Читать книгу The Wiles of the Wicked - Le Queux William - Страница 5

“Tell me,” I demanded in my helplessness, of the mysterious woman at my side, “what has happened?”

“Rise, and try whether you can walk,” said the voice at last, sweet and low-pitched, the same well-remembered voice that had spoken to me in that unknown house of shadows.

I struggled and rose stiffly, assisted tenderly by her. To my joy I found that I could walk quite well.

“Thank God!” she gasped, as though a great weight had been lifted from her mind. “Thank God that I have found you. The tide is rising, and in half an hour you would have been beyond human aid.”

“The tide!” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“At high tide the river floods this place to the roof, therefore nothing could have saved you.”

“What place is this?”

The voice was silent, as though hesitating to reveal to me the truth.

“A place wherein, alas! more than one person has found his grave,” she explained at last.

“But I don’t understand,” I said eagerly. “All is so puzzling. I believed that I was inside a police-station, whereas I had actually walked into this mysterious and cleverly-prepared trap. Who are these people who are my enemies? – tell me.”

“Unfortunately, I cannot.”

“But you, yourself, are not one of them,” I declared.

“I may be,” answered the voice in a strange, vague tone.

“Why?”

“Ah! no, that is not a fair question to ask.”

“But surely, you, who were so kind to me after my accident in the street, will you desert me now?” I argued. Her failure to give me any assurance that she was my friend struck me as peculiar. There was something extremely uncanny about the whole affair. I did not like it.

“I have not said that I intend to leave you. Indeed, from motives of my own I have sought and found you; but before we go further I must obtain from you a distinct and faithful promise.”

“A promise – of what?”

There was a brief silence, and I heard that she drew a deep breath as those do who are driven to desperation.

“The situation is briefly this,” the voice said, in a tone a trifle harsher than before. “I searched for you, and by a stroke of good fortune discovered where your unknown enemies had placed you, intending that at high tide you should be drowned, and your body carried out to sea, as others have been. From this place there is only one means of egress, and that being concealed, only death can come to you unless I assist you. You understand?”

“Perfectly. This is a trap where a man may be drowned like a rat in a hole. The place is foetid with the black mud of the Thames.”

“Exactly,” she answered. Then she added, “Now tell me, are you prepared to make a compact with me?”

“A compact? Of what nature?” I inquired, much surprised.

“It will, I fear, strike you as rather strange, nevertheless it is, I assure you, imperative. If I rescue you and give you back your life, it must be conditional that you accept my terms absolutely.”

“And what are those terms?” I inquired, amazed at this extraordinary speech of hers.

“There are two conditions,” she answered, after a slight pause. “The first is that you must undertake to make no statement whatever to the police regarding the events of last night.”

She intended to secure my silence regarding the tragedy. Was it because that she herself was the actual assassin? I remembered that while I had reclined upon the silken couch in that house of mystery this startling suspicion had crossed my mind. Was that same cool, sympathetic palm that had twice soothed my brow the hand of a murderess?

“But there has been a terrible crime – a double crime committed,” I protested. “Surely, the police should know!”

“No; all knowledge must be kept from them,” she answered decisively. “I wish you to understand me perfectly from the outset. I have sought you here in order to rescue you from this place, because you have unwittingly fallen the victim of a most dastardly plot. You are blind, defenceless, helpless, therefore all who have not hearts of stone must have compassion upon you. Yet if I rescue you, and allow you to go forth again into the world, you may, if you make a statement to the police, be the means of bringing upon me a catastrophe, dire and complete.”

Every word of hers showed that guilt was upon her. Had I not heard the swish of her skirts as she crept from the room after striking down that unknown man so swiftly and silently that he died without a word?

“And if I promise to remain mute?”

“If you promise,” she said, “I will accept it only on one further condition.”

“And what’s that?”

“One which I know you will have some hesitation in accepting; yet, like the first, it is absolutely imperative.”

Her voice showed traces of extreme anxiety, and the slim hand upon my arm trembled.

She was young, I knew, but was she beautiful? I felt instinctively that she was, and conjured up within myself a vision of a refined face, perfect in its tragic beauty, like that of Van Dyck’s Madonna that I had seen in the Pitti Palace at Florence in those well-remembered days when I looked upon the world, and it had given me such pleasure.

“Your words are very puzzling,” I said gravely. “Tell me what it is that you would have me do.”

“It is not difficult,” she answered, “yet the curious character of my request will, I feel, cause you to hold back with a natural caution. It will sound strange; nevertheless, here, before I put the suggestion before you, I give you my word of honour, as a woman who fears her God, that no undue advantage shall be taken of your promise.”

“Well, explain what you mean.”

“The condition I impose upon you in return for my assistance,” she said, in deepest earnestness, “is that you shall promise to render assistance to a person who will ever remain unknown to you. Any requests made to you will be by letter bearing the signature A-V-E-L, and these instructions you must promise to obey without seeking to discover either motive or reason. The latter can never be made plain to you, therefore do not puzzle yourself unnecessarily over them, for it will be all to no purpose. The secret – for secret there is, of course – will be so well guarded that it can never be exposed, therefore if you consent to thus rendering me a personal assistance in return for your life, it will be necessary to act blindly and carry out to the letter whatever instructions you receive, no matter how remarkable or how illogical they may seem. Do you agree?”

“Well,” I said hesitatingly, “your request is indeed a most extraordinary one. If I promise, what safeguard have I for my own interests?”

“Sometimes you may, of course, be compelled to act against your own inclinations,” she admitted. “I, however, can only assure you that if you make this promise I will constitute myself your protectress, and at the same time give you solemn assurance that no request contained in the letters of which I have spoken will be of such a character as to cause you to commit any offence against the law.”

“Then it is you yourself who will be my anonymous correspondent?” I observed quickly.

“Ah, no!” she answered. “That is, of course, the natural conclusion; but I may as well at once assure you that such will not be the case.” Then she added, “I merely ask you to accept or decline. If the former, I will ever be at your service, although we must never meet again after to-day; if the latter, then I will wish you adieu, and the terrible fate your unknown enemies have prepared for you must be allowed to take effect.”

“But I should be drowned!” I exclaimed in alarm. “Surely you will not abandon me!”

“Not if you will consent to ally yourself with me.”

“For evil?” I suggested very dubiously.

“No, for good,” she answered. “I require your silence, and I desire that you should render assistance to one who is sorely in need of a friend.”

“Financial aid?”

“No, finance has nothing to do with it. The unknown person has money and to spare. It is a devoted personal assistance and obedience that is required.”

“But how can one be devoted to a person one has neither seen nor known?” I queried, for her words had increased the mystery.

The shrewd suspicion grew upon me that this curious effort to secure my silence was because of her own guilt; that she intended to bind me to a compact in her own nefarious interests.

“I am quite well aware of the strangeness of the conditions I am imposing upon you, but they are necessary.”

“And if I accept them will the mystery of to-night ever be explained?” I inquired, eager to learn the truth.

“Of that I know not,” she answered vaguely. “Your silence is required to preserve the secret.”

“But tell me,” I said quickly, “how many persons were there present in that house beside yourself?”

“No, no!” she ejaculated in a tone of horror. “Make no further inquiry. Try and forget all – everything – as I shall try and forget. You cannot know – you will never know – therefore it is utterly useless to seek to learn the truth.”

“And may I not even know your identity?” I inquired, putting forth my hand until it rested upon her well-formed shoulder. “May I not touch your face, so as to give me an impression of your personal appearance?”

She laughed at what, of course, must have seemed to her a rather amusing request.

“Give me permission to do this,” I urged. “If there is to be mutual trust between us it is only fair that I should know whether you are young or old.”

She hesitated. I felt her hand trembling.

“Remember, I cannot see you,” I went on. “By touch I can convey to my mind an impression of the contour of your features, and thus know with whom I am dealing.”

“Very well,” she said at last. “You have my permission.”

Then eagerly, with both my hands, I touched her face, while she stood rigid and motionless as a statue. I could feel by the contraction of the muscles that this action of mine amused her, and that she was laughing.

Her skin was soft as velvet, her lashes long, her features regular and finely cut like those of some old cameo. Her hair was dressed plainly, and she had about her shoulders a large cape of rich fur – sable I believed it to be. There was no doubt she was young, perhaps not more than twenty-one or so, and certainly she was very handsome of countenance, and dressed with an elegance quite unusual.

Her mouth was small, her chin pointed, and her cheeks with a firm contour which spoke of health and happiness. As I carefully passed my hands backwards and forwards, obtaining a fresh mental impression with each movement, she laughed outright.

Of a sudden, however, she sprang aside quickly, and left me grasping at air.

“Ah!” she cried, wildly horrified at a sudden discovery. “There is blood upon your hands —his blood!”

“I had forgotten,” I apologised quickly. “Forgive me; I cannot see, and was not aware that my hands were unclean.”

“It’s too terrible,” she gasped hoarsely. “You have placed those stained hands upon my face, as though to taunt me.”

“With what?” I inquired, breathlessly interested.

But she did not reply. She only held her breath, while her heart beat quickly, and by her silence I felt convinced that by her involuntary ejaculation she had nearly betrayed herself.

The sole question which occupied my thoughts at that moment was whether she was not the actual assassin. I forgot my own critical position. I recollected not the remarkable adventures that had befallen me that night. I thought not of the ghastly fate prepared for me by my unknown enemies. All my thoughts were concentrated upon the one problem – the innocence or guilt of that unseen, soft-spoken woman before me.

“And now,” she said at last – “now that you have satisfied yourself of my personal appearance, are you prepared to accept the conditions?”

“I confess to having some hesitation in doing so,” I answered, quite frankly.

“That is not at all surprising. But the very fact of your own defencelessness should cause you to ally yourself with one who has shown herself to be your protectress, and seeks to remain your friend.”

“What motive can you possibly have for thus endeavouring to ally yourself with me?” I inquired, without attempting to disguise my suspicion.

“A secret one.”

“For your own ends, of course?”

“Not exactly. For our mutual interests. By my own action in taking you in when you were knocked down by the cab I have placed your life in serious jeopardy; therefore, it is only just that I should now seek to rescue you. Yet if I do so without first obtaining your promise of silence and of assistance, I may, for aught I know, bring an overwhelming catastrophe upon myself.”

“You assure me, upon your honour as a woman, that no harm shall befall me if I carry out the instructions in those mysterious letters?”

“If you obey without seeking to elucidate their mystery, or the identity of their sender, no harm shall come to you,” she answered solemnly.

“And regarding the silence which you seek to impose upon me? May I not explain my adventures to my friend, in order to account for the blood upon my clothes and the injury to my head?”

“Only if you find it actually necessary. Recollect, however, that no statement whatever must be made to the police. You must give an undertaking never to divulge to them one single word of what occurred last night.”

There was a dead silence, broken only by the lapping of water, which had already risen and had flooded the chamber to the depth of about two inches. The place was a veritable death-trap, for, being a kind of cellar and below high-water mark, the Thames flood entered by a hole near the floor too small to permit the escape of a man, and would rise until it reached the roof.

“Come,” she urged at last. “Give me your undertaking, and let us at once get away from this horrible place.”

I remained silent. Anxious to escape and save my life, I nevertheless entertained deep suspicions of her, because of her anxiety that I should give no information to the police. She had drawn back in horror at the sight of the blood of the murdered man! Had she not, by her hesitation, admitted her own guilt?

“You don’t trust me,” she observed, with an air of bitter reproach.

“No,” I answered, very bluntly; “I do not.”

“You are at least plain and outspoken,” she responded. “But as our interests are mutual, I surely may presume to advise you to accept the conditions. Life is better than death, even though one may be blind.”

“And you hold back from me the chance to escape from this slow but inevitable fate unless I conform to your wishes?”

“I do.”

“Such action as yours cannot inspire confidence.”

“I am impelled by circumstances beyond my own control,” she answered, with a momentary touch of sadness. “If you knew the truth you certainly would not hesitate.”

“Will you not tell me your name?”

“No. It is useless.”

“At least, you can so far confide in me as to tell me your Christian name,” I said.

“Edna.”

“And you refuse your surname?”

“I do so under compulsion.”

The water had by this time risen rapidly. My legs had become benumbed, for it now reached nearly to my knees.

“Why do you longer hesitate?” she went on. “Give me your word that you will render the assistance I require, and we will at once escape. Let us lose no time. All this seems strange to you, I know; but some day, when you learn the real reason, you will thank me rather than think ill of my present actions.”

Her determination was, I saw plainly, the outcome of some terror which held her fettered, and I knew that, in order to save myself, I must give her the promise she had so persistently desired to extract from me.

Therefore, with sudden determination, prompted by the natural, instinct of self-preservation than by any desire to assist her, I gave her my bond of secrecy.

Again she sighed deeply, as though released of some oppressive weight by my words. Then our hands clasped in mutual trust, and without further word she led me to the opposite side of the noisome cellar into which my enemies had cast me.

“You shall never regret this decision,” she assured me in a strained voice, trembling with emotion – “never, never!”

And with a sudden movement she raised my hand and touched it lightly with her dry, fevered lips.