Trent Intervenes

скачать книгу бесплатно


‘And did you notice anything peculiar about them?’ Captain Royden asked.

‘Just one little thing. But it was enough to set me thinking, and next day I drove up to London, where I paid a visit to Nelsons, the sporting outfitters. You know the firm, of course.’

Captain Royden, carefully fining down the point of his pencil, nodded. ‘Everybody knows Nelsons.’

‘Yes; and MacAdam, I knew, had an account there for his stocks. I wanted to look over some clubs of a particular make—a brassie, with a slip of ivorine let into the face, such as they had supplied to MacAdam. Freer had had one of them from him.’

Again Royden nodded.

‘I saw the man who shows clubs at Nelsons. We had a talk, and then—you know how little things come out in the course of conversation—’

‘Especially,’ put in the captain with a cheerful grin, ‘when the conversation is being steered by an expert.’

‘You flatter me,’ Trent said. ‘Anyhow, it did transpire that a club of that particular make had been bought some months before by a customer whom the man was able to remember. Why he remembered him was because, in the first place, he insisted on a club of rather unusual length and weight—much too long and heavy for himself to use, as he was neither a tall man nor of powerful build. The salesman had suggested as much in a delicate way; but the customer said no, he knew exactly what suited him, and he bought the club and took it away with him.’

‘Rather an ass, I should say,’ Royden observed thoughtfully.

‘I don’t think he was an ass, really. He was capable of making a mistake, though, like the rest of us. There were some other things, by the way, that the salesman recalled about him. He had a slight limp, and he was, or had been, an army officer. The salesman was an ex-serviceman, and he couldn’t be mistaken, he said, about that.’

Captain Royden had drawn a sheet of paper towards him, and was slowly drawing little geometrical figures as he listened. ‘Go on, Mr Trent,’ he said quietly.

‘Well, to come back to the subject of Freer’s death. I think he was killed by someone who knew Freer never played on Sunday, so that his clubs would be—or ought to be, shall we say?—in his locker all that day. All the following night, too, of course—in case the job took a long time. And I think this man was in a position to have access to the lockers in this clubhouse at any time he chose, and to possess a master key to those lockers. I think he was a skilful amateur craftsman. I think he had a good practical knowledge of high explosives. There is a branch of the army’—Trent paused a moment and looked at the cigarette-box on the table—‘in which that sort of knowledge is specially necessary, I believe.’

Hastily, as if just reminded of the duty of hospitality, Royden lifted the lid of the box and pushed it towards Trent. ‘Do have another,’ he urged.

Trent did so with thanks. ‘They have to have it in the Royal Engineers,’ he went on, ‘because—so I’m told—demolition work is an important part of their job.’

‘Quite right,’ Captain Royden observed, delicately shading one side of a cube.

‘Ubique!’ Trent mused, staring at the box-lid. ‘If you are “everywhere”, I take it you can be in two places at the same time. You could kill a man in one place, and at the same time be having breakfast with a friend a mile away. Well, to return to our subject yet once more; you can see the kind of idea I was led to form about what happened to Freer. I believe that his brassie was taken from his locker on the Sunday before his death. I believe the ivorine face of it was taken off and a cavity hollowed out behind it; and in that cavity a charge of explosive was placed. Where it came from I don’t know, for it isn’t the sort of thing that is easy to come by, I imagine.’

‘Oh, there would be no difficulty about that,’ the captain remarked. ‘If this man you’re speaking of knew all about H.E., as you say, he could have compounded the stuff himself from materials anybody can buy. For instance, he could easily make tetranitroaniline—that would be just the thing for him, I should say.’

‘I see. Then perhaps there would be a tiny detonator attached to the inner side of the ivorine face, so that a good smack with the brassie would set it off. Then the face would be fixed on again. It would be a delicate job, because the weight of the club-head would have to be exactly right. The feel and balance of the club would have to be just the same as before the operation.’

‘A delicate job, yes,’ the captain agreed. ‘But not an impossible one. There would be rather more to it than you say, as a matter of fact; the face would have to be shaved down thin, for instance. Still, it could be done.’

‘Well, I imagine it done. Now, this man I have in mind knew there was no work for a brassie at the short first hole, and that the first time it would come out of the bag was at the second hole, down at the bottom of the dip, where no one could see what happened. What certainly did happen was that Freer played a sweet shot, slap onto the green. What else happened at the same moment we don’t know for certain, but we can make a reasonable guess. And then, of course, there’s the question what happened to the club—or what was left of it; the handle, say. But it isn’t a difficult question, I think, if we remember how the body was found.’

‘How do you mean?’ Royden asked.

‘I mean, by whom it was found. One of the two players who found it was too much upset to notice very much. He hurried back to the clubhouse; and the other was left alone with the body for, as I estimate it, at least fifteen minutes. When the police came on the scene, they found lying near the body a perfectly good brassie, an unusually long and heavy club, exactly like Freer’s brassie in every respect—except one. The name stamped on the wood of the club-head had been obliterated by crushing. That name, I think, was not F. MacAdam, but W. J. Nelson; and the club had been taken out of a bag that was not Freer’s—a bag which had the remains, if any, of Freer’s brassie at the bottom of it. And I believe that’s all.’ Trent got to his feet and stretched his arms. ‘You can see what I meant when I said I found the mystery interesting.’

For some moments Captain Royden gazed thoughtfully out of the window; then he met Trent’s inquiring eye. ‘If there was such a fellow as you imagine,’ he said coolly, ‘he seems to have been careful enough—lucky enough too, if you like—to leave nothing at all of what you could call proof against him. And probably he had personal and private reasons for what he did. Suppose that somebody whom he was much attached to was in the power of a foul-tempered, bullying brute; and suppose he found that the bullying had gone to the length of physical violence; and suppose that the situation was hell by day and by night to this man of yours; and suppose there was no way on earth of putting an end to it except the way he took. Yes, Mr Trent; suppose all that!’

‘I will—I do!’ Trent said. ‘That man—if he exists at all—must have been driven pretty hard, and what he did is no business of mine anyway. And now—still in the conditional mood—suppose I take myself off.’

III (#ulink_8777c082-fbf4-51a6-b23f-b0fef8df39b6)

THE CLEVER COCKATOO (#ulink_8777c082-fbf4-51a6-b23f-b0fef8df39b6)

‘WELL, that’s my sister,’ said Mrs Lancey in a low voice. ‘What do you think of her, now you’ve spoken to her?’

Philip Trent, newly arrived from England, stood by his hostess within the loggia of a villa looking out upon a prospect of such loveliness as has enchanted and enslaved the Northern mind from age to age. It was a country that looked good and gracious for men to live in. Not far below them lay the broad, still surface of a great lake, blue as the sky; beyond it, low mountains rose up from the distant shore, tilled and wooded to the summit, drinking the light and warmth, visibly storing up earthly energy, with little villages of white and red scattered about their slopes—like children clustered round their mothers’ knees. Before the villa lay a long, paved terrace, and by the balustrade of it, from which a stone could be dropped into the clear water, a woman stood looking out over the lake and conversing with a tall, grey-haired man.

‘Ten minutes is rather a short acquaintance,’ Trent replied. ‘Besides, I was attending rather more to her companion. Mynheer Scheffer is the first Dutchman I have met on social terms. One thing about Lady Bosworth is clear to me, though. She is the most beautiful thing in sight, which is saying a good deal. And as for that low, velvety voice of hers, if she asked me to murder my best friend I should have to do it on the spot.’

Mrs Lancey laughed.

‘But I want you to take a personal interest in her, Philip; it means nothing, I know, when you talk like that. I care a great deal about Isabel, she is far more to me than any other woman. That’s rather rare between sisters, I believe; but when it happens it is a great thing. And it makes me wretched to know that there’s something wrong with her.’

‘With her health, do you mean? One wouldn’t think so.’

‘Yes, but I fear it is that.’

‘Is it possible?’ said Trent. ‘Why, Edith, the woman has the complexion of a child and the step of a racehorse and eyes like jewels. She looks like Atalanta in blue linen.’

‘Did Atalanta marry an Egyptian mummy?’ inquired Mrs Lancey.

‘Not by any means—priests of Cybele bear witness!’

‘Well, Isabel did, unfortunately.’

‘It is true,’ said Trent, thoughtfully. ‘That Sir Peregrine looks rather as if he had been dug up somewhere. But I think he owes much of his professional success to that. People like a great doctor to look more or less unhealthy.’

‘Perhaps they do; but I don’t think the doctor’s wife enjoys it very much. Isabel is always happiest when away from him—if he were here now she would be quite different from what you see. You know, Philip, their marriage hasn’t been a success—I always knew it wouldn’t be. It’s lasted five years now, and there are no children. Peregrine never goes about with her; he is one of the busiest men in London—you see what I mean.’

Trent shrugged his shoulders.

‘Let us drop the subject, Edith. Tell me why you want me to know about Lady Bosworth having something the matter with her. I’m not a physician.’

‘No, but there’s something very puzzling about it, as you will see; and you are clever at getting at the truth about things other people don’t understand. Now, I’ll tell you no more. I only want you to observe Bella particularly at dinner this evening, and tell me afterwards what you think. You’ll be sitting opposite to her, between me and Agatha Stone. Now go and talk to her and the Dutchman.’

‘Scheffer’s appearance interests me,’ remarked Trent. ‘He has a face curiously like Frederick the Great’s, and yet there’s a difference—he doesn’t look quite as if his soul were lost for ever and ever.’

‘Well, go and ask him about it,’ suggested Mrs Lancey. ‘I have things to do in the house.’

When the party of seven sat down to dinner that evening, Lady Bosworth had just descended from her room. Trent perceived no change in her; she talked enthusiastically of the loveliness of the Italian evening, and joined in a conversation that was general and lively. It was only after some ten minutes that she fell silent, and that a new look came over her face.

Little by little all animation departed from it. Her eyes grew heavy and dull, her red lips were parted in a foolish smile, and to the high, fresh tint of her cheek there succeeded a disagreeable pallor. There was nothing about this altered appearance in itself that could be called odious. Had she been always so, one would have set her down merely as a beautiful and stupid woman of lymphatic type. But there was something inexpressibly repugnant about such a change in such a being; it was as though the vivid soul had been withdrawn.

All charm, all personal force had departed. It needed an effort to recall her quaint, vivacious talk of an hour ago, now that she sat looking vaguely at the table before her, and uttering occasionally a blank monosyllable in reply to the discourse that Mr Scheffer poured into her ear. She helped herself from the dishes handed to her; some she refused; she made a fairly good dinner in a lifeless way. It was not, Trent told himself, that anything abnormal was done. It was the staring fact that Lady Bosworth was not herself, but someone wholly of another kind, that opened a new and unknown spring of revulsion in the recesses of his heart.

Mrs Stone, with whom he had been talking uninterruptedly as he watched, caught his eye.

‘We don’t notice it,’ she murmured, quickly.

An hour later Mrs Lancey carried Trent off to a garden seat facing the lake.

‘Well?’ she said, quietly, glancing back into the drawing-room.

‘It’s very strange and rather ghastly,’ he answered, nursing his knee. ‘But if you hadn’t told me it puzzled you, I should have thought it was easy to find an explanation.’

‘Drugs, you mean?’ He nodded. ‘Of course everybody must think so. George does, I know. It’s horrible!’ declared Mrs Lancey, with a thump on the arm of the seat. ‘Agatha Stone began hinting at it after the first few days. I told her it was a sort of nervous attack Isabel had been subject to from a child, which was a lie, and of course she didn’t believe it. Gossiping cat! She loathes Isabel, and she’ll spread it round everywhere that my sister is a drug fiend. How I hate her!’

‘But you do believe it isn’t that?’

‘Philip, I don’t know what to believe. Listen, now! The morning after the second time it happened, I asked her what was the matter with her. She said she didn’t know; she began to feel stupid and strange soon after dinner began. It had never happened to her before until she came to us here. It wasn’t either a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling, she said; she just felt indifferent to everything, and completely lazy. Then I asked her point blank if she was taking anything that could account for it. She was much offended at that; told me I had known her long enough to know she never had done and never would do such a thing. And it is certain that it would be utterly against all I ever knew of her. Besides, she denied it; and, though Isabel has her faults, she’s absolutely truthful.’

Trent looked on the ground. ‘Yes, but you may have heard—’

‘Oh, I know! They say that kind of habit makes people lie and deceive who never did before. But you see, she is so completely herself, except just at this time. I simply couldn’t make up my mind to disbelieve her. And besides, why should she ever start such a practice? I don’t see how she would have been drawn into it. If Bella is peculiar about anything, it’s clean, wholesome, hygienic living. She was always that way as a girl, but she was studying to be a doctor, you know, when she met her husband, and that made her ever so much worse. She has every sort of carbolicky idea. She never uses scent or powder or any kind of before-and-after stuff, never puts anything on her hair; she is washing herself from morning till night, but she always uses ordinary yellow soap. She never touches anything alcoholic, or tea, or coffee. You wouldn’t think she had that kind of fad to look at her and her clothes, but she has; and I can’t think of anything in the world she would despise more than dosing herself with things.’

‘Not any kind of cosmetic whatever? That is surprising. Well, it seems to suit her,’ Trent remarked. ‘When she isn’t like this, she is one of the most radiant creatures I ever saw.’

‘I know, and that’s what makes it so irritating for women like myself, who look absolute hags if they don’t assist nature a little. She’s always been as strong as a horse and bursting with vitality, and her looks have never shown the slightest sign of going off. And now this thing has come to her, absolutely suddenly and without warning.’

‘How long has it been going on?’

‘This is the seventh evening. I entreated her to see a doctor, but she hates the idea of being doctored. She says it’s sure to pass off and that it doesn’t make any difference to her general health. It’s true that she is quite well and lively all the rest of the time; but even if that is so, of course you can see how serious it is for a woman. It means that people shun her. She hasn’t realized it yet, but I can see our friends are revolted by the sight of these fits of hers, which they naturally account for in the obvious way. And Bella hasn’t any pleasure in life without society—especially men’s. But it’s come to this, that George, who has always been devoted to her, only talks to her now with an effort. Randolph Stone is just the same; and two days before you arrived the Illingworths and Captain Burrows both went earlier than they had intended—I’m certain, because this change in Isabel was spoiling their visit for them.’

‘She seems to get on remarkably well with Scheffer,’ remarked Trent.

‘I know—it’s extraordinary, but he seems more struck with her than ever.’

‘Well, he is, but in a lizard-hearted way of his own. He and I were talking just now after you left the dining-room. I had said something about the art of primitive peoples, and he took me aside soon afterwards and gave me more ideas on the subject in ten minutes than I’d ever heard in all my life. Then he began suddenly to speak of Lady Bosworth in a queer, semi-scientific sort of way, saying she was the nearest approach to a perfect female physiology he had ever seen among civilized and educated woman; and he went on to ask if I had noticed her strangeness during dinner. I said: “Yes,” of course; and he said it was very interesting to a medical man like himself. You didn’t tell me he was one.’

‘I didn’t know. George calls him an anthropologist, and disagrees with him about the races of Farther India. George says it’s the one thing he does know something about, having lived there twelve years governing the poor things. They took to each other at once when they met last year, and when I asked him to stay here he was quite delighted. He only begged to be allowed to bring his cockatoo, as it could not live without him.’

‘Strange pet for a man,’ Trent observed. ‘He was showing off its paces to me this afternoon. It’s a mischievous fowl, and as clever as a monkey. Well, it seems he’s greatly interested in these attacks of hers. He has seen nothing quite like them. But he is convinced the thing is due to what he calls a toxic agent of some sort. As to what, or how, or why, he is absolutely at a loss.’

‘Then you must find out what, and how, and why, Philip. I’m glad Scheffer isn’t so easily upset as the other men; it’s so much better for Isabel. She finds him very interesting, of course; not only because he’s the only man here who pays her a lot of attention but because he really is a wonderful person. He’s lived for years among the most appalling savages in Dutch New Guinea, doing scientific work for his government, and according to George they treat him like a sort of god; he’s somehow got the reputation among them that he can kill a man by pointing his finger at him, and he can manage the natives as nobody else can. He’s most attractive and quite kind really, I think, but there’s something about him that makes me afraid of him.’

‘What is it?’

‘I think it is the frosty look in his eyes,’ replied Mrs Lancey, drawing her shoulders together in a shiver.

‘You share the public opinion of Dutch New Guinea, in fact,’ said Trent. ‘Did you tell me, Edith, that your sister began to be like this the very first evening she came here?’

‘Yes. And it had never happened before, she declares.’

‘She came out from England with the Stones, didn’t she?’

‘Only the last part of the journey. They got on the train at Lucerne.’

Trent looked back into the drawing-room at the wistful face of Mrs Stone, who was playing piquet with her host. She was slight and pretty, with large, appealing eyes that never lost their melancholy, though she was always smiling.

‘You say she loathes Lady Bosworth,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s mainly Bella’s own fault,’ confessed Mrs Lancey, with a grimace. ‘You may as well know, Philip—you’ll soon find out, anyhow—the truth is she will flirt with any man that she doesn’t actively dislike. She’s so brimful of life she can’t hold herself in—or she won’t, rather; she says there’s no harm in it, and she doesn’t care if there is. Before her marriage she didn’t go on in that way, but since it turned out badly she has been simply uncivilized on that point. And her being perfectly clear-headed about it makes it seem so much worse. Several times she has practised on Randolph, and, although he’s a perfectly safe old donkey if there ever was one, Agatha can’t bear the sight of her.’

‘She seems quite friendly with her,’ Trent observed.

Mrs Lancey produced through her delicate nostrils a sound that expressed a scorn for which there were no words. There was a short silence.

‘Well, what do you make of it, Philip?’ his hostess asked at length. ‘Myself, I simply don’t know what to think. These queer fits of hers frighten me horribly. There’s one dreadful idea, you see, that keeps occurring to me. Could it, perhaps, be’—Mrs Lancey lowered her already low tone—‘the beginning of insanity?’

He spoke reassuringly. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t cherish that fancy. There are other things much more likely and much less terrible. And there are some things we can do, too, and do at once. Look here, Edith, you know I hate explaining my own ideas until I’m sure there’s something in them. Will you try to arrange certain things for tomorrow, without asking me why? And don’t let anybody know I asked you to do it—not even George. Until later on, at least. Will you?’

‘How exciting!’ Mrs Lancey breathed. ‘Yes, of course, mystery-man. What do you want me to do?’

‘Do you think you could manage things tomorrow so that you and I and Lady Bosworth could go out in the motorboat on the lake for an hour or two in the evening, getting back in time to change for dinner—just the three of us and the engineer? Could that be worked quite naturally?’

She pondered. ‘It might be. George and Randolph are playing golf at Cadenabbia tomorrow. I might arrange an expedition in the afternoon for Agatha and Mr Scheffer, and let Bella know I wanted her to stay with me. You could lose yourself after breakfast with your sketching things, I dare say, and return for tea. Then the three of us could run down in the boat to San Marmette—it’s a lovely little place—and be back before seven. In this weather it’s really the best time of day for the lake.’

‘That would do admirably, if you could work it. And one thing more—if we do go as you suggest, I want you privately to tell your engineer to do just what I ask him to do—no matter what it is. He’s an Italian, isn’t he? Yes, then he’ll be deeply interested.’

Mrs Lancey worked it without difficulty. At five o’clock the two ladies and Trent, with a powerful young man of superb manners at the steering-wheel, were gliding swiftly southward, mile after mile, down the long lake. They landed at the most picturesque, and perhaps the most dilapidated and dirtiest, of all the lakeside villages, where in the tiny square above the landing-place a score of dusky infants were treading the measures and chanting the words of one of the immemorial games of childhood. While Mrs Lancey and her sister watched them in delight Trent spoke rapidly to the young engineer, whose gleaming eyes and teeth flashed understanding.

Soon afterward they strolled through San Marmette, and up the mountain road to a little church, half a mile away, where a curious fresco could be seen.

It was close on half past six when they returned, to be met by Giuseppe, voluble in excitement and apology. It appeared that while he had been fraternizing with the keeper of the inn by the landing-place a certain triste individue had, unseen by anyone, been tampering maliciously with the engine of the boat, and had poured handfuls of dust into the delicate mechanism. Mrs Lancey, who had received a private nod from Trent, reproved him bitterly for leaving the boat, and asked how long it would take to get the engine working again.

Giuseppe, overwhelmed with contrition, feared that it might be a matter of hours. Questioned, he said that the public steamer had arrived and departed twenty minutes since; the next one, the last of the day, was not due until after nine. Their excellencies could at least count on getting home by that, if the engine was not ready sooner. Questioned further, he said that one could telephone from the post office, and that food creditably cooked was to be had at the trattoria.

Lady Bosworth was delighted. She declared that she would not have missed this occasion for anything. She had come to approve highly of Trent, who had made himself excellent company, and she saw her way to being quite admirable, for she was in dancing spirits. In ten minutes she was on the best of terms with the fat, vivacious woman of the inn. Trent, who had been dispatched to telephone their plight to George Lancey, and had added that they were enjoying it very much, returned to find Lady Bosworth in the little garden behind the inn, with her skirts pinned up, peeling potatoes and singing ‘Il segreto per esse felice,’ while her sister beat up something in a bowl, and the landlady, busy with cooking, laughed and screamed cheerful observations from the kitchen. Seeing himself unemployable, Trent withdrew; sitting on a convenient wall, he took a leaf from his sketchbook and began to devise and decorate a menu of an absurdity suited to the spirit of the hour.

It was a more than cheerful dinner that they had under a canopy of vine-leaves on a tiny terrace overlooking the lake. Twilight came on unnoticed. It was already dark when Trent, returning from an inspection of the boat, advised that they should return by the steamer if they would make sure of getting home that night; it would take an hour, but it would be safer. And presently there was a long-drawn hoot from down the lake, and a great black mass crowned with a galaxy of yellow lights came moving smoothly through the darkness.

It was as they sought for places on the crowded upper deck that Mrs Lancey put her hand on Trent’s arm. ‘There hasn’t been a sign of it all evening,’ she whispered. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means,’ murmured Trent, ‘that we got her away from the cause at the critical time, without anybody knowing we were going to do it.’

‘Whom do you mean by “anybody”?’

‘How on earth should I know? Here comes your sister.’

It was not until the following afternoon that Trent found an opportunity of being alone with his hostess in the garden.

‘She is perfectly delighted at having escaped it last night,’ said Mrs Lancey. ‘She says she knew it would pass off, but she hasn’t the least notion how she was cured. Nor have I.’

‘She isn’t,’ replied Trent. ‘Last night was only a beginning and we can’t get her unexpectedly stranded for the evening every day. The next move can be made now, if you consent to it. Lady Bosworth will be out until this evening, I believe?’