Читать книгу The Green Archer - Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace - Страница 14

"Who is the Green Archer of Garre? In what way is he associated with the assassination of Charles Creager, ex-prison warder, late of Pentonville? These are the questions which Scotland Yard are asking. Creager was found dead in his garden yesterday by a reporter of the Daily Globe, after a violent quarrel with Abe Bellamy, the Chicago millionaire, whose castle is haunted by the Green Archer. Creager was killed by a green arrow, an exact replica of the arrows that were in use six hundred years ago. . . ."

Abe Bellamy put down the newspaper and looked across at his secretary.

"How much of that came from you I don't know," he growled. "Somebody must have told the reporters about that fool ghost. Now listen, Savini! All this crazy talk of ghosts doesn't scare me. Get that? If this monkey business is to get me rattled, and if ye think that by getting me rattled ye'll be able to make yourself a permanent feature around Garre, you've got another guess coming. I'll smash that fake without squealing to Scotland Yard, believe me!"

He walked to the window and stared moodily into the street. Presently he turned sharply.

"Savini, I'm telling you something. You've got a good job. Don't lose it. You're the only thing of your kind I've ever employed. You're slick and you're a liar, and you suit me. I took you from the gutter—don't forget it. I know that you're crook—you've never been anything but crook—but I engaged you because you're the kind of crook I wanted. Someone I knew all about. D'ye hear that? You'd been running with a gang of card-sharps when I picked you up, and the police were waiting their chance to gaol you. That's how I got to know all about you. When that detective came last night to question me about Creager, one of the first things he asked me was if I knew the kind of secretary I'd got out. You didn't know that, did you?"

Savini's face supplied the answer. The smooth olive of his skin had given way to a grey pallor.

"It's not the first time I'd heard of you," the old man went on remorselessly. "More'n a year ago the police chief—inspector, or whatever you call him—happened to be seeing me about a stick-pin one of the hotel servants had taken, and I got him to stop to lunch. I've always been friendly with the police. It pays. And whilst we were lunching in this very hotel he pointed you out to me—gave me your record. I suppose, when you had a note from me, you thought your prayers for easy money had been answered? They hadn't. You've been straight with me because the week after I employed you the gang was pinched, and you were glad for a hole to hide in."

He walked slowly towards his secretary, and his big finger hooked itself into the opening of Savini's waistcoat.

"That Green Archer stunt is going to end right now," he said deliberately. "And it had better! I'm gunning on anything green, and I don't want to explain to the coroner just how the accident happened. The newspapers say that there's been one Green Archer death. Maybe there'll be more!"

The grip on the waistcoat had tightened, and without any apparent effort he was swinging the helpless young man to and fro.

"You know that I'm a tough, but you think I'm simple. You're wrong. I can give you trick for trick and beat you!"

Suddenly his arm shot out, and Savini staggered back.

"The car at five," said Abe Bellamy, and with a sideways jerk of his head dismissed his secretary for the day.

Savini went to his room and straightened himself, mentally and sartorially.

He was perturbed in mind, but he had recovered from his fright. He stood for a long time, his arms folded on the bureau, looking thoughtfully at the reflection of his brown face in the mirror.

He had spoken no more than the truth when he had disclaimed all responsibility for giving the story of the Green Archer to the newspapers. There were many good reasons why he should not advertise the advent of that apparition.

So the old man knew. That discovery had been distressing at first; now it was a relief. He had lived in terror of his antecedents being revealed, but the reason for his fear even Abe Bellamy did not guess. The soft brown eyes that looked back at him from the mirror smiled. Abe Bellamy did not guess! He looked at his watch. It was just after nine, and the day his own until five, so that the excuses he had invented for going out were unnecessary.

The art of serving Bellamy was to leave him alone when he desired solitude. There were days when he did not see the old man from morning until night. There were other days when every waking hour was occupied by the correspondence which his employer accumulated.

A cab deposited him before the entrance of a large residential block in Maida Vale, and, declining the invitation of the elevator boy, he walked up two flights, took a key from his pocket, and opened the door of No. 12.

At the sound of his key in the lock a girl came out into the hallway, cigarette in mouth, to inspect the visitor.

"Oh, it is you, is it?" she said indifferently as he closed the door behind him and hung his hat on the hall-stand.

"Who else could it be?" he asked.

"I've sent the maid out to get some eggs," she replied as he followed her into a well-furnished little sitting-room. "Where were you last night? I thought you were coming to dinner."

She had perched herself on the edge of the table, her slippered feet dangling; a pretty but untidy figure of a girl, with her mop of yellow hair and her fine dark eyes. The dab of powder on her face seemed a little unnecessary, but its presence was explained.

"Don't look at me," she said as he scrutinised her curiously. "I was dancing until three, and I've not had my bath. I had a letter from Jerry this morning," she added suddenly, and laughed at the wry face he pulled.

She jumped down from the table and took a blue envelope from the mantelpiece.

"I don't want to see it," said Savini. "I hate touching things that have come from prison."

"You're lucky not to have been there yourself, my boy," said the girl, lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the one she had been smoking. "Jerry will be out of prison in six months. He wants to know what you're going to do for him. You're a millionaire now, Julius."

"Don't be a fool," he said roughly.

"Well, Bellamy is, and there ought to be pickings."

"There are big pickings," said Julius Savini.

He thrust his hand into his pocket and strolled to the window, turning so that his face was in the shadow.

"There's half a million at Garre."

"Dollars or pounds?" she asked without any enthusiasm.

"Pounds."

The girl laughed softly.

"Old Bellamy would be worried if he knew——"

"He knows," said Julius. "He knew all along."

She looked up at him in surprise.

"That you're——?"

He nodded.

"That I'm crook. Those are his own words. He told me this morning."

"What is all this stuff about the Green Archer?" she asked, getting up to close the door as the sound of her servant's footsteps came to her from the hall. "I was reading about it this morning in bed."

He did not answer at once. And then:

"I haven't seen it," he said. "One of the servants thought he saw it, and the old man told me that somebody had opened his door in the night."

"That was you," she accused, and to her surprise he shook his head.

"No, there's been no need to go for midnight rambles. I know every part of the castle; and anyway the safe is not a job I would take on single-handed. It requires an expert."

He frowned at her thoughtfully.

"I'll tell you how I feel about this, Fay. The old crowd is breaking up. Jerry's in prison, Ben is in gaol too, Walters has skipped to the Continent, and there are only you and I left of the old gang. It's broke; let it stay broke. What did you or I ever make out of it? A few hard pounds a week, with little enough to spare after we'd paid expenses. The game was too small, and suckers are getting scarce. Here we are, with half a million for the taking. And I tell you this, I'm going half-way to murder to take it!"

He slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her, she alert, suspicious, waiting.

"What's the big idea?" she asked. "I mistrust you, Julius, when you get affectionate. Am I to go and smash his safe, or what?"

He eyed her steadily. Then:

"I know a place—Sao Paulo—where a man can live like a prince on the interest of a hundred thousand dollars. And that is just the amount the old devil is going to pay me; perhaps more. Garre Castle has a secret, Fay. It may be a hundred thousand pound secret. And if the worse comes to the worst, I have a little bottle of invisible ink that will certainly be worth twenty thousand."

Julius was a lover of cryptic language, and enjoyed the mystification on his wife's face.