Читать книгу Son of Billabong - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 4

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DAVID LINTON had prudently arranged that his party should have lunch in a private room in their hotel; and there his daughter Norah and her friend Tommy Rainham awaited their menfolk with what patience they could command. This, in Norah’s case, was not a large amount, since she knew her husband’s profound distaste for making his appearance in a witness-box, and had grave doubts as to whether the nervousness of Bill Blake and his ally Dick Yorke would not deprive them of all power of speech. Tommy, more placid by nature, and possessing a firm belief that things come out well if given time enough, was comparatively free from anxiety. She knitted a sock calmly, assuring Norah that it was much too soon to watch from the window.

“Well, you never know,” said Norah, continuing to look out. “I suppose the Judge, or whoever he is, stops proceedings when he happens to feel hungry. It would be lovely to find that they’ve finished up the whole thing before lunch, wouldn’t it? Then we could get back to Billabong to-night.”

Tommy shook her head doubtfully.

“Lovely; but Jim said he didn’t think it could possibly happen. All the preliminary part takes so long. Norah, wouldn’t you have liked to be there?”

“N-no—I think not,” said Norah. “I should only be terribly jumpy, and that would spread to Wally and he would probably get very annoyed when he was cross-examined. And I’d rather not see the Gorilla in the dock. I don’t like the idea of docks—too much like cages for human beings. I think criminals should not be present to be stared at while they’re being tried. Much kinder to keep them in a cell and let the verdict be taken to them by a nice fat policeman.”

“I should have liked very much to be there!” said Tommy. “It would be very interesting, and one need not have given the Gorilla more than a passing glance. Not that I have any pity for him! He is just a nasty piece of work.”

“To look at you, so yellow-haired and little and all that, and so very busy with the heel of that old sock, one would never dream of the depths within you, Tommy,” said Norah, laughing. “Did you tell Jim?”

“No, he would have thought me bloodthirsty. And I suppose I am—when I think of Lee Wing, and of the boys in the cave with the Gorilla. And of the day when he found you and Davie alone.”

“And the day he tried to knock Jim out?”

“No. Jim is large, and he can look after himself. That was just man to man, and Jim came out on top. But the other things are quite different, so I would have enjoyed the trial. But Jim says women ought to keep out of Courts, so I was meek.”

“Will you always be meek with Jim, I wonder?”

“No—only now and then. One has to choose one’s moments of meekness. Look out of the window, Sister Anne, and see if anyone is coming.”

“Not a soul,” said Norah disgustedly. She pulled back the heavy maroon hotel curtains with an impatient rattle of their wooden rings. “These abominations smell as if they had hung here for twenty years without being shaken once. Oh, I do hope poor old Bill isn’t quivering under some stern lawyer’s eye! We never thought the Gorilla would trouble about having a lawyer to defend him. It makes things so much more complicated—and it isn’t as if he had the slightest chance of getting off.”

“No, but Jim says a lawyer may be able to wangle a shorter sentence for him, if he’s clever enough,” Tommy answered. “I should think it would need a very great deal of cleverness, though.”

“Mountains of it,” agreed Norah. “I suppose I’m all wrong, but sometimes I wish he had managed to get away altogether. The time before a wedding ought to be so jolly, instead of having this hateful trial mixed up with it, and waiting for months for it to be held.”

“We shall forget all about the trial after to-day,” Tommy said cheerfully. “And the Gorilla will be much better under lock and key than roaming about looking for somebody else to devour——”

“They’re coming, Tommy!”

The sock went to the floor and Tommy was beside her at the window. A crowd was leaving the Court House. But it was some time before the Billabong party came into view. The girls watched closely as they drew nearer.

“They look rather grave, Norah.”

“Yes, and Wally is angry about something,” added Wally’s wife, studying as much of his face as could be seen under a wide felt hat. “And Dick and Bill are marching in silence. It looks bad.”

“It does,” agreed Tommy. “Perhaps it is only the effort of being in blue suits and white collars and their best school caps, instead of the most ancient shirts and shorts they can find. Bill told me this morning that it was awful to have to wear Melbourne clothes in the country.”

“Well, you can hardly call it a country visit for them this time, poor lads; arriving last night and rushing back to Melbourne as soon as the trial is over. It may make them feel very important amongst the other small boys at school, but I suppose that only means that some bigger boy will smack their heads for swanking.” Norah sighed. “I wish we could have kept them for a week.”

“Oh, they will be back next holidays—unless their long-suffering families make plans for them that don’t include Billabong.”

“There will be at least two rebels if that happens—and here they come now,” said Norah as feet clattered up the stairs. Bill and Dick burst in together.

“The others are washing their hands, but we didn’t bother. We haven’t given evidence yet, but Jim and Wally have, and Bob too, and there’s a perfect little beast of a lawyer. My word, Norah, you ought to have heard him badgering Wally!”

“Ought I?” asked Norah faintly, her worst fears realized. “How did Wally get on, Bill?”

“Well, he got as wild as a meat-axe now and then, but he gave the sweep a few good ones. Mean little wretch—he actually brought you into it, Norah. Like his cheek!”

“Me? But how on earth——?”

“Oh, tried to make out you’d all got a down on McGill from the first, and that you’d refused him food. My word, he was cunning, wasn’t he, Dick? Never said anything about it to Jim, just saved it up for poor old Wally. He and McGill must have planned it all out between them.”

Bill ran out of breath. His face was scarlet, his red hair tousled by the violence with which he had flung off his cap.

“I’m scared stiff about what he’s going to do with Bill and me,” said Dick. “He’s the sort of little swine that would make you say your own grandmother was a murderer!”

“Well, I’m not scared of him,” Bill shouted. “I bet he’s not going to make me say anything about Norah or anyone else, ’cept Lee Wing and old McGill.” The door opened, and he flung round. “Jim, he can’t ask me——” He broke off, seeing only a bewildered waiter with a large tray.

“I knocked twice, Madam, but you didn’t hear me,” said the new-comer apologetically. “The gentlemen told me to hurry with the lunch.”

“Yes, of course,” stammered Norah. There was a soft giggle in the background from Tommy. Then the rest of the party trooped in. Wally’s usually cheerful expression was lacking; he glowered at the back of the hurrying waiter as if he were a personal enemy. But Jim was his calm self: the little smile he gave Norah was comforting. They restrained their impatience until the door had finally closed behind the waiter and his assistant.

“Do tell us what has happened.”

“Nothing much at all,” Jim said; “not enough to make us let lunch get cold. There’s not much time, so we’ll have to talk with our mouths full. It’s just that McGill has got a sharp little lawyer from Sydney, and he’s trying to work up the idea that his poor unfortunate client has been badly treated by a lot of unfeeling capitalists.”

“But he can’t hope to prove that he isn’t guilty, surely, Jim?”

“No, of course not. That’s out of the question. All he’s trying to do is to create some kind of a defence that might lessen his sentence. Mustard, please, Bill.”

“It’s only annoying,” said David Linton, “because he has dragged in your name, Norah. He might not have done it if you had been in Court; I expect he had worked all that out with McGill. With you not there it was plain that you weren’t to be called as a witness, so he went ahead. This is how he put it.” He sketched the cross-examination briefly, while the girls listened in blank amazement.

“But it’s too funny——” began Norah.

“It wasn’t one bit funny,” Wally rapped out, furiously. “He led me on, never giving me a chance to say what I could have said. And of course I was in a hole, because whatever happened I wasn’t going to have you put into that beastly witness-box. He’d like nothing better than the chance of tormenting you there; but he’s not going to get it.”

“But I don’t think I’d mind in the least,” said his wife. “We can’t let him get away with a slander on Billabong.” She smiled at him. “That seems to me to be the only thing that matters.”

“Well, I feel that way too,” said Jim. “I know no one in the district would believe it, but this thing is going to be in the Melbourne papers. It isn’t good enough. But we’ve been talking to the lawyer who’s handling the prosecution, and he doesn’t reckon there would be any need to call you as a witness. He wants to recall me this afternoon and let me make a statement.”

“Gosh, I hope you’ll give the other man beans, Jim!” uttered Bill fervently.

“I’ll give him all he wants. But our man thinks you ought to be in Court, Norah, just in case they ask for your evidence. He doesn’t think they will, but there’s a chance. And Wally is like the nigger who no ’gree for dat.”

Wally, who had eaten scarcely anything, pushed his plate away.

“No, I should think I wouldn’t. To have Norah standing up there before a gaping crowd with that appalling little swine twisting every word she said——”

“But he wouldn’t twist me, Wally. I should be prepared for him, and you weren’t; and there would be nothing to hamper me in telling what happened.”

“Norah, I couldn’t stick it!” he said miserably.

“Well, there are two things I can’t stick,” she said. “One is anything said against Billabong. And the other is that he should get away with having put you in a false position. That makes me really see red, Wally. You were afraid of dragging me into it, but I don’t have to be afraid of anything.”

“Well, you never would be. But ...” He flushed deeply. “Lord, I do hate the idea—and I know jolly well what a fool he made of me!”

“Not a bit,” said David Linton. “You were in a hole, and I consider you managed very well in difficult circumstances. But people who know us might consider we were really letting Norah down by keeping anything back now.”

“That’s quite a possibility,” said Bob Rainham, speaking for the first time. “And there’s another thing—if McGill is not bowled out over this part of the business there’s more chance of his getting away with denying that he was the fellow who slogged old Lee Wing.”

“Which,” said Jim, “is the one and only reason, so far as we’re concerned, that McGill is in the dock to-day.”

“Yes, you’re right there,” admitted Wally, after a moment of unpleasant thought. “That’s a point that hadn’t struck me. McGill’s got to be shown up for what he is. Well, I give in, Nor, if you really don’t mind facing the music.”

“Not a bit,” she said. “How lucky it is that I’ve had no time to brood over it—at the moment I feel ready for anything.”

“Are you ready for the sweet, sir?” asked the meek voice of the waiter in the doorway. He blinked at the shout of laughter his harmless words brought, and retired hastily.

“Ready even for hotel port-wine-jelly, which it’s sure to be,” said Norah. “I’m beginning to feel thrilled. And Tommy will have to come to support me beforehand, won’t you, Thomas?”

“Oh, there’s not the slightest need to bring Tommy into it,” Jim said decidedly. “That’s out of the question.”

“I feel I shall need her,” Norah affirmed. “You don’t know what it would be like to be without another woman on such an occasion.”

“Great Scott, aren’t there enough of us to look after you? You,” said the bewildered Jim, “who never needed any looking after in your life—until Wally began putting ideas into your head.”

“But this is so different. And then, you see,” said Norah, feeling her mouth beginning to twitch at the corners, “Tommy has wanted to be there all along.”

“Not really, Tommy?” uttered Jim.

“Yes, truly, Jim. Only you seemed to think the idea was so dreadful I didn’t like to mention it. But I do like seeing new things; and a trial would be something I had never managed to see.” Her blue eyes looked up at him appealingly. Wally gave a chuckle.

“Well, now you know how to keep her happy on the honeymoon, Jimmy. Start her on a good burglary case, and work her up to something out-of-the-way in murder trials. Did you know she had these horrible longings, Bob?”

“She’s hidden them from me,” said Tommy’s brother. “I don’t believe she had ’em until she came to Australia—it must be associating with you people.”

“She’s going to be harder to manage than I ever dreamed of,” mourned Jim. “What a life I’m booked for!—and only one more carefree week left! And you look much more the sort of person who would swoon delicately in a nasty place like a police-court, Tommy.”

“Well, I may do that yet,” she said.

“You may indeed—a woman went and did it most thoroughly this morning,” put in Bob. “Collapsed all in a heap. She was sitting next Mrs. Walker, and Mrs. Walker had to give her first-aid until the police-force removed the body.”

“That was a queer sort of woman, too,” Wally remarked. “I’d been noticing her all the morning. She wasn’t getting the fun out of it that you’re expecting, Tommy; she seemed utterly miserable, even when Mrs. Walker was entertaining her with gay chat. And just before she fainted I saw her looking at me as if she hated my face. Gave me the most awful glare, and flopped over.”

“I don’t suppose she was really aware that she was looking at you,” said Jim. “I’d noticed her too: she struck me as far too ill to be in a stuffy Court. Rum how women will go to that sort of thing—I say, Tommy, I beg your pardon: I suppose I mustn’t say that now!”

“Certainly not,” said she. “I suppose the poor woman was just an earnest student of humanity, like me, and humanity in the mass proved too much for her. Will you stand by to catch me if I swoon, Jim?”

“Not much!” he said. “What’s the police-force for?”