Читать книгу The Doom of Stark House - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 9

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An ominous hush fell over the group and Chester jumped quickly from his place and hurried to his father’s side. Mr. Stark straightened up and succeeded in forcing a wan smile over his stricken-looking features, then leaned on his son’s arm with a gesture of extreme fatigue.

“Just one of my nervous spells,” he said, glancing from Hal to Jerard. “I get them at odd times—they stifle me and—and I have to stand on my feet. My family are used to them,” he added, looking appealingly from Della to Phoebe and then at Chester. Then, apologetically: “They’re deucedly inconvenient.”

Hal rose then, offering to lend his own capable support, but his host waved him back to his place smilingly, insisting that he was quite himself again. To prove it he sat down and resumed the eating of his soup.

“You should have told me about your father’s nervous spells, Ches,” Hal said, all contrition. “I feel terribly sorry to have been the cause of another one. I shouldn’t have brought up such a gruesome topic.”

“As a matter of fact it was I that brought it up, not you,” Chester protested as he sat down also.

“It’s quite all right, boys,” said Tallman Stark quietly. He kept his eyes on his plate and toyed with his soup spoon a moment, then: “Perhaps I would have felt just as ill if you had suddenly brought up the topic of the weather. Anything...”

“Nerves just on the ragged edge, sir, eh?” Jerard Mathieu asked sympathetically.

“I guess that’s about it, Jerard—that’s about it.”

“But you’re feeling quite better, aren’t you, Father?” Phoebe asked with low-voiced concern.

“Quite,” Tallman Stark smiled at his daughter.

“You’re certain, Father?” Della queried suddenly. Her usually harsh voice sounded surprisingly tender.

“Very certain, Della.”

Hal felt drawn to the man from that moment for he knew that the rich lumberman was lying heroically. A mental pain still held him in its grip; that much was evident by the unspeakable anguish in his eyes. What connection all this had with the skeleton in the chest, Hal was at a loss to know. He could be certain however, that some deep, tragic thing underlay the painful episode.

“Let’s change the subject with the soup,” Chester said gaily, indicating the entree steaming on a vast tray which the stolid Rose was bearing in from the kitchen.

Hal noticed in that moment that Jacques Bonner was nowhere to be seen. His exit from the room had been noiseless and unnoticed apparently, for neither the Stark family nor Mathieu seemed to have been aware of it.

Tallman had barely touched his soup; he sat staring at the entree. At length, he said, wearily, “The soup has gone, Chester, but the subject remains. We can’t change it so easily. After all, one must face facts, no matter how gruesome, how painful...A murder—twenty years ago, Jacques said,” he added almost in a whisper. “The police...they must be notified tomorrow!”

“M’sieu Tallman, you would like maybe to come with me Sainte Beauve and tell police, no?”

Jacques Bonner’s guttural voice from the kitchen door again startled them. Even as he spoke he was waddling toward the table with the noiseless agility of a cat. He had divested himself of his furs and, to Hal, looked more ludicrous than ever in his dark, home-spun suit. It was ill-fitting and the trousers bagged ridiculously on his short, stump-like legs but he was blissfully unaware of his mirth-inspiring qualities. Indeed, he acted quite at ease as he stopped at his employer’s elbow and bowed smilingly; his disheveled, dark hair tumbling over his narrow forehead did not disconcert him in the least.

Mr. Stark visibly shrank against the back of his seat as he faced the man. He looked white and sick now and seemed not to have the energy to conceal it. Hal could not account for it but he had a sudden impulse to choke Bonner’s smile out of existence and he clutched the sides of his chair for moral support.

“You come with me then, no?” Jacques Bonner repeated insinuatingly.

Chester banged his fist on the table and leaned toward the man, menacingly.

“What’s the matter with you, Jacques—why are you standing there questioning my father like that when you see he’s feeling too sick to talk? Anybody with half an eye can see it! Anything else you have to say on this subject you say to me—privately! Comprennez vous?”

“Oui, M’sieu Chester,” Jacques answered, bowing obsequiously. “I talk tonight no more, yes?”

He bowed himself out of the room, reserving, before the door shut him out, a smile for his stricken-looking employer. But Hal was not deceived by it—not at all. Bonner had no intention of giving up the discussion for the night, for a certain grimness about his enormous jaw belied any such promise.

Dinner was finished in silence.