Читать книгу Death in Silhouette - John Russell Fearn - Страница 4

CHAPTER ONE

It was six o’clock. For the past ten minutes Patricia Taylor had been watching either the big clock on the wall of the restaurant, or the wide glass doors of the entrance way. From her position she had freedom of vision, and since she was the restaurant’s cashier it was about the only freedom she did have. She did not like her work. Figures mithered her, copper and silver dirtied her hands, and she was convinced that the smell of cooking clung about her in the all too short periods when she was away from her toil.

As the clock finger began to move past the hour, two things happened. A slightly built young man in a navy serge suit went past the glass doors outside and raised a hand in a brief signal. Behind Patricia the door of the cash-booth opened and roly-poly Madge Banning stood ready to take over. For Pat the day’s work was finished.

“Your boyfriend just went past.” Madge Banning said, and nodded her peroxided head towards the doors.

“As if I didn’t know!” Pat made a grab at her hat and put it on hastily.

“Don’t know why you don’t make a go of it,” Madge added, with a sigh. “I know what I’d do if I had a boy like him to give a tumble. He’s handsome. Good as any film star.…” Madge rolled her blue eyes as amorous thoughts floated through her non-too-brilliant brain. “You don’t know just how lucky you are!”

“I’ll invite you to the wedding—if any,” Pat promised, smiling; then she patted Madge’s plump arm. “’Bye, Madge. Everything’s up-to-date—oh, keep your eye on that overstuffed matron over there. She may try and go out without paying; she’s done it before. Pretends she’s absent-minded.… See you tomorrow.”

“If I’m alive,” Madge agreed, who lived only for today.

Pat hurried towards the doors, then paused for a moment at the huge bevelled mirror sunken into the imitation marble wall. She settled her absurd green glengarry more becomingly on her dark hair, traced the tip of her forefinger over her lips, dabbed at her dark eyes with a trifle of lace handkerchief—then was ready. Clutching her handbag as though she were about to start a relay race, she hurried outside.

In the open the air was no cooler than in the restaurant, though it had the redeeming virtue of being devoid of the ever-present smell of cooking. Instead, there was what could only be called a city odour, an enervating conglomeration of petrol fumes, hot air, and the indescribable mustiness that seems to be given off by looming buildings. Redford, in Essex, was a small town, and in the summer managed to maintain the record for being stiflingly hot. At present summer was working overtime, and torrid sun beat down on Pat as she glanced along the busy street.

Three shops farther away Keith Robinson turned and caught sight of her. He came swiftly in her direction. He had a slim, rather short body and an easy way of moving. Pat had always known him to be good-looking: now she was doubly convinced of it, because even the brilliant sun did not betray any sign of a blemish in his features.

“Hello there, Pat!” He gave one of his rare smiles. Usually he was an intensely serious young man. “One thing about disliking your work: it makes you hurry out on time so you can meet me.”

“I would do that anyway,” Pat said. “And what’s the surprise you mentioned in your letter?” She jerked the handbag under her arm to emphasize that the letter was within it. “You’ve got me all excited.”

“Good!” he approved. “That was why I sent it.…”

He moved to the outside of the pavement. Together they began a leisurely walk along the street. It was at the hour when two streams of people were flowing past—one stream leaving work and the other coming into town for the evening’s pleasures, most of which were condensed into this main street. The business quarters, where Pat’s father and brother worked—an engineer and solictor’s clerk respectively—were more on the outskirts, beyond which again lay the suburban regions.

“What about this surprise?” Pat insisted after a while.

“I’m coming to it,” Keith replied calmly—and so often before had he excited her interest and then refused to gratify it for long enough afterwards, that Pat wondered whether he did it for fun or from some mistaken sense of superiority.

They walked a little farther. Pride kept Pat from asking again about the surprise. When presently she did speak, she had changed the subject entirely.

“Keith—”

“Yes? What?” He turned to look at her. Yes, he was certainly handsome. Grey eyes, straight nose, well-shaped mouth and chin, black hair catching the sunlight. The only pity was that he was not tall. Pat had the advantage by an inch.

“I’ve been thinking, Keith,” Pat said slowly. “We take this walk home every working day, and at weekends we just take a longer walk. I mean, as it stands there isn’t much future in it, is there?”

“Isn’t much future in anything if it comes to that,” he told her, and his mood had abruptly changed to deepest gloom. “Austerity, shortages, miseries—do without this; do without that. I’m sick of it!”

“Who isn’t? And that doesn’t answer the question.”

“About us?” He reflected. “No, it doesn’t.”

He said no more for the moment, and Pat gave a little sigh to herself as they continued walking. This was one thing about Keith Robinson that she had always found difficult to tolerate—his queer changes of mood without any apparent reason; and at times his studied refusal to answer simple questions. It was as though he occasionally shut up inside himself and became oblivious to the outer world. However, according to Pat’s reckoning, no man can be perfect, so she was prepared to make allowances. After all, he was handsome. She blamed his occupation for his lapses into absentmindedness. He was a costings clerk at the main railway goods station. She found herself wondering if figures could make one behave queerly.

“We can settle it, of course!” Keith said suddenly, as they turned a corner.

“Settle what?” Pat came out of her thoughts with a start. “There you go again! Suddenly begin saying things and I haven’t the remotest idea what you mean—”

“About us,” he intervened, and his grey eyes glanced at her and then away again. “I agree there isn’t any point in just walking about, beyond the fact that we seem to enjoy each other’s company. It’s a build-up, really. We both know what should come of it, and I think it’s time it did. That,” he added, with an odd little smile, “is the surprise I mentioned. I’m not much good at talking. I get sort of mixed up and then I just— Oh, here!” he broke off, digging into his jacket. “This’ll explain better than I can!”

They had walked a further twenty yards before he finished rooting in his pocket, then a small, square, leather-surfaced box lay in the centre of his slender palm. Pat gazed at it in fascination, knowing quite well what was coming. Keith’s finger and thumb snapped open the box lid. The bright evening sun set a three-stone diamond ring glittering.

“Why, Keith, it’s—”

Pat stopped as he snapped the lid shut again. She halted because he did. His grey eyes were watching her intently, and it was as though he were trying to read something deep down within her. It was a stare of abysmal quality that disturbed Pat, though not for a moment did she betray her reaction.

“At least,” she said, trying to sound offhand, “you might have let me look at it properly!”

“I will,” he said quietly. “And I know just what you were going to say when you glimpsed it. It’s wonderful! And all the other variations on the word. It ought to be! I’ve pinched and scraped good and hard to get it. Twenty-five pounds, to be exact.… I want to be sure my twenty-five pounds hasn’t been wasted.”

“Wasted!” Indignation flashed into Pat’s dark eyes. “Well, of all the confounded—”

“Hear me out,” he interrupted. “As I told you, I’m a rotten talker. I get kind of—” he hesitated and looked vague— “mixed up.… Anyway, I want to know something. Am I the only chap?”

Pat’s heightened colour faded and the resentment went out of her eyes. She gave a laugh that had a touch of incredulity in it.

“The only chap? Well, of course! Haven’t we been walking out together for months?”

“Sure we have, but.…”

Keith shook his head dubiously over a thought and began walking again. Perforce Pat had to follow him. Finally she came beside him. They passed from the main road into a side street. It was quiet here; only an occasional passer-by. Keith bit his underlip slowly and considered the paving stones. He was tossing the ring case up and down in his palm.

“I’ve an infernally jealous nature, you know,” he said suddenly.

“I know,” Pat agreed. “But then, we’ve all got something.”

He ignored her effort to smooth the situation. “We’ve walked out together, yes, and become attached to each other. But what about Billy Cranston—and that chap Cliff Evans? They’ve been very chummy with you. I can’t help remembering that.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Pat’s attitude stiffened. It had occurred to her that there were limits as to how far she was prepared to make concessions. Her voice sounded curt. “Look here, Keith, if this is a proposal, it’s about as gentle as tipping a bushel of potatoes over my head! I’m not going to account to you for the various boys with whom I’ve been friendly—”

“All right!” he interrupted, his voice hard. “I just can’t help asking: I’m sort of funny that way. You see, Pat, I love you so much I don’t want to have the feeling later on that I gave you my—er—all, so to speak, only to find that you would really rather have teamed up with Billy Cranston or Cliff Evans.”

“That’s so absurd it isn’t worth commenting upon,” Pat retorted. Then she shook her head slowly. “You’re a queer chap, Keith; you seem to have more moods than a film star. Any girl not knowing you as well as I do would have been ready to slap your face for the things you’ve said—but somehow I’m not feeling that way. I’m…used to you, I suppose.”

Keith smiled. The gloomy mood that had been pervading him suddenly vanished. He took the ring from the case and slipped it on her finger.

“That seals the bargain,” he said. “Next thing we have to do is to see how our respective parents react. Not that it matters, anyway, since we’re over twenty-one, but I suppose one must try and get co-operation if at all possible.”

Pat admired the ring as they strolled along in the general direction of her home.

“There won’t be any difficulty as far as my folks are concerned,” she said. “And you’ve only your dad to worry about, haven’t you?”

“Uh-huh—and it’s more than enough.”

Pat did not comment. Her thoughts had clouded for a moment. She had suddenly realized the kind of man she would have for a father-in-law. Ambrose Robinson lived in an aura of austerity that would have made any Government official jealous. It was entirely self-imposed. He was the plain-living, strait-laced type, obnoxiously proud of the fact that he never smoked, drank, or swore, and that he knew his Bible from cover to cover. Nothing wrong with this, of, course, except the fact that his seeming piety was flavoured with an intense bitterness towards the world in general and his son in particular.

“We shan’t live with Dad, anyway,” Keith said, and Pat knew he had been interpreting her thoughts. “He’s a psalm-smiting old humbug, and that’s plain speaking…!”

“Where shall we live?” Pat asked anxiously. “That’s a vital point these days, you know. There certainly isn’t room at our place. We’ve only one spare guest-room and I can’t see Mum giving it up to us. Besides, it never works out right to live with one’s parents.”

“I’d thought of rooms in Gladstone Avenue,” Keith said, naming a fairly select quarter of the district. “I’ll be able to afford it. It won’t be the kind of dream-home we’d like, I’m afraid, but it’ll do for the time being. At least we’ll be to ourselves.”

“Which means everything,” Pat agreed, and added in a matter-of-fact tone, “When shall we get married?”

“I’m due for a rise in three months. How about then?”

Pat, whose thoughts were running on how quickly she could escape from her cage in the restaurant, nodded promptly.

“That’ll do fine! Can’t be too soon for me.”

They had come to the end of the road where her home stood. It was No. 18 Cypress Avenue—and No. 18 was one in a row of thirty identical houses, all with rough-cast frontages, bay windows up and down, and a brick garage at the side. All had front gardens somewhat larger than an economy label, and two grey stone gateposts. In every direction the iron gates had been replaced by wooden ones, hastily made.

“We’ll tell my folks now, I suppose?” Pat asked. “They’ll all be in.”

“Of course we’ll tell ’em.” There seemed to be no doubt in Keith’s mind.

At first Mrs. Taylor took the arrival of her daughter and Keith as a matter of course. Keith had been walking home with Pat for two months now and had been a frequent caller at weekends, so there was nothing phenomenal about his being here this evening. But, being an analyst when it came to expressions, Mrs. Taylor took about one minute to decide that something out of the ordinary had happened.

The large back living room was warm, the June sunlight partly blocked by half-drawn curtains. There was a homely untidiness about the place. Detective and crime magazines peeped out from surprising places; correspondence was wedged between the mantel clock and an empty decorated jar, which in better times had contained stem-ginger. On the chesterfield under the window Pat’s father, a big, powerful man with a quasi-bald head and large stomach, was lounging as he read the evening paper. At the laid table Pat’s brother Gregory was circumspectly dressed, playing about with a salad.

Into this setting came the air of the unexpected, and its emphasis became heavier as the moments passed.

“Is anything the matter, dear?” Mrs. Taylor asked finally.

Her uncertainty was obvious. She was a large, blonde woman with the enviable gift of seeming always happy. Blue-eyed, double-chinned, her girth was emphasized by the huge spotless apron she was wearing.

“Matter?” Pat repeated, putting down her handbag. “Why, no, of course not. We just walked home together, as usual.”

“Oh.…” Mrs. Taylor gave a frown, smiled, and then frowned again. “You look sort of—pent up. As though something’s going to explode.”

“We’re engaged!” Pat said suddenly, and thrust out her left hand as though it were a sword. “Look!”

The silence of the room was broken now by a variety of sounds. Mr. Taylor’s paper rustled as he lowered it to his paunch. He sat up and peered over his reading-glasses with sharp brown eyes. A clink came from Gregory’s plate as he put down his knife and fork. Mrs. Taylor breathed audibly.

“Well!” she exclaimed blankly. “Well! Engaged! Think of that—!” She swung to her husband. “You hear that, Harry?”

“By Jove, I do!” He surged up from the chesterfield and came lumbering across the room to grip Keith by one hand and Pat by the other. “Not that it’s unexpected,” he said, smiling. “Been developing for a long time, hasn’t it? I’ve noticed, you know. The very best of luck to both of you. Mmm, nice ring, too! That put you back a bit, my boy.”

“For Pat it’s worth it,” Keith responded, somewhat conventionally.

Mrs. Taylor added her congratulations, and Keith began to look as though he found the business somewhat overwhelming. Being on the small side, the size of his future parents-in-law seemed rather gargantuan to him. Then at last it was over. The vision of expansive shirt and even more expansive bosom cleared from before him and gave place to Gregory Taylor’s face. An unprepossessing face—cold and lantern-jawed.

“Congratulations!” Gregory Taylor said, and it sounded as though he had carefully considered even this one word. He was a solicitor’s clerk, as exact as an adding machine and just about as interesting. Though only twenty-nine, he looked fifty. Despite a shade temperature close on eighty-eight, he was neatly dressed in a complete suit with spotless collar and tie, and looked arctically cool. His eyes were a peculiar shade of light grey. His hair was so polished and flattened with vaseline it looked black, though actually was dark brown.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Greg,” Pat commented dryly. “Or don’t you realize how important this is?”

“You mean to you, of course?” her brother asked. “I’m not marrying Keith.”

Pat hesitated. Gregory’s eyes fixed on her—then Mr. Taylor startled everybody by slapping his palms together.

“This calls for a drink!” he declared. “Gosh, what a lovely combination of circumstances! A hot day, and an engagement—both demanding a drink.… Mother, we’ve some port somewhere put aside for Christmas. Where is it?”

“In the cellar, dear. But what do we do for Christmas?”

“Buy some more, if we can.” Mr. Taylor grinned widely. “The cellar, eh? Right! Keith, my boy, you’re coming with me.”

“Eh? Where?” Keith looked surprised. “In the cellar?”

“Sure. Come on; I’ve something to say to you.”

Keith shrugged and left the room behind Mr. Taylor’s lumbering figure. Two strides took them across the hall to a door set in the side of the stairs. It was locked, a key projecting from it. Taylor turned the key, opened the door wide, and switched on the light at the top of a curving wooden staircase. He went down it briskly and Keith followed him. At the base of the stairs they came into the glow of the single electric bulb depending from a short flex.

Keith slowed to a halt, looking about him, whilst Mr. Taylor went to the copper and from inside it took out a bottle of wine. He considered it and chuckled hugely.

Absently Keith glanced around the cool, brick-walled, concrete-floored expanse. There was a rusty old wringer, a clothes-rope hanging on a nail, a chair without a back—and that was all. Mrs. Taylor preferred the depredations of a laundry to washing at home. The door that presumably led to a contiguous cellar had been screwed up. Nearly opposite the base of the staircase was an empty fireplace with rusty iron bars, and a wide old-fashioned type of chimney flue.

“Now, my lad.…”

Keith gave a start. He had been looking at a staple in a beam that crossed the ceiling. For a moment his thoughts had strayed to the time when hams had been plentiful.

“Just a word,” Mr. Taylor said, his round pink face full of good humour. “Just to tell you what I couldn’t tell you up there. I’m mighty glad you’re having Pat. Mighty glad! I’ve got an idea about fixing a surprise present for you both later on.” He squeezed Keith’s arm. “You’re just the right chap. Damnit, I’ve known your dad for years, haven’t I?”

“I’m glad you approve,” Keith said, smiling. “It’s an awkward moment announcing it. Pat was decent enough to do it for me.”

“That’s Pat all over! Always taking things on her own shoulders. Well, come on; they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”

When they returned to the living room they found that Mrs. Taylor had produced five wineglasses from the cupboard and was busy polishing them.

“It took you a long time, Harry,” she complained. “What did you two have to talk about?”

“Never mind,” Mr. Taylor grinned, fishing a corkscrew out of the silver basket. In another moment he had the bottle open.

“Don’t include me,” Gregory said, motioning to his cup of tea. “I don’t like wine at the best of times, and certainly not in the middle of my tea.”

“Hang it all, Greg, the least you can do is drink to your sister’s happiness,” Mr. Taylor complained, his huge bulk looming over the glasses as he filled them.

“Well.…” Gregory gave a sigh. “All right—just this once.”

Mr. Taylor put down the wine bottle with an emphatic bump. Raising the filled glasses, he handed them over ceremoniously one by one.

“To both of you,” he said to Pat and Keith, his brown eyes twinkling. “Only please don’t follow the usual procedure and smash the glasses afterwards. They cost a mint, even as far back as when your mother and I were married.”

The wine was drunk and the glasses returned to the table.

An impressive quiet dropped for a moment.

“I—I think this is mighty nice of all of you,” Keith said at last. “As I said to Mr. Taylor in the cellar, I wasn’t quite sure how you’d accept the idea. Though of course you must have known that Pat and I felt that way about each other.”

“Yes, we knew,” Mrs. Taylor acknowledged, and her smiling face was like a rosy apple. “And what do you mean—you weren’t quite sure? Your father is a friend of ours, isn’t he? It isn’t as though you’re a stranger. Personally, I think it’s a mighty fine match, don’t you, Harry?”

Mr. Taylor was nodding vigorously. “Couldn’t be finer. When is it to be? Decided yet?”

“We thought about three months,” Keith answered. “When I get my next pay rise. I expect it’ll be hard going at first trying to get settled down—but then, it’s the same for all young couples these days. We’ll get by.”

“’Course you will!” Mr. Taylor declared heartily. “Getting married’s a problem whichever way you look at it, but with support on both sides you’ll be all right.”

“Both sides?” Keith repeated vaguely.

“Well, certainly! Your father and us.”

“Oh yes—of course.” Keith gave a peculiar smile to himself and hesitated. Then he made a half move towards the door. “I’d better get along and tell Dad what’s happened. He won’t approve, of course—”

“He’d better!” Mr. Taylor said ominously. “Won’t approve, indeed! Huh! Why not?”

“Oh, he just doesn’t approve of anything. It’s a sort of principle with him—”

“I’ll go home with you,” Pat intervened. “If he won’t listen to you, he will to me. I’ll see to that!”

“But what about your tea, dear?” her mother exclaimed. “You have been working all day and those restaurant meals always leave you hungry.”

“I’ll have tea when I get back.” Pat gave a smile. “Who on earth can think of tea at a time like this?” She caught Keith’s arm impulsively. “Come along, Keith—let’s go and tell your dad.”

He shrugged. “As you like, but I’m afraid he’ll take it the hard way.”

They left the room with their arms about each other and a moment later there was the thud of the front door closing. Mr. Taylor gazed absently before him and pulled out his pipe. With his penknife he scraped the ashes from the bowl into the fire grate.

“They’re born, they grow up, they marry,” he said, musing. “Funny thing, you can sort of picture marriage and home-leaving happening to other people’s children, but not to your own. Pat engaged to be married.… Well, well.”

“It’s a pity she doesn’t use her head a bit more,” Gregory said He folded his table napkin neatly and laid it on one side. With the same methodical movements be produced a cigarette and looked at it. His father gazed down on him thoughtfully.

“Use her head, Greg? How d’you mean?”

“Simply that there are hundreds of men who’d make her a much better husband than Keith Robinson.”

“Plenty who’d make her a worse one, too! He hasn’t got a bad sort of job on the railway—and he’s due for promotion Naturally at twenty-five he isn’t old enough yet to have climbed to anything big as far as money’s concerned, but—”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Dad,” Gregory interrupted. “I wasn’t thinking about his financial status, but about the chap himself.…” He frowned thoughtfully. “It isn’t that I’ve anything against him, only from things he’s said now and again when he’s been here I think he’s got an insanely jealous disposition. And people like that are hell to live with.”

“How do you know?” His father gave a wide grin. “You never lived with such a person.”

Gregory’s light grey eyes were cold. “I don’t consider this situation is so funny, Dad. I’m thinking of Pat’s happiness, and with Keith I can’t see her having any after the novelty’s worn off. Deep down, I think she’s only in love with a handsome face.” Gregory got to his feet. “However, it’s her funeral, I suppose—but I’m entitled to say what I think, and I’ve said it.… Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go up to my room and browse through those confounded law books. I’ve a problem on my mind at the office.”

He went out and closed the door. Mr. Taylor lighted his pipe slowly and puffed at it. Presently he looked at his wife as she began to move the tray containing the empty glasses towards the adjoining kitchen.

“What do you think, Alice?” he asked. “Think Pat’s doing the wrong thing?”

“Not for a moment! She’s no child, Harry. Oh, take no notice of Greg! He spends so much of his life looking for the faults in people I believe he’d find them in an angel. He means well by Pat, but we know what to think. Why, you’re not beginning to have doubts, are you?”

“Not I—only Greg has the uncomfortable habit of upsetting one’s applecart so completely. Maybe his disliking Keith has a lot to do with it.”

“But does he dislike him?” Mrs. Taylor asked.

“I’m pretty sure of it, but as things are, he’ll have to change his views.”

Mrs. Taylor did not say any more. She gave a shrug of her fleshy shoulders and then went on into the kitchen. Her husband followed her and remained propped against the doorpost. After a while his thoughts took on words.

“Y’know, I think we should have a really good celebration!” he declared.

“But we just had it!” His wife held up one of the wine glasses she was polishing and he gestured back at her.

“Oh, that! That was simply a drink. I mean something really good. A sort of jollification. Pat can invite her friends and Keith can invite his—and bring his father over. A really good get-together, eh? A proper engagement party!”

Clearly the idea appealed to Mrs. Taylor’s sociable soul. She began nodding her blonde head vigorously.

“We’ll tell Pat about it the moment she comes in,” she decided. “She’ll be delighted.… Then she must make a list of who she wants to invite.”