Читать книгу The Sins of Séverac Bablon - Sax Rohmer - Страница 8

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The next two days were busy ones for Sheard, who, from a variety of causes—the chief being his intimacy with the little circle which, whether it would or not, gathered around Mr. Julius Rohscheimer—found himself involved in the mystery of Séverac Bablon. He had interviewed this man and that, endeavouring to obtain some coherent story of the great "hold up," but with little success. Everything was a mysterious maze, and Scotland Yard was without any clue that might lead to the solution. All the Fleet Street crime specialists had advanced theories, and now, on the night of the third day after the audacious robbery, Sheard was contributing his theory to the Sunday newspaper for which he worked.

The subject of his article was the identity of Séverac Bablon, whom Sheard was endeavouring to prove to be not an individual, but a society; a society, so he argued, formed for the immolation of Capital upon the altars of Demos.

The course of reasoning that he had taken up proved more elusive than he had anticipated.

His bundle of notes lay before him on the table. The news of the latest outrage, the burning of the great Runek Mills in Ontario, had served to convince him that his solution was the right one; yet he could make no headway, and the labours of the last day or so had left him tired and drowsy.

He left his table and sank into an arm-chair by the study fire, knocking out his briar on a coal and carefully refilling and lighting that invaluable collaborator. With his data presently arranged in better mental order, he returned to the table and covered page after page with facile reasoning. Then the drowsiness which he could not altogether shake off crept upon him again, and staring at the words "Such societies have existed in fiction, now we have one existing in fact," he dropped into a doze—as the clock in the hall struck one.

When he awoke, with his chin on his breast, it was to observe, firstly, that the MS. no longer lay on the pad, and, secondly, on looking up, that a stranger sat in the arm-chair, opposite, reading it!

"Who——" began Sheard, starting to his feet.

Whereupon the stranger raised a white, protesting hand.

"Give me but one moment's grace, Mr. Sheard," he said quietly, "and I will at once apologise and explain!"

"What do you mean?" rapped the journalist. "How dare you enter my house in this way, and——" He broke off from sheer lack of words, for this calm, scrupulously dressed intruder was something outside the zone of things comprehensible.

In person he was slender, but of his height it was impossible to judge accurately whilst he remained seated. He was perfectly attired in evening-dress, and wore a heavy, fur-lined coat. A silk hat, by an eminent hatter, stood upon Sheard's writing-table, a pair of gloves beside it. A gold-mounted ebony walking-stick was propped against the fireplace. But the notable and unusual characteristic of the man was his face. Its beauty was literally amazing. Sheard, who had studied black-and-white, told himself that here was an ideal head—that of Apollo himself.

And this extraordinary man, with his absolutely flawless features composed, and his large, luminous eyes half closed, lounged in Sheard's study at half-past one in the early morning and toyed with an unfinished manuscript—like some old and privileged friend who had dropped in for a chat.

"Look here!" said the outraged pressman, stepping around the table as the calm effrontery of the thing burst fully upon him. "Get out! Now!"

"Mr. Sheard," said the other, "if I apologise frankly and fully for my intrusion, will you permit me to give my reasons for it?"

Sheard again found himself inarticulate. He was angrily conscious of a vague disquiet. The visitor's suave courtesy under circumstances so utterly unusual disarmed him, as it must have disarmed any average man similarly situated. For a moment his left fist clenched, his mind swung in the balance, irresolute. The other turned back a loose page and quietly resumed his perusal of the manuscript.

That decided Sheard's attitude, and he laughed.

Whereat the stranger again raised the protestant hand.

"We shall awake Mrs. Sheard!" he said solicitously. "And now, as I see you have decided to give me a hearing, let me begin by offering you my sincere apology for entering your house uninvited."

Sheard, his mind filled with a sense of phantasy, dropped into a chair opposite the visitor, reached into the cabinet at his elbow, and proffered a box of Turkish cigarettes.

"Your methods place you beyond the reach of ordinary castigation," he said. "I don't know your name and I don't know your business; but I honestly admire your stark impudence!"

"Very well," replied the other in his quiet, melodious voice, with its faint, elusive accent. "A compliment is intended, and I thank you! And now, I see you are wondering how I obtained admittance. Yet it is so simple. Your front door is not bolted, and Mrs. Sheard, but a few days since, had the misfortune to lose a key. You recollect? I found that key! Is it enough?"

"Quite enough!" said Sheard grimly. "But why go to the trouble? What do you want?"

"I want to insure that one, at least, of the influential dailies shall not persistently misrepresent my actions!"

"Then who——" began Sheard, and got no farther; for the stranger handed him a card—