Читать книгу Clubfoot the Avenger - Valentine Williams - Страница 7

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Desmond and Francis Okewood faced each other across the table in the snug living-room of Desmond’s little service flat in Saint James’s. The curtains were drawn, for it was five o’clock of a winter evening; and the tantalus, siphon, and glasses which filled the tray between them suggested that the two brothers were prepared to celebrate, in their peculiar fashion, the rites of the hour. However, a tea-wagon, appropriately decked out, that stood near the window, indicated that a visitor of less masculine tastes was expected.

“Well,” remarked Desmond, resuming his train of thought which he had interrupted to light a cigarette, “if old Clubfoot, as you say, has any money, I’d like to know where he gets it from, that’s all!”

Francis grunted. “He’s got it all right, don’t worry,” he retorted, “as Patricia Maxwell will tell you in a minute . . .”

“Provided she hasn’t forgotten the appointment,” said Desmond, looking at the clock.

“She’ll be here to the tick,” his brother replied, “unless she has altered from what she used to be when I knew her in the States!”

“A friend of Monica’s, didn’t you say she was?”

(Monica was Francis Okewood’s American wife.)

Francis nodded. “They went to the same school in America. We met her again last year in California. That’s why she came to me with this extraordinary story of hers. But here she is, I think!”

Old Batts, the valet of the flats, appeared at the door.

“Miss Maxwell!” he announced.

Patricia Maxwell was of that not uncommon type of American girl who in the daytime looks as though she had stepped out of the current number of a fashion paper, and in the evening as though she would appear in the forthcoming issue. From the crown of her little brown hat to the sole of her neatly shod foot she was absolutely flawless, perfectly coiffed, perfectly dressed, perfectly gloved, perfectly shod. An orphan, her more than comfortable means enabled her, through frequent visits to Europe, to appreciate her country to the full, besides permitting her to admit with impunity her real age which was on the right side of thirty. Her little London house, within a stone’s throw of the Park, was, like herself, a gem of good taste. She knew everybody and liked almost everybody, and everybody liked her.

“So this is the famous brother?” she said when Francis introduced Desmond. “If you only knew how perfectly thrilled I am to meet you two together! But you’ll have to promise not to laugh at my story, Major Okewood! I dare say it’ll seem just silly to you!”

“On the contrary, Miss Maxwell,” Desmond answered with his rather languid air, “I am honestly quite extraordinarily curious to hear it. Believe me, a yarn that’ll interest this brother of mine must be something well out of the ordinary!”

And over the tea-cups in that tranquil room, while outside the cars and taxis purred and hooted up and down the slope of Saint James’s Street, she told her story. Long before she had done, Desmond, nursing his knee, his eyes fixed on the speaker’s face, had let his cigarette go out as it dangled from his lips.

“I expect your brother has told you,” she said, “that I’m a collector of enamels. I guess it’s a kind of hobby of mine. Every time a special piece comes up for sale in London or Paris or Vienna, one of the dealers is pretty sure to notify me, and if it’s any way possible, I go along and see it.

“Well, the other day a dealer friend of mine called me on the ’phone and told me that a Russian ikon—you know, one of these sacred pictures you see in Russian homes and churches—was to be sold at Blackie’s. It was a beautiful piece, he said, with the figures of the Madonna and Child in green-and-blue enamel under a silver sheeting—probably twelfth or thirteenth century work. He thought it would fetch under a hundred pounds and wanted to bid for me. But I like auctions and I said I’d go myself. I went into Blackie’s the day before the sale and fell in love with the ikon at once. It was quite small, not above about nine inches by six, I guess, and heavy for its size, the silver covering cut out so as to show the enamel figures underneath—you know the way it is—black with age.

“Well, yesterday was the day of the sale, and Süsslein, my little dealer, went along with me. The ikon was part of the collection of some Russian Count—I forget the name—one of the émigrés from the Russian Revolution who had served with Denikin against the Bolsheviks. We sat there all through the afternoon and by the time the ikon came up the hall was three-quarters empty.

“One of the dealers started the bidding at ten guineas, and between three or four of us we ran it up to seventy-five. Then the others began to drop out, and by the time we’d got to a hundred there were only three of us left—Harris, who buys for Lord Boraston, me, and a funny-looking little runt of a man with a grey chin-beard and spectacles. He wasn’t one of the ordinary dealers, so I sent Süsslein to find out just who he was. When he came back he whispered to me he was a man called Achille Saumergue, who was believed to be a Frenchman. Nobody had ever seen him before.

“At two hundred guineas we topped Harris’s limit, and he passed away, leaving me and old Saumergue to it. He and I kept on quietly tossing the ball to and fro until—I’m cutting this all short, you know—I brought him up all standing with an advance of fifty guineas on his three hundred and fifty. I jumped the price up a bit because Hermann, the auctioneer, who’s an old friend of mine, kept looking at the clock, and I knew the poor man was dying to shut down and go home.

“Then old Saumergue asked if he might telephone—I suppose he’d reached his limit. As he went out, I noticed that Süsslein went after him. He’s pretty slick, and I guessed he meant to pick up what he could outside the telephone box.

“But, my gracious! in two minutes my little friend was back in no end of a way. Why, the man was so white I thought he was ill! He started telling me a long story about old Saumergue buying in the ikon for some Russian family where it was an heirloom, that it was really a rather inferior specimen, and a lot of stuff like that. That’s the line of talk dealers always hand out when they want to shoo you off a piece.

“But it didn’t go any with me, Major Okewood. I wanted that little old ikon, and I meant to have it. But do you think what I wanted mattered? Say, for about five minutes that little Jew never let up knocking that holy picture, saying the price was ridiculous, and how I must be plumb crazy to bid four hundred guineas for a thing that wasn’t worth above forty!

“As Hermann picked up his hammer again, I just waved the dealer aside. That old skate and I went at it once more. Everybody in the place was crowded round us now, sort of in two camps—you know the way it is—and it was so quiet you could almost hear a pin drop, I guess.

“‘May I say four hundred and fifty guineas? It’s a lovely piece,’ Hermann calls out in his soft voice, and the old man nods. He was standing up, very serious, blinking through his spectacles, but I could see his hands shaking with excitement.

“‘Five hundred!’ I said from my place just under the desk—they had given me a Heppelwhite chair from the Zossenberg sale next week to sit in.

“‘And twenty-five!’ says the old man with a kind of gasp.

“‘Fifty?’ asks Hermann, looking at me. I nodded.

“Süsslein pulled my sleeve. ‘Let him have the ikon!’ he whispered. ‘It don’t matter any to you, a common old thing like that! For God’s sake, let him have it, Miss Maxwell!’

“I shook my head.

“‘Six hundred!’ I said.

“‘Any advance on six hundred?’ asks Hermann, and brings his hammer down pretty sharply. ‘Six hundred guineas I’m bid. For the first time! It’s getting late, and we all want to go home, I’m sure. For the second time . . .’

“‘Seven hundred!’ says the old Frenchman faintly.

“All this time Süsslein was whispering in my ear. The man was all worked up. ‘You’ve got to let him have it,’ he kept on saying. ‘Take my advice, Miss Maxwell, and let the thing be. It’ll bring you no luck! Believe me, I know what I’m saying!’ His voice was shaking and his eyes were starting out of his head.

“But I meant to have that ikon, though, by this, the price was ’way beyond my figure. The end came quick.

“‘Shall we say eight hundred?’ asks Hermann.

“I nodded. With that the old man turned on his heel and walked straight out of the place. The ikon was mine.

“Süsslein didn’t say any more. He left me there. He seemed a changed man. And I took the ikon home. As I told Süsslein, I had it all planned out where I was going to hang it in the little space between the panels over the desk in my boudoir.

“This morning, before I was up, Süsslein was round at the house. He said he wanted to speak to me urgently. He had come, he told me, on behalf of a client to offer me a thousand pounds for the ikon. I told him I wasn’t selling. He asked me what I would take. I told him I didn’t intend to part with my treasure.

“‘My client,’ he said, ‘is most anxious, for family reasons, to acquire the ikon,’ and he offered me two thousand guineas, and then three.

“By this time I was getting pretty peeved, and I told Süsslein so. ‘If your client can prove to my satisfaction,’ I told him, ‘that this ikon really is an heirloom in his family, it’s a different matter. At present it looks to me as though you and he had realized too late that I had got on to something pretty good. I’m not selling, and you can tell your client so!’ And with that I sent him about his business.

“I had a lot of trouble to get rid of him. Like so many dealers, he seemed to think it was all a question of money. He couldn’t realize that I’d never part with anything that went so well with the dull green wainscot of my boudoir unless, of course, they could prove to me that the ikon had been stolen or something of that kind.”

“Your dealer pal didn’t tell you the name of his client?” asked Desmond.

“I asked him, of course, but he said he was not at liberty to reveal it. But it didn’t matter any, for, about an hour later, he arrived in person.”

“The client?”

“Sure. A Russian, a certain Dr. Madjaroff. I was sick and tired of the whole thing, so I told the butler to say I was busy. But he said he’d wait till I was disengaged. So, just to get rid of him, I saw him. My dear, he was the most extraordinary-looking person, a vast man with a great bushy black beard and a clubfoot . . .”

There was a crash from the fender. Desmond Okewood had suddenly dropped the knee he had been hugging and overset the fire irons.

“He spoke in French,” Patricia Maxwell went on. “He said that, through a misunderstanding, Monsieur Saumergue, who had been bidding for him at Blackie’s yesterday, had failed to secure the ikon. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I am prepared to pay handsomely for the mistake. I will now write you my cheque for three thousand five hundred guineas!’ And he actually produced a cheque-book and a fountain pen!

“I told him I didn’t want to sell. But do you think he’d take ‘no’ for an answer? Not on your life! ‘Would I name my own figure?’ he said, and when I stood up and repeated that I meant to keep the ikon and that he was wasting his time, he offered me first five thousand guineas and at last, by stages, six thousand five hundred.

“You know, that man rather frightened me. I’m supposed to be a pretty determined sort of person myself, but never in my life have I run up against such a dominating personality as this Dr. Madjaroff. He was so big and hairy with the vitality of some great animal like a buffalo or . . . or a rhinoceros.

“When I turned down his offer of six thousand five hundred guineas, he bent his dark bushy eyebrows at me.

“‘Miss Maxwell,’ he said, ‘I’ve set my heart on that ikon. You’ve got to let me have it.’

“I told him I was sorry, but it was quite impossible.

“‘I’ve offered you thirty, fifty times its value,’ he returned. ‘Believe me, you will be well advised to accept my offer.’

“‘My mind is made up,’ I replied, and rang to show him the interview was at an end. ‘The ikon is not for sale.’

“Do you know, the queerest change came over that old guy! All his hair seemed to bristle and his eyes just burnt like two hot coals. He raised up his stick—he had a crutch-stick that he walked with—as though to strike me, then turned his back on me and hobbled out of the house. My! I tell you I felt relieved to see him go . . .”

Desmond broke in quickly. “I hope you didn’t leave the ikon hanging up in your house?” he said. His languid air had given way to a brisk and eager manner. His steely blue eyes searched the girl’s face as he spoke.

“Why, no!” said Miss Maxwell. “As a matter of fact, I brought it along to show you!”

So saying she opened her capacious leathern handbag and produced a flat brown paper parcel. Unwrapping it, she drew forth the ikon, which she handed to Desmond.

He bore it quickly to the electric-light bracket by the fire-place and carefully examined it. Once or twice he balanced it in his hand as though appraising the weight.

“Now, why do you suppose,” the American asked, “that this Russian is so dead set on getting hold of this old ikon? It’s beautiful work and all that, of course, but it’s not worth six thousand five hundred guineas or the half or even the quarter of the eight hundred I paid . . .”

But Desmond had turned away and was talking to his brother.

“We want to make sure,” he was saying. “Tell him I’ll come round at once and see him.”

Francis Okewood stepped across to a desk in the corner on which the telephone stood and asked for a number.

“Why,” exclaimed Miss Maxwell, “that’s Süsslein’s number!”

But Francis held up his hand for silence, the telephone receiver to his ear.

“I want to speak to Mr. Süsslein,” he said, and stood listening for a moment.

“I see,” he said presently. “No, I hadn’t heard.”

He hung up the receiver and faced them.

“Süsslein was found dead in his office after lunch!” he said quietly.

“Dead?” exclaimed the American in a shocked voice.

“He had hanged himself,” Francis answered gravely.

“That settles it!” said Desmond, looking up from his study of the ikon. “This means that The Man with the Clubfoot is at his old tricks again!”