Читать книгу The Mind Readers - Margery Allingham - Страница 7

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For some moments there was an astonished silence. Sam had become very red and was staring intently at his shoes while keeping very close to his mother, who was sitting at the table with her arm round him.

The two adult newcomers were startled. Mr. Albert Campion, a thin man with pale hair and eyes and a misleadingly blank expression, shot a thoughtful glance at the youngster through his horn-rimmed spectacles and Superintendent Luke permitted himself a bewildered smile. He was about to speak when Helena forestalled him by turning not on Sam but on Edward with actual ferocity.

“How did Sam know that?”

The boy did not reply at once. He had crossed the room and was standing with his shoulders hunched and his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. His long school muffler, blue with horizontal stripes, was wound twice round his neck, and he appeared embarrassed, like some shy elderly person overtaken by an awkward social situation.

“Oh, I think he guessed, you know,” he murmured at last. “It wasn’t awfully difficult, was it?”

“How could you know the case had been dropped?”

“I didn’t, Aunt Helena.” He revealed a charming deference toward her which transformed his peaky face. “But Sam might have worked it out. After all, the solicitor hadn’t waited to see him, had he?”

She turned her back on him with unreasonable exasperation. “Oh, Edward—please let Sam speak for himself!”

“Don’t worry so,” the younger boy whispered, putting his ear against her cheek. “Edward and I are pretty tired. We got rid of a fearful woman at the station. We both did it. We thought of it together. Since then we’ve been looking at photographs trying to spot her.”

“They’re making an identikit portrait.” Edward’s natural interest made everybody feel much more comfortable. “It may go on television,” he added with a sidelong glance at Amanda.

“We’ll go downstairs and look,” she promised. “How about some food now?”

“We had some.” Sam was relaxing. “We went to the canteen. Sergeant Ferguson took us. He’s wonderful. He’s got thousands of pictures of peculiar sorts of sinners. All different kinds. Jolly interesting. We had beans and listened to him until Superintendent Luke was ready for us. He was ready before Uncle Albert. That’s why we’re so late.”

“I got a message from an old friend and drifted over the road to see him,” Mr. Campion said, making it an apology. “He showed me his new office and we forgot the time. We were talking.”

“About who the spies are and how to catch them.” Sam uttered the words gaily. He was laughing and very happy. The room grew quite quiet. Mr. Campion’s expression froze and Luke, whose natural reaction was of the opposite kind, took a brisk step forward.

“That’s done it, young ’un. What do you know?”

“Perhaps not, don’t you think?” The thin man intervened swiftly. “Tell us about the exam paper and Mr. Pellett, Sam. Don’t get upset, old man. Who’s been talking to you? You’re on to something exciting, aren’t you?”

“Oh don’t, Albert! Don’t you see? It’s not Sam at all. It’s the other one!” Helena’s outburst was more disconcerting than her son’s disclosure. “I know what it is, you see; and it’s frightful! They’re like the Drummond brothers, the twins who used to be on the island until one of them was driven to death. I’ve only just heard the full story. I must get hold of Martin at once; he’ll know what to do.” She was holding her son so tightly that he wriggled. “Martin loves Sam. He didn’t mean anything like this to happen and he won’t let it, even if Paggen tries to force it. Sam and Edward are cousins—that’s the point—and Edward is older and more clever and—”

“You’re quite wrong, you know.” Edward had scarcely moved. He made a very dignified pygmy, wrapped up in his raincoat and muffler, and his aloof intelligence reproved her and kept her at a distance. “You are being a little thick, Auntie, but it’s only because—forgive me—you’re far too old. Sam is better at something than I am, and it’s because he is younger—or I think so.”

Amanda sat up, and her most valuable characteristic, which was an inspired vein of common sense, flowed smoothly across the tingling room.

“If you two are trying to make yourselves interesting, you’ve done it as far as I’m concerned,” she said briskly. “This is where you produce the goods jolly quickly or get sent to bed.”

Edward sighed and he turned to Sam. “I think you ought to tell them about the exam paper,” he said. “Don’t forget we thought you might have to explain to the solicitor.” He broke off abruptly and looked toward Helena as if she had spoken. “I’m not ‘dominating’ him! If I were, would I let him keep dribbling it all out like this?”

Sam crowed. He had a delightful chuckle, mischievous and utterly normal. “It was me!” he declared proudly. “I told Edward what Mr. Pellett had put in the exam paper. I mean I described the book, but he guessed which it was, and that made it fair to tell old Woodie in the infirmary.”

“Most dishonest. How did you know?” Amanda appeared to have decided to conduct the inquisition. “Was it you who looked in the briefcase?”

“Oh no, Auntie; I wouldn’t do that. Honestly I wouldn’t.” Sam had ceased to be interestingly fey and had become a very ordinary small boy defending himself. “I got it from Mr. Pellett when he ticked off Allie.”

“Mr. Allenbury. Did Mr. Pellett say it to him?”

“No.” Once again he grew crimson.

“Under his breath, then?”

He shook his head.

“Oh come on, Sam. Don’t be wet!” Edward was irritable. “If you’re going to say it, say it.”

“Well, he was in a rage and he thought: ‘Nuts to you, Allie. It’s not what you think!’ Then he thought of what it really was and I received the flash bright and clear.”

“Of course!” the canon exclaimed easily. “That’s what we used to call telepathy. Some people do have the gift to a marked degree at various times in their lives. I don’t think you should cultivate it, Sam. It’s not very healthy and you can easily begin to fancy you’re not quite like anybody else. You must feed him on suet pudding, Helena. That’ll cure him.” It occurred to him that he was being a little harsh, and he smiled at the child, who was eyeing him with a very odd expression. “Tell me this,” he said. “Did you get your flash from Mr. Pellett in words or pictures?”

“The ‘nuts to you, Allie!’ was a ‘feel,’ of course.” Sam had been questioned like this before. “And the description of the book was a picture: Romans pretending to fight on a bridge.”

“ ‘The good sword stood a hand’s breadth out behind the Tuscan’s head.’ ” The canon was astonished. “I should hardly call that pretending!”

“I didn’t know.” The little boy was embarrassed. “I’m not old enough to go into that form yet. I’ve not read that book. Mr. Pellett believed they were pretending.”

“Mr. Pellett sounds as if he might not envisage that sort of fighting very clearly, don’t you think?” Mr. Campion ventured. “That’s extraordinarily interesting, Sam, and it goes a long way to explain the mystery. You told Edward about the Romans on the bridge, I suppose, and he recognized the Lays. I see.”

Charley Luke, who was fidgeting, stepped back into the circle.

“What about you?” he inquired, looking down at Edward. “Can you pick up thought messages like this, too? It was you who realized there was an attempted kidnaping this afternoon, and you appealed to the bobby. How do you do it? Train yourselves?”

Edward considered him anxiously.

“It takes training,” he agreed at last. “I’m not very good at it.”

“Who’s teaching you? A master, perhaps?” The disapproving gleam was already alight in the black eyes.

“Good heavens, no!” Edward was contemptuous. “Masters would be useless!”

“Too old?”

“Well, I should think so!”

The superintendent had a new idea.

“What am I thinking now?” he demanded, and composed his features as he concentrated.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t work like that. The last message I got from you was when you asked me if we trained. You felt angry. You thought I was lying.”

“He thought the whole thing was lying,” Sam chimed in.

A wave of dusky color rose up over the superintendent’s face and both children spoke together.

“That’s too much feel. Now there’s no flash at all.”

“What is all this? I don’t like it.” Old Avril was frowning. “What have you children got hold of? Edward, come here. Now, my boy, just the truth, if you please! Explain. Make it quite clear to us all.”

Edward capitulated wearily. “Very well, Uncle Hubert,” he said, “but I should think it might be very dangerous to show it to you, considering the people who seem to be after it.” He was pulling off his muffler as he spoke, and they stared at him as his skinny neck became revealed. His shirt was open and a piece of woolen undervest appeared across the bird ribs high on his chest. At the side of his throat there was a piece of elasticized plaster. He prised it off cautiously, and when the unattractive scrap of sticky fabric lay in his hand he held it out to them. In its center, embedded in the white adhesive, was a small silvery cylinder about half an inch long.

Amanda bent over it. “What on earth is it? It looks like some peculiar kind of transistor valve.”

“Yes,” said Edward. Then he added casually, “Sam can wear his under his arm, where there’s not so much danger of it being seen, but I can’t make mine work unless it’s on the jugular itself, and so I have to wear my scarf.” He glanced up at the canon reproachfully. “You didn’t really think we were being witchy, did you? We do come of scientific families. We don’t go in for magic!”

“What is it? What do you call it?” Luke was inclined to splutter.

“The kids call it an ‘iggy-tube.’ ” Edward could not keep the pride out of his voice. “That’s because of the initials. When it gets going properly I should like to call it ‘Longfox’s Instant Gen,’ if nobody minds, in memory of my father. But of course much of the credit is Sam’s. He did some of the worst of the research and now, while he’s young, no one can operate it better.”