Читать книгу Death in Silhouette - John Russell Fearn - Страница 6

CHAPTER THREE

The following day Pat met Keith as usual at the restaurant on his return from work, and once he had reassured her that his recovery from the glass of wine was complete, she plunged into details of the intended celebration party on the following Wednesday. That he would be there was a certainty—in fact, as the prospective bridegroom he could not fail—but he was not so sure about his father.

“But you must bring him!” Pat insisted. “It’s Dad’s idea. After all, I suppose my dad and yours want to get together and discuss things. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I know,” Keith said moodily. “Can’t keep their noses out of their children’s affairs.”

“Oh, Keith, I’m sure it isn’t that bad—”

“Yes it is,” he insisted curtly, clearly decided. “They can call it by what name they like, but actually it’s interference.…” He shrugged. “All right, I’ll ask Dad and he can please himself. I’m also going to see if I can’t get my raise in under three months, then we can be married sooner. Every day I spend with the old man I get more nervy.…” He switched the subject suddenly. “I hope you’ve told Billy Cranston and Cliff Evans that they needn’t call on you any more? That we’re engaged?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” Pat answered coolly. “They haven’t called, and I’m certainly not going to run about after them. And do you have to be so confoundedly jealous?”

“Can’t help it,” he replied. “And tell ’em as soon as you can, Pat. If either of them try and remain friendly with you from now, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“You won’t what?” Pat exclaimed in amazement.

“I.… Perhaps I put it badly,” he amended. “What I mean is, I just can’t stomach the idea of any other men being interested in you when you belong to me. Can’t help my nature, can I?”

“You could try and control it!”

“I have tried—many a time. And it’s no use.”

Pat was silent. It had crossed her mind vividly, for the moment, that perhaps she was making a mistake after all. This intense jealousy in Keith’s make-up was likely to grow deeper as the years passed, and it might lead to unpredictable consequences.

“I sound worse than I am,” Keith added, grinning. “Moody—that’s me! After all, it’s a sure sign that I love you when I’m jealous, isn’t it?”

Pat, realizing how deeply she was involved in this business, gave a faint smile. The thought that none of us is perfect took precedence in her mind again. For all his jealousy, queer little ways, and startling changes of mood, Keith fascinated her. She was still not at an age to adopt searching self-analysis and ask herself whether it was Keith himself, or his handsome looks, which really appealed to her. These considerations apart, the fact remained that she was determined to marry him.…

She saw him each evening thereafter, and at the weekend. Evidently he had smoothed things out at home to a certain extent, for on the Wednesday following, precisely at six o’clock, he arrived with his father at the Taylor home. With a kind of forced cheerfulness he followed his gaunt death’s-head of a parent into the big front room, and then paused. There were so many people present he seemed momentarily to be at a loss.

Pat, fetchingly attired in a frilly party dress and with a gentle perfume clinging about her, came forward to grasp his hand. At the same moment Mr. Taylor, who had been considering the lemonade and glasses on the table, lumbered over and gripped Ambrose Robinson’s bony claw.

“More we are together, eh?” Mr. Taylor exclaimed genially, his round face shining like a cherub’s. “Glad you decided to come, Ambrose. After all, your son and my daughter. It’s a tremendous occasion!”

“I came because I was invited,” Ambrose Robinson told him sombrely. “Certainly not because I think I’ve anything to celebrate. Indeed, I have nothing to celebrate in losing my son.”

“Losing him!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed. “What kind of talk is that? Don’t be so old-fashioned, man!”

“Er—let me introduce you, Mr. Robinson,” Pat intervened.

“This is Miss Banning, a great friend of mine and also a fellow worker; and this is Miss Andrews, an old school friend. Both of them are to be my bridesmaids.”

Ambrose Robinson smiled down gauntly on the two young women and then nodded to Gregory Taylor. Gregory was lounging in a corner armchair, smoking a cigarette impassively without a trace of expression on his wooden-looking face.

“Don’t take it so hard, Ambrose!” Mrs. Taylor murmured, smiling, as he drifted to her side. “It makes it so tough on the young people when their parents don’t agree with the marrying. What in the world have you to object to, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s nothing personal,” Ambrose Robinson responded. “It’s just that I find it hard to lose Keith after all the plans I’d been making to direct his future. I think he’s treading on the wrong path.”

“Not with our daughter!” Mr. Taylor declared. “You’ve been reading your Bible upside down, Ambrose.”

“There is nothing wrong with reading a Bible,” Ambrose Robinson retorted. “You might try it yourself some time!”

Mr. Taylor hesitated and then glanced about him. “Well,” he said, “we all seem to be here except Miss Black.… Oh, Pat, you didn’t invite Billy Cranston or Cliff Evans, those two boy-friends of yours, did you?”

Pat coloured swiftly and Keith’s mouth hardened visibly.

“No,” she responded. “Why should I? They don’t really mean anything.…”

Mr. Taylor winked. “So you say!” He turned to his wife. “Well, Mother, what do we do about the drinks? The longer we delay having them, the longer we’ll be getting to the fun and games. And believe me,” he added, turning to the assembly, “I’ve worked out plenty of fun for this evening. You’ll never forget it.”

“But we can’t have the drinks yet, Dad,” Pat objected. “We really must wait for Miss Black. She ought to be here at any moment.”

“According to her letter,” Gregory said, looking at his wristwatch, “she should have been here forty-five minutes ago.”

Pat shrugged. “Well, you know how it is with a car. Maybe she broke down. Couldn’t be anything else, I imagine, for she’s a terror for punctuality.”

“Miss Black?” repeated Ambrose Robinson vaguely. “Do I know her?”

Pat shook her head. “You’ve never met her. Neither has Keith. She’s the headmistress of Roseway College, where I used to be. I know you’ll like her.…”

There came one of those sudden silences when the ticking clock could be heard distinctly. For a moment or two Mr. Taylor looked at a loss.

“What do we do then?” he complained. “The longer we delay, the less time we’ll have.…”

Since, however, it was Pat’s party she had the authority, and she managed to delay the drinks for another half-hour; then, as there was still no sign of Miss Maria Black she had to give way and the party started in earnest.

It was owing chiefly to the vigorous good nature of Mr. Taylor that the first icy reserve was broken. The Misses Banning and Andrews got to giggling by turns, and Keith seemed to have thrown his moodiness overboard and replaced it with a widely smiling countenance. Even the solemn, funereal gloom of his father broke down somewhat, but to the convulsive delight of Madge Banning, it did not prevent him uttering Biblical phrases at intervals. Only Gregory Taylor remained unmoved, though he drank with the rest and repeated the toast to the engaged pair as though he were taking the oath in court.

The room grew hot and smoky and voices blurred across the clink of glasses. The limitations imposed by austerity had prevented any magnificent spread, but there were mountains of meat-paste sandwiches and homemade cakes and buns, which went the round of the gathering with something of the inevitability of a conveyor belt.

Pat, conversing on some feminine topic with the Misses Banning and Andrews, realized suddenly that she could not see Keith anywhere. His father was still present, discoursing into the unheeding ear of Mrs. Taylor about the flight of the Israelites through the Red Sea. There was Mr. Taylor; trying to make himself heard about some games he had devised in the next room.…

“Where’s Keith?” Pat asked suddenly, getting up and looking about her.

“Eh?” Her father looked surprised. “I dunno. Slipped out for a moment, I suppose. Look, all of you, let’s go in the next room and we can—”

“But I want to ask him something!” Pat insisted. “‘What’s he up to, I wonder?”

“Up to?” repeated Mrs. Taylor. “What should he want to be up to?”

“Last I saw of him he was talking to you, Dad,” Gregory said, from the armchair, and tapped an unlighted cigarette against his thumbnail.

“Yes, but—” Mr. Taylor frowned— “that’s quite a while ago. Ten minutes maybe.…”

Frowning in puzzlement, Pat left the room and the conversation went on, though not quite at the same tempo. Funny where Keith had gone, in the midst of the proceedings, too. From the expressions on their faces everybody seemed to be thinking the same thing. At last Pat came back into the hot, smoky atmosphere.

“He’s nowhere in the house!” she announced in dismay. “I’ve searched every room, upstairs and down—he must have walked out.…”

“He couldn’t have!” Ambrose Robinson declared. “I’ll find him! I know his little tricks.…”

He left the room and was gone for perhaps fifteen minutes. He returned with an expression of puzzlement that was only equalled by Pat’s own.

“No?” she asked, in rising alarm.

“Can’t find him anywhere,” Ambrose Robinson said, rubbing his eyebrow. “I just don’t understand it. Why should he walk out?”

“But he can’t have done that!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed. “He must be up to some prank or other. Come on; we’ll all have a look.”

This was a game none of the party had expected. They all crowded out of the drawing room and dispersed in various directions to undertake the search, which, for Pat and Ambrose Robinson, had already proved fruitless. Even the garage and outhouses were not ignored, but there was still no sign of Keith anywhere.

“If he went out we’d have seen him go down the front path,” Betty Andrews said brightly.

“I just can’t understand it,” Ambrose Robinson said, as they congregated in the hall.

“Neither can I,” Mr. Taylor added, frowning. Then an inspiration seemed to strike him. “Say, what about the cellar? Anybody look there?”

From the shaking of heads it appeared nobody had.

“In any case, what on earth could he want down there?” Pat asked blankly.

“I don’t know. Let’s see, anyway.” Her father moved to the cellar door in the staircase and turned the knob. He fell back in surprise as the door remained secure. Then he grinned. “The mystery’s solved!” he exclaimed. “Keith’s up to something in the cellar. He must be. He—”

“Say, look!” Gregory exclaimed abruptly. “There’s a gleam of light under the cellar door there—I can just see it. A faint line.… What the blue blazes can he be playing at?”

“Key’s gone: must be inside the door.” Mr. Taylor spoke as though sudden alarm had got him. “Usually there’s a key on the outside of this door.… Gone! See?” He pointed. Then he thumped the panels fiercely.

“Hey, Keith! What goes on?”

There was no response. The party glanced at one another. Pat, seized with a sudden premonition, gave a startled cry.

“Something may have happened to him! Smash the door, Dad.”

Without hesitation he slammed his massive body into it. It creaked but it did not give. Gregory lent his shoulders. Under the combined onslaught the door flew open and nearly flung Mr. Taylor down the steps beyond. He brought up sharp, clinging to both sides of the door frame. He remained motionless. There was a deadly silence for a moment or two.

As Gregory had noticed, the light was on, but from this point at the top of the wooden stairway the bulb itself was not visible—only the brilliance casting from beyond the point where the wall jutted out at the base of the curving stairway. Nobody was noticing this, however. Their eyes were fixed on a shadow on the left-hand wall of the stairway.

It was the shadow of a man, hanging. A black line extended tautly upwards from his neck to the ceiling.

* * * *

At about this time, Miss Maria Black, M.A., Principal of Roseway College for Young Ladies, was experiencing a shock of another kind. In fact, to her it was a far bigger shock than the vision of any hanging man would have been. Briefly, her Austin Seven had mysteriously become immobile.

She had left the college in Sussex in ample time, and to the accompaniment of considerable backfiring had proceeded at a fair speed to within twenty miles of her destination in Redford. Now she sat at the steering wheel, gazing in front of her and wondering what to do next.

“Extraordinary!” she observed finally. “Most extraordinary! I really think I must consider writing a letter to the managing director of the Austin Motor Company.”

She tried the self-starter again, opened the choke to the full, switched the ignition on and off—and plain nothing happened.

With a sigh she squeezed out of the car and stood erect, a massive-bosomed woman in the late fifties attired in a fashion-able two-piece, with a stylish hat perched on her severely coiffured hair. Her hair was greying black and ended in a bun at the nape of her short, strong neck

“I suppose,” she said, staring at the car musingly, “that the mind should be equal to any problem—even this.”

Satisfied.as to this possibility, she drew off her gloves tossed them into the car, and then with masculine strength and purpose heaved up the side of the bonnet. With eyes the colour of a blue glacier she considered the Austin’s innards. There seemed to be a lot of oil-filmed metal and that was about all. Understanding the engine of a motor car was not one of Maria Black’s accomplishments. She understood fractious young ladies and criminal minds a great deal better.

“Hmm!” she observed finally, and there was nobody on the long white, dusty road to hear her. Only a singing lark high overhead in the cobalt-blue sky. On every side of her were fields. With the usual lack of consideration shown by mechanical vehicles, the car had not chosen the runway of a garage on which to break down.

With an effort Maria cast aside her reluctance to fiddle with the oily mess, and began an investigatory tapping of carburettor, plugs, distributor, and everything else she could find. She was thus engaged, her massive body visible only from the waist down, when she became aware of a squeak of brakes and the scrape of tyres on gravel surface. A young man climbed out of an ancient two-seater and came over to her.

“Trouble, ma’m?” he asked.

Maria straightened up, her dignity marred, had she but known it by a smear of oil that looked startlingly like a moustache. Except for this unique addition her features were keen. Her month and jaw were firm without being cruel: her nose was long and straight, and definitely inquisitive. When she spoke, she could not help sounding superior. It was born in her.

“I can assure you, young man, that I am not doing this for my own entertainment.”

The young man grinned. “As it ’appens, I know a bit about cars. I’ll take a look if you like.”

Maria nodded thankfully and stood aside, studying her messy hands in nauseated disgust. The young man did something to the engine that she could not see.

“Probably over’eating in this weather,” he commented, his voice sounding as though it were coming from the bottom of a well.

“Overeating?” Maria frowned. “How on earth can my gastronomic activities have anything to do with it? I can assure you I do not overeat.”

“’Ere’s your trouble,” the young man exclaimed. “A wire to your distributor is corroded. Ought to ’ave the wirin’ checked now and again. Soon ’ave you going now.”

Maria pulled a duster from the dashboard cubby, wiped her hands, threw the duster away, and then waited. In five minutes the young man had the car started. Maria beamed on him.

“Splendid, young man! Excellent! Every man to his trade. And how much am I in your debt?”

“Only too ’appy,” he replied, shrugging. “No job for a lady of your class, anyway.”

He held the door open for her and she settled at the steering wheel again, as upright as a general on his charger. The engine was now ticking over sweetly.

“Thank you again, young man,” she said, still beaming— and then she started the car off down the road at ever-gathering speed. The clock showed her she had lost a valuable hour and ten minutes. It annoyed her. If there was one thing on which she prided herself, it was punctuality.