Читать книгу Thy Arm Alone: A Classic Crime Novel - John Russell Fearn - Страница 5

CHAPTER ONE

To refer to Betty Shapley as the ‘belle of the village’ might suggest a touch of the 1890s—yet what else can one call an attractive young lady revelling in the fact that she has three susceptible young men all hovering to respond to her slightest wish? Neither ‘siren’ nor ‘vamp’ could be applied to Betty. She had not the background to justify either term. One does not expect to find a sultry seducer behind the prosaic counter of a general store, or handing out stamps, cigarettes, or matches with an air of perfunctory detachment. So ‘belle of the village’ it must be.

Langhorn village had seen Betty Shapley mature from a very tiresome shrieking child with blonde pigtails into a robust schoolgirl receiving her education—thanks to her winning a scholarship—at Roseway College two and a half miles beyond the village. This process, under the omnipotent eye of Miss Maria Black, M.A., had eliminated the tendency to shriek.

Imperceptibly, Betty had grown up. Her pigtails had gone, and her frocks were decorously lengthened. Schooldays were gone. She had assumed the position of sub-post-mistress in the general store-cum-post-office owned by her father. The title was purely arbitrary, since in it she included serving tobacco, together with confectionery and green groceries. She felt it was a comedown after her education.

Betty did not like postal work, and she hated routine. But Joseph Shapley had his own ideas concerning his daughter’s future—Roseway education notwithstanding.… So, being but nineteen and fully realizing that Nature had been generous to her face and figure, Betty did the natural thing—she opened her blue eyes wide in innocent appeal to every young man who bought cigarettes or chocolates. She cultivated a fluttering charm, and would often have difficulty in replacing the big covers on the toffee jars. This line always worked, ending with strong masculine hands doing what hers apparently could not.

She had the power to make a request for mint humbugs seem like an event of world importance: there was a seductive pleasure in even being able to touch her hand accidentally when she held forth change. Old man Shapley, indeed, was agreeably surprised at the astonishing increase in his business returns once his daughter had come to help him. Having got past the age when feminine charm means anything, he put it all down to his own window displays and the cleanness of his offerings, looking quite beyond the curvacious girl with the bushy blonde hair who had stirred up such heart-throbbing among the young men of Langhorn.

Mrs. Shapley guessed the reason for prosperity, mainly because there had once been a time when she had adopted similar tactics…and had finished up with stolid Joseph and his store of many colours.

Betty numbered three principal rivals for her favours, and played one against the other with sublime disregard for their feelings. There was Vincent Grey, the young solicitor’s clerk who worked in Lexham—the nearest town—and towards whom she felt more serious than anybody else. Then there was Tom Clayton. He owned the garage two doors away and had the opportunity of seeing Betty in all her moods—even in the back garden in her worst mood when she tried to repair a puncture in her bicycle tyre. She sort of liked Tom; she was not sure. He was strong and grim and businesslike, and talked as though he did not want to give anything away. He was a bit of a student, too, with a liking for astronomy.

Then lastly there was Herbert Pollitt—straightforward, almost simple-minded, accepting everything, contradicting nothing. He lived in lodgings and hated them, and was doing his utmost to make a living peddling insurance.

Betty was with Herbert at the moment. For her it was just another outing, for Herbert it was a foretaste of Heaven, and a rather noisy Heaven too if his car be included. It had chugged its way from Lexham to this present spot—a country lane with open fields on both sides, a couple of miles from Langhorn village.

But now it had come to a halt and Herbert was trying with some uneasiness to decide whether it was because he had switched off the ignition, or whether it was because the confounded thing had lain down and died just before he had switched off.

“What in the world are you doing?” Betty asked him in surprise as he doubled himself up and squinted under the dashboard.

“Eh? Oh—nothing. Just wondering.…”

“You don’t have to be a contortionist to do that, do you? I thought you stopped here so we could talk.… It’s so quiet—now,” Betty added, glancing significantly at the faded bonnet.

“Yes, isn’t it? Except for those rumbles from the quarry-blasting, that is. I didn’t think they worked this late.”

Betty listened to the remote concussions for a while. “Maybe it’s thunder,” she said.

Herbert Pollitt was annoyed: he wanted to devote his attention to Betty, yet at the same time he was wondering if the car would ever start again. Between the two issues he only succeeded in looking vacant.

It needed every volt of Betty’s charm to make the car seem worthwhile. It had had innumerable owners, and had once been proudly advertised as a tourer. Now only the doors retained correct working order in that they at least opened and shut. The bodywork was battered, dented, and scraped. A sinister worm of oily string secured the rear plate; the upholstery was discoloured; the folding hood had degenerated into a flattened trellis of wooden struts with rusty studs alone showing where canvas had been.

In the midst of this Betty sat, half-sprawled, her shapely legs thrust well under the dashboard—until the icy cold of the brake lever against her bare calf made her withdraw hastily. The late evening air was warm, the sky dim and cloudless blue out of which stars peeped as though wondering what was going on below. The close of a perfect July day, nearing ten-fifteen. The narrow lane was empty in front and behind. The strong smell of newly mown hay drifted over hawthorn hedges greyed with dust from a rainless fortnight. It was the sort of evening to make an old man feel young, and a young man younger still. Except for this infernal car.

Herbert took off his cap presently—he always wore it while driving—and mopped his good-looking face. Black curls tumbled in a permanent state of rebellion against brush and comb. His eyes were hazel, his nose long and thin; his mouth broad and straight. His jaw was always so intensely shaven, it created a vague wonder among his male friends as to his source of razor blades.

Yes, Betty had not chosen an unworthy-looking specimen by any means. He did not mind spending what little money he had; when his car would function, it was hers for the asking. Though he never took advantage—much to Betty’s secret chagrin sometimes—he was definitely in earnest. It was sheer diffidence that held him back.

“It’s sort of—hot,” he observed presently.

“Is it?”

This casual desire for confirmation made Herbert feel hotter still. Betty was so close to him that her plump shoulder in the thin short-sleeved frock pressed against his. Her arms were folded and her blue eyes stared into the darkling sky. Herbert, sideways to her, could see that mass of thick, bushy fair hair with the cornflower blue ribbon holding it in place, the high forehead, the retroussé nose with its air of assurance, and then the full lips and dimpled chin which betrayed the streak of self-love in her nature. Her neck was shapely, forming a finely moulded line from beneath her chin to the base of her throat—but it had the red hue of sunburn marring its unsullied beauty. The folded arms were pink, too, on the outsides. It had been a hot day, and a Wednesday. The shop had been closed since noon. Herbert had given himself a half-holiday, and Betty and he had been together since two o’clock.

There were more distant rumblings from the quarries—the only sound in the quiet.

“Been a lovely day,” Betty whispered at last, turning her head sideways, her large blue eyes fixed on him.

“Yes, lovely,” Herbert agreed; then she pursed her lips at him provocatively. He wondered whether she meant he was to kiss her there and then or whether she felt annoyed.

“I think the engine’s gone dead!” he said lamely.

“Just the engine?” Betty asked archly, her mouth resuming its normal shape, “What of it? It’s only two miles or so home.”

“But I can’t leave the car in the lane! The battery will only keep the lights going for about twenty minutes. I’d have the police on my track.”

Betty shrugged and resumed her study of the sky. An engine and a flat battery meant nothing to her. Then suddenly she sat up with a jerk and gripped Herbert’s arm tightly. “Wish!” she ordered. “Wish—now! For the thing you want most!”

“Why?” he asked, bewildered.

“A shooting star. Didn’t you see it?”

He looked upwards. The sky had taken on the deep purple of approaching night. Many more stars had ventured out. As they both gazed in hushed expectancy, another streak of light smeared soundlessly across the expanse and was gone.

“Two!” Betty exclaimed. “Did you wish that time?”

“Does one? I always thought it meant a baby was going to be born and—” He broke off in sudden embarrassment. “I didn’t mean that exactly. I—er—I think we’d better be going.”

“Why?” Betty relaxed and smiled. “We’ve only just got here.… Don’t you sometimes want to just sit and think? Wonder what the future has in store for you? I do!” Her soft hand reached out gently and grasped his.

“Quite a lot of shooting stars tonight,” he said presently, disdaining to use the correct term of “meteors.”

“One does run into them at different parts of the year,” Betty said, snuggling down with a sigh of contentment. “Rather like life: they just come and go in an instant of time.… We’re like that. Herby. Life seems to last a long while when you’re young, but when you come to measure it by ages and ages, it doesn’t amount to much.”

Such profound philosophy had been something of an effort for Betty; she had been building up to a crisis.

“I’ve got to be sure!” Herbert said abruptly as she began to walk her fingers playfully across his chest. “Nothing wrong under the dashboard, so it must be the engine. I’m sure it died!”

He jerked himself free and half fell out of the car into the dust of the lane. Betty straightened up in annoyance and blew a tickling wisp of hair out of her eye.

“You and your car engine!” she called after him. “Haven’t you got a spark of romance in your soul?”

“Of course, but—I’ve got to be sure we can get home!”

Reaching the front of the car, he flung back the bonnet with desperate energy, anxious to get his hands on something tough and worldly—and unfeminine.

Betty relaxed again and stretched languidly on the back of the seat. Her eyes rose from Herbert’s shoulders as he poked his head in the engine. She saw another transitory flash across the sky and she wished—wished that Herbert might become more of a man and less of a ninny.

“Damn!” he muttered, straightening. “This is going to take a bit of fixing. Ignition wire has corroded through and I’ve no light to see to mend it in the dark. It’s broken away at the main cable from the battery. Means scraping, and it should be soldered on by rights. Bit of a job.”

This talk of car parts somehow did not fit in with a romantic half-hour in the summer dusk. Betty abandoned her hopes, and got up. Climbing out of the car, she walked round to where Herbert was standing. She could not see anything inside the engine but she could smell stale oil. Herbert loomed dim and troubled beside her.

“I’m sorry,” he said hesitantly, “but I shall have to ask you to walk home without me. I’ll have to stay and direct any traffic there might be in case of accident. My lights will hold out for a while.”

“Why can’t you repair it if you’ve got lights?” Betty asked.

“Because they’re fixed frontwards and I’d need them pointing backwards. ’Sides, it would mean messing about with bare wires with the juice on—even if I could do it. Which I couldn’t.”

Betty was recalling the music-hall gag about cars stopping before the girlfriend can be taken home. This, though, was something different. It even sounded as if Herbert actually wanted to be rid of her.

“You live next door but one to Tom Clayton’s garage, don’t you?” Herbert went on. “I wonder if you’d mind asking him to come and tow me to his place? If we can’t fix it here, it will mean having the car out of the way, anyhow.”

“But Tom Clayton doesn’t like you!” Betty pointed out. “I can’t see him turning out at this hour to drag this old iron to his garage. He’d rather cut your throat if he could. Not for a moment do I think he’d tow you in.”

“He only dislikes me because we both happen to lo—like you,” Herbert corrected himself quickly. “He’d come if you were to ask him. Anybody would do what you ask, Bet.”

“Well.…” The appeal to her charms was a masterstroke. “Well, all right,” Betty sighed. “I’ll walk home, it only to get in at a reasonable time before Dad starts asking silly questions. I’ll see what I can do about Tom Clayton, but I don’t promise anything.”

There was a silence. She hesitated a moment.

“I’m afraid I can’t say good night as I should.” Herbert sounded apologetic. “I’m all dirty.… Oil, you know.”

“I can’t see any oil on your face,” Betty said, standing so close to him in her scrutiny that he could smell perfume.

“You can’t? Oh—good!”

Betty stared at his murky figure incredulously, wondering whether he really had not seen the hint or whether he was being evasive. Whichever it was, he plunged back into the dark engine and began to tinker noisily.

“Night!” Betty said, tight-lipped, and turned to begin the long tramp up the dusty lane.

* * * *

Betty walked slowly. She was feeling too piqued to lend aid willingly. That she would do so finally she well knew, but the delay would serve Herbert right! He should be like other men—be progressive, buy a decent car, pay more attention to her.

She walked along slowly in the starry night, mist rising cool and clammy from the fields on either side of the lane. Out here in the quiet—for even the quarries had become silent now—there was time to think. Should she abandon Herbert and his noisy old banger for the stern-lipped Tommy Clayton, or thoroughly cultivate the boisterous, talkative Vincent Grey? Finding the right man with whom to spend the rest of her life was vitally important, for she was heartily sick of being sub-postmistress. One day, she knew, she would have to make a choice of one of the trio, all of whom she believed would jump at the chance of marrying her.

Altogether it took her an hour to walk the two miles, but towards the end of the journey she put on a sudden spurt as she felt the chill of the night striking through her thin clothes. It was just chiming half past eleven by the Langhorn church clock as she knocked sharply on the house door of Clayton’s garage. She had to knock again, more emphatically, before there was an answer. Then it was Mrs. Clayton who opened the door and peered out into the night, a fan of brilliance from the passage behind her.

“Betty!” she exclaimed. “It’s late! What’s wrong—?” She broke off as if expecting a dreadful answer.

“Nothing serious, Mrs. Clayton. I just want a word with Tommy if he’s in.”

“He’s having his supper. Come inside.”

Betty followed through into the back regions where the brilliance of the electric light dazzled her for a moment. Clayton was seated before a plate of stew, dry bread piled up like a miniature Stonehenge on a plate beside him. Propped against a pickle jar was a textbook; the title, Betty noticed casually, was Ball’s Stars in Their Courses.

There was an air of disorder about the kitchen. At sixty-five, and a widow, too, the grey-haired Mrs. Clayton did not pretend to be house-proud. She had simply ceased to care. Silently she walked back towards the empty fireplace and drew up a chair.

“Sit you down, Betty.”

Tom Clayton laid down his knife and fork. “A bit of a late call for you, Betty.… From the look of your shoes you’ve been doing some tramping, too.”

“Two miles,” she answered, self-piteously, seating herself. “I’ve been out since just after lunch with Herby Pollitt, and his car has broken down. He wants you to go along and either patch things up or tow him in!”

“Some hopes!” Clayton said, glancing at the clock. “I closed the garage at eight.”

Betty looked at him and sighed. Whilst thirty minutes earlier she would not have minded leaving Herbert all night with his car, now she was suffering from conscience as she pictured him, with his coat collar turned up, maybe shivering in the dew.…

“But he might get pneumonia waiting out there!”

Typically, Tom Clayton said nothing whilst he weighed things up. He sat now in thought, his thick lips and square jaw all carved in one dogged pattern, his heavy-lidded brown eyes staring deeply into the empty fire-grate. He was not a good-looking man, even though his face had strength. Rather, he looked sullen and introspective—nor did his curved nose and low-growing hair tend to add any lighter tones to the portrait.

“I don’t see why I should,” he said at last, and then he resumed his supper.

“But—but, Tommy, we just can’t leave him there. He’s conscientious enough to stick with the damned car until daylight rather than risk the police or an accident. You could easily tow him home in a few minutes.”

“Why should I help him?” Clayton’s dark eyes were morosely suspicious. “You’ve been out with him most of the day.… Never a thought for me, I notice; and then you ask me to help him!”

Betty looked wide-eyed and innocent. This was her best line when things showed signs of getting out of hand. Mrs. Clayton moved over to the armchair and picked up a bundle of knitting.

Her face was expressionless as she awaited the next move. She knew her son was well able to look after his own affairs at twenty-three—and she knew Betty, too. Whether she approved of Betty or not she had never said.

“Can’t be done,” Clayton decided, after further reflection.

“But Tommy, you’ll make me break my promise to Herby!” Betty looked at the floor and played with her fingers. “Of course he said you’d never do anything to help him, so this isn’t much of a surprise really.”

Clayton threw down his cutlery. “He said that? By what right? I run a garage, don’t I? I suppose he was trying to make out that I don’t know my job, or something?”

“He didn’t exactly say you didn’t know your job. He just sort of knows you don’t like him.”

Clayton got to his feet and crossed to the empty fireplace, stood staring into the grate.

“Are you going or not?” Betty asked abruptly.

Clayton turned. “I’ll go, Betty, but understand that I am only doing it because I have a regard for you, and not for Herby’s sake! I’ll charge him double. I also want it understood that you will give me a chance to take you out next time.”

Betty shrugged. “All right, why not?” She felt disinclined to point out that he never took a half-day off.

“Very well. I’ll see you to your door and then I’ll get the truck out.… Mother, put that stew back until I return. He glanced up at the clock. “Quarter to twelve. I should be back by about midnight—or twelve-fifteen at the latest.”

* * * *

Curiously enough, Betty’s mental vision of Herbert Pollitt had been startlingly accurate. After she had departed he actually did turn up his coat collar and give a little shiver; then he started to try and make a repair by the feel of the broken ignition wire. It was perhaps twenty minutes after Betty’s sauntering exit that there came the sound of double-note whistling and a light appeared down the lane from the direction of Lexham.

Immediately Herbert hurried to the back of his car and waved his hands in warning. The whistling stopped and a familiar voice came from behind the dazzlingly bright dynamo-driven cycle lamp.

“Herby! All by yourself m the starlight! Your damned lights are nearly out.…”

Vincent Grey pulled the brakes up sharp on his pedal cycle and the lamp died out. The dim starshine revealed him, blond-headed, in a thick white woollen sweater with roll collar and corduroy cycling trousers. Herbert could picture that round, good-humoured face—grinning and scornful.

“Hello, Vince…,” Herbert growled as he turned away. “I should have recognized you by your damned whistling.”

“Just cycling home from Lexham,” Vincent Grey explained. “I play chess now and again with an old pal of mine over there. But what happened to you? Breakdown?”

“Ignition. I—I had Betty with me. She’s gone on ahead to ask Tom Clayton to come and tow me in.”

“Betty? Oh, you had—had you?”

Herbert climbed into the back seat of the car and sprawled in a corner. Vincent leaned his bicycle carefully against the wing—chiefly to avoid scratching his bicycle. Then he clambered in at the other door and plumped into the upholstery. For a moment or two he sat breathing hard.

“Can’t think what Betty sees in you!” he said finally.

“Been out with her since dinner,” Herbert said, glowing with an inner pride. “She’s a grand girl!”

“I know; I’ve been out with her myself. But I don’t much like the way she walks out on me and takes up with you. It’s—flighty,” he decided.

“There’s nothing flighty about Betty, Vince. She only goes with me because she knows whom she can trust. You expect too much of a girl. I believe in slowly advancing into favour.”

“Then you’re crazy! Here—have a cigarette. It won’t make you drop dead…I’m afraid.”

Herbert took one and their two faces shone like masks for a moment as Vincent’s lighter flared in the windless air. Then they were silent again, blowing smoke at the gnats flying near them

“So,” Vincent resumed, “you take Betty out for the afternoon, your old tub won’t stand up to it, and then you send her to our worst rival for assistance! Ye gods! I’d have pushed the darned car to Langhorn myself before I’d have taken that chance!”

“What chance?” Herbert followed the trail of another meteor in the south.

“Well, if she’ll walk out on me to go with you, what’s to stop her walking out on both of us to play games with Tommy Clayton? I used to think Betty was a one-man girl, and that I was the one man. Now I know better— She’s no good for a rising citizen like me; I’ll cut her out from now on—”

“Take it easy,” Herbert warned, straightening up.

“I’ll say exactly what I like,” Vincent stated calmly. “You don’t approve of me and I’m not enamoured of you. We’ve never thought much of each other since we knew Betty liked both of us—or rather that she appeared to do. So I say she’s no good; and if you’ve any sense, you’ll agree with me.”

Herbert relaxed with a morose frown. Men have quarrelled about women since Adam took forty winks, and they will probably go on doing it until atomic bombs settle the argument conclusively.

“I can’t think that Betty would.…” Herbert’s voice trailed off into a weak emphasis. He really loved Betty, absolutely for herself. He knew that for all her seeming coquetry, there was a sterling worth somewhere in her, and he wanted the chance to find it in his own diffident way.

“Look here,” he said, “if I could get this darned car to work, we could go on into Langhorn and just see what has happened. I’m willing to wager that Betty gets Tom to dig me out—you think she will do nothing of the sort but, instead, fix a date with him for tomorrow evening, maybe, after he’s closed. All right, turn your bike upside down, revolve your back wheel, and give me a light from your dynamo.”

Reluctantly, Vincent heaved himself out of the car and moved round to his cycle. He tipped it up on its saddle and handlebars and then turned the crank-wheel and chain vigorously. The whir of the dynamo disturbed the stillness of the summer night. Herbert threw his cigarette away and stumbled into the lane, moving round to peer into the now fully illuminated engine.

“Yes, I think I can do it,” he said. “Keep on turning.”

From the toolbox under the battery he took out a set of spanners, a screwdriver, and jack-knife. Laboriously he set about the task he had commenced in the dark.

“I think,” Vincent said presently, cranking steadily and projecting the lamp beam, “that girls like Betty are not far short of a public menace. They get fellows all tied up. She’s got me hating you and you hating me—and both of us hating Tom Clayton. Why? Because all of us love her.”

“Thought you said you didn’t,” Herbert muttered as he half lay in the engine.

“Confound me, I do.” Vincent sighed. “I was piqued at her going out with you. That’s my trouble. I talk too big. I’m a pot lion. So help me, Herby, I’d do just anything for her.… But I don’t see why I should play second fiddle either. Only one way to get Betty, you know, and that is to cut out the opposition.”

Vincent stopped turning the crank suddenly and the gloom dropped. Herbert turned in surprise.

“What’d you do that for? I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“Only changing position,” Vincent said. “Shan’t be a minute.”

Herbert waited and there was a dim vision of Vincent moving about in his white sweater. He was stooping, presumably to haul the machine round.

Then far down the lane two brilliant headlamps shafted their beams into the dark sky from over a rise.

“Tom Clayton, a million to one,” Herbert said, gazing. “Coming from the direction of Langhorn. That shows how much truth there was in your tomfool accusations about Betty. She’s okay, I tell you. She’s the best girl that ever—”

The headlights swung full on him at that moment and there was the sound of a heavy truck engine. It was perhaps half a mile away down the lane. Herbert turned to Vincent with a grin of triumph. Vincent was still stooping, then he straightened up abruptly.

But for Herbert the world suddenly seemed to explode. A blinding impact struck him and his senses smashed into a million darknesses. There was an intense quiet and the world was void and without form.