maria forgot all about curricula, classes, and girls. She went through a round of sedate deck walks, lounged awhile, listened to the orchestras, read her favorite treatise on crime, went for more walks— That nobody ventured to strike up a voyage-acquaintance with her was no surprise. She knew she looked forbidding, and preferred it that way. Romance to her mind was only appropriate to the twenties.

Altogether the trip was calm and uneventful; the weather perfect. By the time the towers of Manhattan loomed on the horizon Maria was reflecting with no little satisfaction on the benefits the sea air and sun had conferred upon her. The cabin mirror proclaimed she was browner, stronger-looking, well fitted for the private experiment she intended making. Yes, in some ways she even looked dissociated from the inexorable empress of Roseway College.

It was with genuine interest that she watched the quayside draw near, saw for the first time the gray symphony of stone and endless windowed towers which up to now had always loomed upon her from the flat, two-dimensioned cinema screen. Now it was real! Within perhaps an hour she would set foot in it—

Less as it transpired. The liner docked forty-five minutes later in the brilliance of the afternoon sunshine. A porter lumbering behind her with her smaller bags, Maria walked with as much majesty as she could manage down the gang-plank, and the exertion convinced her that her mannish black costume was not perhaps the ideal outfit for a New York mid-summer day.

The press of surging people was bemusing to her searching gaze. It looked as though everybody was looking for somebody else—which they probably were. There was clangor, a hooting of tugs, grinding of cranes, blaring of taxi horns, and the grander, deeper throb of excited humans and their conversation. It was distracting, just a little crazy—then it all began to make sense for Maria as a young man in a soft hat and a lounge suit edged through the crowd. Up went his hat from his dark head and a wide smile broke the tan of his broad, good-natured face.

“Aunt Maria!” he cried. “Aunt— It is Aunt Maria?” he asked uncertainly, as the cold blue eyes swept him.

“Of course,” she said, rather brusquely; and at that he gripped her hand firmly.

“I knew it! I never pull a boner with faces. Photograph at home, you see.”

“Ah!” Maria gave a rather rueful smile. “I suppose it is silly of me but I have never visualized you as a grown man, Richard. In my mind you have always remained at two years of age, when you were brought to visit me in England.”

“Some people still think I’m only that old,” he grinned. “But the fact remains I’m free, white and twenty-five— Say, I’ll take your bags.” He clutched them from the porter and flipped him a tip. “Come on, Aunt, I’ll see you through the barriers. They’re the devil!”

Maria was silent as he propelled her with ardent haste through the mysteries of the Customs. Once through the ordeal she was glad to sink into the cushions of the monstrous Packard Dick Black had waiting for her. He plumped down beside her and pushed up his hat. Effortlessly the chauffeur eased in the gears.

“Whew! Kind of warm, isn’t it?”

Maria was aware of Dick’s quick eyes studying her as he spoke. He was pretty handsome, she reflected. Never do to tell him so, though: he was probably conceited enough already. A very straight nose, strong chin, black hair...hmmm!

“I understand your summers are far hotter than ours,” she said gravely, answering his question, then she said no more for her attention became absorbed by the canyon of street through which they were moving, with its brooding giants of buildings on either side. After a long silence Dick hatched another routine question.

“Have a good trip across?”

“Excellent, Richard, thank you.”

“Oh, call me Dick! Sounds more friendly!”

“Frankly, I don’t approve of nicknames,” Maria shrugged. “You were christened Richard. Where was the purpose of it if it is to be abbreviated ever afterwards?”

“You got me there,” Dick admitted, then relaxed and watched from under a raised eyebrow as Maria resumed her survey.

“Remarkable!” she kept on saying, wagging her severely chap­eaued head. “Remarkable! The size and extent of it—!”

“I suppose it is a bit overpowering. I guess you’ll find it a bit different from that ivy-bitten college of yours, eh?”

“There is no ivy on Midhurst, Richard. And I would ask you not to be flippant when referring to a seat of learning with a very fine tradition. In the past even duchesses have received education at Midhurst.”

“Oh! Well— Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant to say was that this place sort of knocks you for a loop the first time you set eyes on it. Does the same with all strangers. But I like it!” Dick went on, wagging his head admiringly. “After all, I ought to. I was born in it, brought up in it. Full of all sorts of people doing all sorts of things. There’s both poetry and power in it. Something happens—all the time.”

“Including...murder?” Maria still gazed out of the window.

“Yes.” Dick’s voice was quieter: he knew what she meant. “I hope it didn’t sound too horrible a suggestion to make in my letter, but I’m sure I’ve got good grounds for my suspicions. Don’t spring the murder news on mother too quickly, will you? For all she knows at the moment you are here just to see the family lawyer— Say, see that place?”

He broke off and excitedly indicated an immense façade of granite and chromium across which sprawled six-foot letters proclaiming DICK BLACK’S TWELVE RHYTHM LOVELIES to the myriads.

“Mine!” he announced proudly.

Maria glanced at him sharply. “You mean you own that theater?”

“Gosh, no—only the dames. In polite circles I’m called a revue producer. I run late night cabarets, experiment with plays and things off the beaten track— You know!”

“So that is what you have become. I rather expected that your late father’s business—”

“Not me. I’m not cut out for tinned cabbage. And if it comes to that I’m not so exclusive in my inclinations. Theatricals seem to run in the family. There’s Janet, for instance. She’s a professional singer with a high C that can knock your eye out. She’s just finished a New York circuit and is resting up for a day or so before taking on a fresh engagement.... Then there’s Patricia; she’s a professional dancer. Adagio stuff.”

Maria nodded slowly, telescoping intervening years.

“Though you are my nephew, and Janet and Patricia are your sisters, I will insist on thinking of you still as children. It makes me thoroughly impatient with myself.... Let me think now. Janet was the first child—”

“Right,” Dick acknowledged. “She’s twenty-eight. Pat was the last one. She’s twenty. Rather a funny kid is Pat.... Very headstrong and determined. Once she gets an idea nothing can shift it bar blasting.”

“Perhaps,” Maria reflected, “her father is being repeated.”

“Possible. He was a tough old nut, though I say it—” Dick broke off, suddenly aware his remark was two-edged. “I say, Aunt, I didn’t mean to imply that you— Being his sister, I mean—”

Maria smiled frozenly. “Don’t apologize, boy. I know you cannot dissociate me from a Headmistress, think of me perhaps as a frowsy old girl full of Latin and mathematical formulae. Maybe it’s even true—but maybe not. Believe it or not, Richard, I have had my moments. Brief ones, but still moments.... Tell me, how is your mother?”

“Only so-so. Bit run down after the tragedy, I’m afraid. You will see for yourself in a moment.”

Dick rested his hand on the door handle as the car moved in to the curb outside a vast Fifth Avenue residence....

* * * *

As she stepped into the hall of the Black residence Maria could not rid her mind of memories of Waterloo Station at home. The place seemed to have the same tendency to recede into infinite dis­tance, where it finally resolved itself into panels, mirrors, armory, a gigantic staircase, and innumerable doors. She was adjusting herself to the magnificence when the manservant returned from the front door, took her bags, then departed like a black-coated ghost into the distance.

“What’s the matter, Aunt?” Dick asked, smiling. “Place too big?”

She turned. “I was just mentally computing how many tins of broccoli it must have needed to indulge—this. I always knew your father had an extravagant streak but—”

“Here’s mother,” Dick interrupted; then he raised his voice. “Here we are, mum—all in one piece.”

Alice Black came sweeping forward from one of the endless door­ways with her hand extended. It looked as though she were dancing the Lancers solo.

“Dear, dear Maria! So many years! So many miles!” She only came to a halt when she confronted Maria’s erect and challenging form. Gently she kissed her, then stood back and smiled. “So very, very glad to see you again, Maria. So much has happened since we last met.... When did we meet last—?”

“Twenty-three years ago,” Maria said, rather grimly.

“Twenty-three years! Well, well! Yet you have changed so little, Maria. I mean considering how much water has flowed under so many bridges. And the world is so full of bridges, don’t you think?”

“I have never concerned myself unduly with bridges, Alice—and I think you are indulging in needless flatteries. I have changed—and so have you. Responsibilities and cares have left their mark on both of us. You were a slender girl then, with golden hair. I remember it so well. Now look at you!”

Alice looked down at herself in regret. She had avoirdupois in the wrong places and her hair was graying to whiteness. Only in one thing was she unchanged—the frank generosity of her gaze. Her eyes were gray, always steady. They seemed to be the lie to her habitual manner of feathery, pointless gushings. Nature, it seemed, had cursed her with a penchant for saying two words where one would have more than sufficed.

“Such a pity you could not have come at a happier time,” she said, discarding her personal study. “Poor, poor Ralph! He lived so hard and died so—so suddenly. But there, the winds of heaven blow on us all when we least expect it. Fate has always carried the sledge­hammer in her hand, don’t you think—? But this isn’t the time to talk of our troubles! Come along upstairs.”

They started to move across the wilderness.

“The girls are out right now,” Alice went on, as they began to mount the staircase. “They promised faithfully to be back for dinner this evening so as to meet you. In between you’ll want a rest perhaps and—and a cup of tea?”

This last remark was uttered almost slyly. It made Maria glance at her watch, look surprised, and then nod.

“Hmm! It is an hour past my usual time, but I’ll welcome a cup of tea just the same. Thank you, Alice.”

She smiled. “You see, I remembered! You British have the quaint custom, have you not? Being an American I prefer coffee, or else I have just gotten that way through habit. Habits are hard to break, I think, because when you break one you sometimes form another in order to break it, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, Alice, I suppose it is so,” Maria agreed rather irritably. She was wondering if the staircase went up to heaven.

“Terrible thing about poor Ralph,” Alice went on, a little short of breath now. “Such a shock to us all! We never even suspected he had financial worries of any kind. But he had! Yes, we found out afterwards. Awful debts in some cases.”

“Recalling Ralph in his early days I cannot say I am surprised to hear of his debts. And from what I have seen of this place he did not practice any great economy.”

They had reached the vast corridor at last. It seemed full of stained-glass windows.

“But, Maria dear,” Alice said wonderingly, “why should one practice economy when one is wealthy?”

Maria’s eyes narrowed. “I understood you to say Ralph was in debt.”

“Yes, yes, he was—but quite considerably below the amount of his assets. The proving of his will not only paid off the various debts but it also left each one of us wealthy.... You’ll hear about your share from Mr. Johnson, of course. He’s our attorney.”

Maria said nothing though she had heard well enough. At the moment she was occupied in surveying her own room and mentally comparing it with her modest though comfortable quarters far away in Roseway. Here was a bedroom that seemed to be all mirrors and salmon-pink draperies. The bed was by the wall in the distance. The furniture was rosewood, polished nearly as brightly as the mirrors themselves.

“I don’t think you’ll find it noisy,” Alice said, noting Maria’s all-encompassing survey. “New York is a rowdy city, of course—but then I always think sounds are a lot worse when you deliberately set out to listen to them, don’t you?”

For answer Maria closed the window with a click.

“Noises do not worry me, Alice, but draughts do. I prefer a room at boiling point to enduring a draught. I am rather subject to sinus trouble, you understand....”

She crossed to the nearest mirror and straightened her severely drawn hair. Through the reflection she saw the manservant come in, set down a loaded tray, then depart again.

“Milk or lemon?” Alice asked brightly.

“Milk, Alice, thank you....” Maria turned and came forward, her face thoughtful. Finally she said, “I cannot say I admire your choice of servants, Alice.”

“Walters?” Alice looked surprised, her eyes lowering to Maria’s face as she sat on the divan. “But how absurd, Maria! He is an excellent servant, and that’s all that really matters, is it not? He was with the family who formerly owned this place and so we—we just sort of bought him in with it.”

Maria took the teacup handed to her and still pondered.

“You have traced his connections?” she asked presently.

“But of course. He is from a line of servants who originated in England. His father was employed by Lord Glendarlow—At least I think that was the name. These nobilities are so confusing, don’t you think?”

“To Americans, perhaps.”

“But Maria, what on earth does it matter what sort of a servant he is? We’re satisfied—so there it is.”

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear,” Maria said gravely. “If I ask silly questions just ignore it. You see, my profession has demanded of me that I find out all and everything about everybody. You would understand that if you had a college to control. I have developed a positive mania for knowing the inner affairs of all people with whom I come in contact— And I still say your servant does not impress me. For one thing his eyes are unsteady.”

“A nervous affliction, I’m sure.” Alice said, looking rather astonished. “It doesn’t make him drop any dishes or anything like that. That’s a consideration. Gravy on a carpet is so unsightly, don’t you think?”

Maria didn’t answer. She finished her tea in silence, put the cup and saucer back on the tray with a certain finality, then got up and moved to her luggage. Alice rose too and began to drift towards the doorway. She felt strong hints of dismissal in the air. It was the same ‘Get Out!’ aura that had afflicted many a Roseway inmate.

“Mr. Johnson will be here tomorrow.” Alice spoke from the doorway. “Once that little matter is settled you’ll want to see New York, won’t you?”

“In my own way,” Maria acknowledged. “When I am on holiday, Alice, I relax completely. The Headmistress is back in England embalmed among her books of learning. I shall go anywhere the mood takes me in this city of yours.”

“Well, we can talk of that later. See you at dinner.”

Maria nodded, stood gazing thoughtfully for a moment or two after the door had closed. Then resuming her unpacking she finally unearthed a strong tin box. Unlocking it, she withdrew a black bound book and opened it at the first blank page. She put the date, then began to write swiftly in her neat, scholastic handwriting—

“First impressions are variable. Richard seems to be a likeable boy with a penchant for young ladies—both in and out of his shows, I should imagine. A rather wicked smile, and much D’Artagnan in the eye. Alice still questions her own rather inane remarks, but she answers my guarded inquiries with an ease that makes her seem innocent of anything ulterior. It is this innocence that I feel compelled to question, in view of De Vanhart’s ‘First Impressions of a Criminal.’ I shall test this thesis for myself.... Walters, the manservant, is a strange, impassive being with unsteady eyes. I begin to wonder if he is looking for some­thing. So far as I can gather all have benefited financially from Ralph’s death. I have yet to meet Patricia and Janet. The time is 5:10 p.m.”