Читать книгу Owl of Darkness - Max Afford - Страница 13
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Оглавление"Listen for the hooting of The Owl."
Those ominous words, like some dark refrain, kept recurring in Jeffery Blackburn's mind as he sat, drink in hand, on a divan in the living-room of Edward Blaire's cottage. The time was almost ten o'clock on the following night and the birthday party was in full swing. Around a room stripped of rugs and denuded of as much furniture as was convenient to move, a dozen young couples danced to radio music from the Luxemburg station.
Across the room, Sir Anthony Atherton-Wayne stood by the flower-decked sideboard, watching the festivities with grave, thoughtful eyes. His secretary was dancing with a tall, dark-haired beauty who chattered animatedly as they moved in time to the music. Elizabeth Blaire was the centre of a group near the fireplace. It seemed a high-spirited gathering, as gay as the coloured streamers and balloons that decorated the room. But if the brightness was a little forced, if the laughter was rather too shrill and the trips to the improvised bar in the next room too frequent, Jeffery was only too well aware of the reason. By shifting his position slightly he could see out of the window, perceiving the sturdy outlines of the uniformed figure, one of the chain of policemen whom Inspector Read had placed on guard around the cottage.
"Listen for the hooting of The Owl."
Read and Blackburn had made the most of every minute which had passed since the inexplicable receipt of that warning. Both men had returned to the city, the Inspector to draft together a force of men to carry out his instructions with regard to Blaire's safety; Jeffery to collect and mentally digest every single piece of information available regarding The Owl robberies. Both men had returned to the Towers in time for lunch that day. The Inspector had spent the afternoon instructing and arranging the picketing of the cottage, while Jeffery, through Ashton, had obtained the warning cards received by Blaire.
A hail broke into his troubled thoughts. He glanced up. Blaire, piloting a young woman rather unsteadily around the room, passed close to him. Jeffery nodded absently, his thoughts flying off at a tangent. The young chemist's cheerful nonchalance did not deceive him. At each lull in the merry-making, Jeffery had noticed Blaire's surreptitious glances at his wrist-watch and the quick bird-like movements of his head whenever a door opened suddenly. As the evening advanced, the young man's drinking had accelerated. Now his face was flushed and the thick lenses of his spectacles emphasized the slight glaze over his eyes; but Jeffery knew that the pallid worm of fear was coiled about the other's heart and it gnawed deeper with the passing of every minute.
The dance music went on and on, and the couples circled and dipped and circled again like mechanical mice. Jeffery felt a certain sense of the grotesque. What sinister influence could possibly strike in this decorated, music-filled room? Yet what of the warning? That had surely come flying through the air from some unknown hand. Its appearance could only mean that The Owl was already in their midst. Blackburn scanned the fresh young laughing faces and shook his head. Impossible! It was this waiting that intensified the situation. If only something would happen...
"Not dancing, Mr. Blackburn?"
Jeffery gave a start that quivered the whisky in his glass. Elizabeth Blaire was smiling down at him. The light gleamed on her bare shoulders and sparkled in the tiny stars she wore in her brown hair. Jeffery's dress shirt crackled as he rose.
"Aren't you?" he said.
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. "I'm afraid to walk up to a man in case he pulls out a police whistle. And you can't sit out in the garden unless someone comes up and jangles handcuffs under your nose.
"We're being cruel to be kind, you know."
"Poor Mr. Blackburn." She had lovely shoulders, Jeffery noticed, and the simple white evening frock she wore showed them off to advantage. "You know what I'm going to do? Find you some beautiful lady all of your own."
"Thank you, Miss Blaire. But I have already found one."
"Indeed? Where is she?"
"Standing close to me."
"Oh!" Elizabeth turned her head and looked round the room. "I had promised the next dance to Sir Anthony—"
"Who is old enough to know better," Jeffery told her. "While I am young and simply aching to dance. Miss Blaire, your duty as a hostess impels you."
The music came to an end. The couples drifted from the floor. The girl shrugged. "Now, you see, we can't dance even if I had decided to disappoint Sir Anthony. Let's sit down here."
They did so.
"Now," commanded Mr. Blackburn. "Talk to me."
"What about?"
"Anything."
"H'm," Elizabeth considered. "How do you like the decorations?"
"Excellent. That sideboard looks like a miniature jungle. Did you do them?"
"With these toil-worn fingers."
There was a pause. A little group of couples were gathered around the radio, twisting the dial in search of dance music. Sir Anthony had left his place near the sideboard and had crossed to a window, staring out into the dark garden. Edward Blaire, temporarily deserted, roamed the floor restlessly. His sister followed him with her eyes.
Jeffery said lightly: "There's a very worried little wrinkle between your brows. Why the unpleasant thoughts?"
The girl's face cleared. "Speaks the detective!"
"It's that warning your brother received yesterday, isn't it?"
She faced him now. Unconsciously, she placed one slim had on his arm. "But it's so fantastic—it's like something out of Hollywood. I keep saying to myself—such things just don't happen to people like us."
Jeffery made no attempt to remove the hand. "The knife found in that door was the cold steel of fact," he reminded her.
"Oh—but to happen to one's own brother!"
Jeffery's tone was gentle. "If I may say so, Miss Blaire, your brother isn't actually going out of his way to prevent it happening."
She nodded, her face very serious. "I know he's stubborn—but Edward feels the same way about it as I do—that it's too impossible to be real. You see, Mr. Blackburn, so few things are real to my brother, things outside his own scientific orbit, I mean." She became suddenly aware of her hand on his arm and withdrew it with a quick movement. "Any attempt to anchor him down to a world of realities irritates him immensely."
"The artistic temperament, of course."
"Perhaps." A sudden coolness had crept into her tone. A thought seemed to strike her; she glanced at her wrist-watch and rose hastily. "Almost missed my surprise," she said, and crossed the room to where the group was still playing with the radio set.
Elizabeth Blaire turned and clapped her hands. "Attention, everybody, please!"
The conversation died and as all heads turned towards her the girl whispered something to a young man at her side. He turned and manipulated the knob of the set. The final strains of an organ solo filtered into the room.
"Quiet, everybody!" Elizabeth called.
From his corner, her brother said thickly: "What's all this about, sis?"
"You listen carefully."
The reedy music vibrated to a close. There was a few seconds' pause, during which Elizabeth glanced across the room at Robert Ashton and closed one eye significantly. Her fiancé raised his eyebrows, then the voice of the announcer, brisk and brash, was heard.
"We interrupt our programme to send a birthday call to Edward Blaire...are you listening, Edward?...a birthday call to Edward Blaire who is celebrating the occasion with a party at his home."
The young chemist, who had been pouring himself a drink, gave an ejaculation of anger and almost dropped his glass.
"What the devil...?" he snapped, but a dozen gleeful voices quietened him.
"...and now if Edward will look in the centre drawer of the sideboard in his living-room, he will find a nice present there. In the centre drawer of the sideboard, and may we take this opportunity of wishing you—"
Blaire had reeled across the room. With a vindictive flick of his hand he snapped off the voice of the announcer. Face pale, eyes glittering behind his glasses, he faced his guests. "Which one of you is responsible for this damn' foolishness?" he demanded.
The dark-haired beauty at his side laughed. "Don't be such a spoil-sport, Ted! Go and look in the sideboard drawer." And half a dozen other voices took up the plea.
"Yes, go on, Blaire!"
"Take a look in the drawer."
"Go on, old man—don't spoil the joke."
Ashton called across the room: "Snap out of it, Edward. Where's your sense of humour?"
"There's nothing wrong with my sense of humour," Blaire returned. "But if you think I enjoy being humiliated from one end of the country to the other—"
Atherton-Wayne joined the discussion. The baronet's eyes were twinkling and he looked more human than Blackburn had ever seen him. "Really, my boy," he said smoothly, "I must confess I see nothing to be annoyed about."
Blaire raised a face darkening with anger. "How would you feel if you were in my position?" he demanded.
The baronet flicked something from his coat. "I should feel overwhelmingly curious as to what that drawer contained." There was a general laugh that contained a certain amount of sycophancy and was a subtle comment on the young chemist's churlishness. Blaire sensed it. His weak mouth set stubbornly.
"It's a pretty good joke, isn't it?" He addressed the room at large. "Well, here's where it falls flat. For all I care, whatever is in that drawer can stay there till it rots. Come on, get some dance music on that thing and let's get on with the party."
The childish ill temper in his voice was more than enough to cancel out his invitation. No one moved. In the embarrassed silence that followed, Elizabeth gave a little sigh. "All right," the girl strove to keep her voice light, "I'll own up. I arranged for that call to be put over, Edward."
"Thank you for nothing."
His sister ignored the comment. "I'll get the present myself," she said levelly. "I'm sorry if all this has upset you. I might have known better."
A light-hearted jest had assumed the proportions of a major issue. All eyes followed the girl as she crossed the room towards the flower-decked sideboard. She was reaching her hand for the centre drawer when a command snapped through the waiting room like the crack of a whiplash.
"Stop!"
Blackburn was striding towards the sideboard, his eyes blazing. He thrust himself in front of the girl and brushed her hand down from the drawer. Atherton-Wayne gave an ejaculation and it was repeated in little stifled echoes of amazement from everywhere about the room. Robert Ashton pulled his hands from his pockets and squared his shoulders as Blackburn wheeled on him. "I noticed a walking-stick hanging in the hall," he snapped. "A walking-stick with a crooked handle. Get it for me." The urgency in his voice had the crispness of a command. Ashton obeyed without a word. Returning, he handed the stick across. Jeffery grasped it by one end, backed a pace and crooked the handle about the knob of the drawer.
"Bless my soul—" began Atherton-Wayne.
"Stand back!" Jeffery rapped. "Right back behind me—everyone—please!" He waited until the shuffling ceased. "Now—watch!"
Standing off at an angle, he gave the stick a sharp tug. The drawer slid open and a sharp report echoed through the room. Simultaneously, there was a crash and a picture on the opposite wall slid to the floor, the glass splintering over the polished boards.
"Blackburn!" whispered Blaire. He was starling at Jeffery as though hypnotized, his loose mouth working. Sobered now, he bent down and retrieved the picture. Near the centre of the canvas was a small ragged hole.
"Oh, God!" His voice was cracked, dry with fear. "What—what does this mean?"
Blackburn was fumbling among the profusion of blossoms on the sideboard, sweeping them aside with ruthless hands. "Look," he invited. Spliced with twine to one of the supports was a small pistol, and from the trigger a line of thin piano wire was connected with the drawer. Jeffery turned to the hushed assembly.
"Thank heaven I recognized that piano wire in time," he muttered. He looked at Elizabeth. "I noticed the light glinting on it when we were talking about the flowers. But for the life of me I couldn't make out what it was. It was only when you started for the drawer that I realized." He jerked his head towards the weapon. "Notice how the pistol is set breast high? There wasn't the slightest chance in the world of it missing if a person opened that drawer in the normal way."
Elizabeth gave a little shudder. "You—you saved my life." Her voice was very small. She seemed almost convincing herself of a fact. "Yes, you saved my life."
Edward Blaire tried to speak, swallowed and tried again. "That—" he began, "that was meant for me?"
Atherton-Wayne produced a handkerchief from his sleeve and patted a forehead dewed with perspiration. He coughed. "You realize what this means, Blackburn? The Owl set that devilish trap! That means, in spite of all your precautions, somehow the criminal got inside this room."
Ashton, balancing his stocky body, glanced quickly from face to face. "Then how did he get out again?"
"He didn't get out." Blackburn walked with slow deliberation to the door and set his back against it. "It's impossible for any living human being to get through that cordon of police outside. Do you realize what this means? The Owl is still here—hiding somewhere between these walls And we're going to dig him out if it means taking this cottage apart...brick by brick!"
