Читать книгу The Mysterious Arab - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 3

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A sharp cry issued from the black’s throat and he looked into the train compartment appealingly. The effect this had on the native policeman was but to make him the more determined for he lost no time in dragging his prisoner back along the platform and out of sight. The train was pulling slowly out of the station and Hal’s curiosity got the better of him.

He glanced at the broad sunburnt features of his fellow passenger. The man looked inscrutable except for the ghost of a smile which hovered about his small, mild blue eyes. He seemed to be continually glancing backward at something, glancing back mentally, for not once did he turn his small, squat head to look at quaint Mombasa but rather did he tilt his wide chin northwest in which direction they were soon speedily traveling.

Hal stared at the man until he forced him to meet his eyes. Then he smiled winningly. “I—I,” he began, “gosh, I don’t mean to be nosey or anything like that, but I was wondering about that black fellow. Did he—what did the poor devil do?”

The man moved in his seat, raising a slight film of orange dust which had been accumulated in passing through the red clay country. “You didn’t see the little scene then, eh?” he said almost tonelessly. Then: “That’s right; you came along just when the cop was nabbing him.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “There was nothing much to it—the poor devil, as you call him, was just trying to sell me a diamond cheap. Cop had an eye on him I guess.”

“Did he steal it?” Hal asked.

“Sure,” the man answered indifferently. “How else would a nigger get it? Prob’bly escaped from the mines.”

“Not Kimberly?”

“Sure—I guess so. Cops watch for ’em coming up the coast. Most always they get ’em.”

Hal looked out upon the veldt through which they were passing. The scrubby plain gave him a strange sense of desolation that he could not account for. He was thrilled to the fingertips on this, his first trip into Africa! Certainly that had been his first reaction a few hours ago when he was wandering about Mombasa waiting for train time. He had been overjoyed—there was no mistake about that! And now?

He ran his long slim fingers through his red wavy hair. A frown obscured the dazzling blue of his eyes as it always did when he was puzzled. To Hal, being puzzled meant being annoyed, for he had to know the reason for everything. And in this instance he disliked being annoyed when at heart he felt carefree and happy. Suddenly he felt the presence of his fellow passenger and turned away from a hasty perusal of a native fruit and cigarette stand to find that the man was eyeing him curiously.

Hal grinned. “Funny place, Africa,” he said pleasantly. “Much different than what I thought it would be. Most places are, huh? It’s great, though—what I’ve seen of it.” Then: “I get off at Nairobi.”

The man smiled. “So do I. Staying there?”

“Nope,” Hal answered, encouraged. “Going north to Medille—know where it is? Hundreds of miles from nowhere, I understand. Anyway someone’s going to meet me at Nairobi—Dudley Holman, a fellow about my age. His father’s a naturalist and a friend of my uncle’s. Unk’s in England and he’s going to come on in four weeks or so.” He laughed. “Now I’ve told you everything except my name—that’s Hal Keen.”

“You’ll have to go some if you’re going to live up to that name in Africa,” observed the man with a dry laugh, then added: “Especially in the Medille district. I happen to be going there myself—to Holman’s place.”

“By gosh!” Hal exclaimed, pleased. “What a coincidence! They expect you, of course?”

“No,” said the man, “they don’t. That is—they expect somebody sooner or later I guess, but I’d hardly say they expected me. You see I’m going there for a job—I saw an ad of Dr. Holman’s in yesterday’s paper for a man to make himself generally useful in the laboratory, experience not required particularly. So here I am!”

Hal settled himself in the orange-hued dust of his seat and grinned contentedly. Things always came out all right in the talking. Nothing was as perplexing as it seemed. What could be more natural than this man about to apply for a position! Suddenly, however, he bethought himself of something and leaned forward confidentially.

“Just as a little tip, Mr. . . .”

“Pine—Piney, I’m called,” said the man smiling.

“That’s fine—Mr. Piney,” Hal chuckled. “But as I was saying, you most likely don’t know what kind of a—a man you’re going to work for—I mean Dr. Holman?” he added with not a little embarrassment.

“I don’t quite get you.”

Hal flushed. “It’s kind of difficult for me to be telling tales out of school, huh? Still it isn’t exactly that either, because my uncle wrote and told my mother and me that Dr. Holman was known to be peculiar all the way from Mombasa to the Nile. You see, it isn’t as if I was betraying a confidence.”

“Hardly,” Mr. Pine laughed mirthlessly. “Just how is he peculiar? You say he’s a friend of your uncle?”

“They went to college together. Dr. Holman is about four years older than Unk. Anyway, he used to be just crabby in those days, I understand. Afterwards he married and when Dudley was born he got worse. His wife died, that’s the reason. Then he and Dud came here eighteen years ago—poor kid was only two years old, can you imagine? Dr. Holman brought him up, and how! Dud hasn’t had much peace in his young life so far, you can bank on that. Nothing pleases his father, nothing! He’s full of prejudices. Won’t have a native step inside his door—says he can’t stand the smell of ’em. He lets ’em clean up outside but that’s absolutely all.”

“Hmph,” said Piney thoughtfully, “so that accounts for him wanting a white man to help around the laboratory. Well, I guess I can stand for the doc being peculiar. After all, I ain’t contemplating a long stay.”

Hal shook his head ruefully. “I guess you won’t want to. From what Unk’s told us, Dr. Holman hasn’t kept anybody very long. Nobody ever stayed except a chap named Briggs who is his assistant. That poor guy came all the way from the States and he hasn’t any people so I suppose he figures that it’s better to stand for Dr. Holman’s bad disposition than to go back and be alone, huh? Whatever the reason, he stays, and he’s the only one that has.”

Piney contemplated the scrubby country through which they were passing. Then he turned to Hal. “What’s the idea of you coming here if the old man’s such a crab?”

“Dudley,” Hal answered simply. “He wrote to Unk when he found out that he was in England and he begged him to stop over in Africa just as a Christian act and see if he couldn’t make his father a little more human. You see Unk is about the only friend that Dr. Holman has and I guess that’s easily explained. They’ve seen each other twice in the eighteen years and corresponded the rest of the time.”

“And most anybody can get along by mail, eh?” said Mr. Piney facetiously.

“Sure. Dud told Unk that his father’s lately taken to beating people. If he gets mad at an employee, or anyone else for that matter I guess, he forgets that he was born a gentleman. To tell you the truth, it sounds as if he’s nothing short of a maniac on the loose.”

“Well,” said Mr. Piney with a puckered brow, “old Dr. Holman better not let loose on me, ’cause I ain’t the kind to take it. I’m not coming up here because I like it, believe me, and I won’t take any nonsense from that old crab or anyone else!”

Hal was a little startled to see the flashing fire in his companion’s eyes at this declaration. What was more, the man revealed a sort of grim purpose in his speech, a revelation that betokened a nature guided by this same purpose in times past. Piney, Hal was convinced, would stop at nothing.

He blinked his eyes as if he had been dreaming. “I didn’t tell you how I came to be in Africa, Mr. Piney,” he said almost apologetically.

“Oh yes,” Piney said indifferently, “I’d forgotten.” He laughed. “That’s me all over. Go on, Keen, I want to hear all of it. Something tells me that the Holman place is going to be full of action.”

Hal felt not so cheerful again, but he smiled. “Something tells me I’m not terribly crazy about seeing Dr. Holman either. But I was crazy to come to Africa, naturally. Besides, I want to sort of lend my moral support in the cause—it’s Unk’s idea. He got me to come on first and spend a little time before he comes. It’s to kind of let the idea of Dud coming to college in the States, seep into the doctor’s crabby old mind.”

“Some idea. I guess the boy wants to go all right, eh?”

“And how! Gosh, I’m praying right along it works out all right. I’ve never seen Dud, but boy, I’m going to like him just on account of the trouble he’s had all his life, never seeing anything, never going anywhere! Just with his father all the time. He’s never seen a city bigger than Nairobi.”

He was so enthusiastic in his recital of Dudley Holman’s pathetic life that he was not aware they had come into a station. It was Piney’s sudden abstraction that brought him to the realization. The man anxiously scanned the handful of people on the platform; a few whites and the rest, natives clad in dusty looking khaki. There was the usual hustle and bustle about the place and the stir of departure, but that was all. It was difficult to understand just what was Mr. Piney’s obvious interest in the little wayside station.

Hal glanced from his companion to the neat entrance of a restaurant opposite and watched with casual interest some passengers hurrying out of its doors. Then he became aware of someone standing just outside their compartment; a huge, swarthy half-caste with beadlike eyes.

Piney stiffened in his seat and with a swift, cat-like gesture his upraised arm went down to his side. The half-caste’s eyes glittered ever so slightly and a second later there came the cry of “All aboard!” In a flash the great creature had disappeared and before Hal had time to speak, the train was moving on.

“Not much rain around here, buddy,” said Piney a few moments later. His voice fell harsh and grating on Hal’s ears.

“Who was that fellow, Piney?” Hal asked, looking the other straight in the eyes. “You—well, I couldn’t help but see your hand go down to your pocket that time.”

If Mr. Piney was disconcerted there was no way of knowing it for his face was bland and smiling. “A gun is indispensable in Africa, Keen,” he said quietly.

“But I’ve always understood that in Africa a black man seldom attacks a white man even on provocation. He . . .”

“Half-caste is not black, buddy. That fellow was half-caste. There’s quite a difference.”

“Then you knew him, huh?” Hal asked bluntly. “You had some reason to . . .”

“I never saw the man before—never!”

Hal looked out into the gathering night. He felt certain that Piney was a liar.