Death in Silhouette. John Russell Fearn

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of circumstances! A hot day, and an engagement—both demanding a drink.… Mother, we’ve some port somewhere put aside for Christmas. Where is it?”

      “In the cellar, dear. But what do we do for Christmas?”

      “Buy some more, if we can.” Mr. Taylor grinned widely. “The cellar, eh? Right! Keith, my boy, you’re coming with me.”

      “Eh? Where?” Keith looked surprised. “In the cellar?”

      “Sure. Come on; I’ve something to say to you.”

      Keith shrugged and left the room behind Mr. Taylor’s lumbering figure. Two strides took them across the hall to a door set in the side of the stairs. It was locked, a key projecting from it. Taylor turned the key, opened the door wide, and switched on the light at the top of a curving wooden staircase. He went down it briskly and Keith followed him. At the base of the stairs they came into the glow of the single electric bulb depending from a short flex.

      Keith slowed to a halt, looking about him, whilst Mr. Taylor went to the copper and from inside it took out a bottle of wine. He considered it and chuckled hugely.

      Absently Keith glanced around the cool, brick-walled, concrete-floored expanse. There was a rusty old wringer, a clothes-rope hanging on a nail, a chair without a back—and that was all. Mrs. Taylor preferred the depredations of a laundry to washing at home. The door that presumably led to a contiguous cellar had been screwed up. Nearly opposite the base of the staircase was an empty fireplace with rusty iron bars, and a wide old-fashioned type of chimney flue.

      “Now, my lad.…”

      Keith gave a start. He had been looking at a staple in a beam that crossed the ceiling. For a moment his thoughts had strayed to the time when hams had been plentiful.

      “Just a word,” Mr. Taylor said, his round pink face full of good humour. “Just to tell you what I couldn’t tell you up there. I’m mighty glad you’re having Pat. Mighty glad! I’ve got an idea about fixing a surprise present for you both later on.” He squeezed Keith’s arm. “You’re just the right chap. Damnit, I’ve known your dad for years, haven’t I?”

      “I’m glad you approve,” Keith said, smiling. “It’s an awkward moment announcing it. Pat was decent enough to do it for me.”

      “That’s Pat all over! Always taking things on her own shoulders. Well, come on; they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”

      When they returned to the living room they found that Mrs. Taylor had produced five wineglasses from the cupboard and was busy polishing them.

      “It took you a long time, Harry,” she complained. “What did you two have to talk about?”

      “Never mind,” Mr. Taylor grinned, fishing a corkscrew out of the silver basket. In another moment he had the bottle open.

      “Don’t include me,” Gregory said, motioning to his cup of tea. “I don’t like wine at the best of times, and certainly not in the middle of my tea.”

      “Hang it all, Greg, the least you can do is drink to your sister’s happiness,” Mr. Taylor complained, his huge bulk looming over the glasses as he filled them.

      “Well.…” Gregory gave a sigh. “All right—just this once.”

      Mr. Taylor put down the wine bottle with an emphatic bump. Raising the filled glasses, he handed them over ceremoniously one by one.

      “To both of you,” he said to Pat and Keith, his brown eyes twinkling. “Only please don’t follow the usual procedure and smash the glasses afterwards. They cost a mint, even as far back as when your mother and I were married.”

      The wine was drunk and the glasses returned to the table.

      An impressive quiet dropped for a moment.

      “I—I think this is mighty nice of all of you,” Keith said at last. “As I said to Mr. Taylor in the cellar, I wasn’t quite sure how you’d accept the idea. Though of course you must have known that Pat and I felt that way about each other.”

      “Yes, we knew,” Mrs. Taylor acknowledged, and her smiling face was like a rosy apple. “And what do you mean—you weren’t quite sure? Your father is a friend of ours, isn’t he? It isn’t as though you’re a stranger. Personally, I think it’s a mighty fine match, don’t you, Harry?”

      Mr. Taylor was nodding vigorously. “Couldn’t be finer. When is it to be? Decided yet?”

      “We thought about three months,” Keith answered. “When I get my next pay rise. I expect it’ll be hard going at first trying to get settled down—but then, it’s the same for all young couples these days. We’ll get by.”

      “’Course you will!” Mr. Taylor declared heartily. “Getting married’s a problem whichever way you look at it, but with support on both sides you’ll be all right.”

      “Both sides?” Keith repeated vaguely.

      “Well, certainly! Your father and us.”

      “Oh yes—of course.” Keith gave a peculiar smile to himself and hesitated. Then he made a half move towards the door. “I’d better get along and tell Dad what’s happened. He won’t approve, of course—”

      “He’d better!” Mr. Taylor said ominously. “Won’t approve, indeed! Huh! Why not?”

      “Oh, he just doesn’t approve of anything. It’s a sort of principle with him—”

      “I’ll go home with you,” Pat intervened. “If he won’t listen to you, he will to me. I’ll see to that!”

      “But what about your tea, dear?” her mother exclaimed. “You have been working all day and those restaurant meals always leave you hungry.”

      “I’ll have tea when I get back.” Pat gave a smile. “Who on earth can think of tea at a time like this?” She caught Keith’s arm impulsively. “Come along, Keith—let’s go and tell your dad.”

      He shrugged. “As you like, but I’m afraid he’ll take it the hard way.”

      They left the room with their arms about each other and a moment later there was the thud of the front door closing. Mr. Taylor gazed absently before him and pulled out his pipe. With his penknife he scraped the ashes from the bowl into the fire grate.

      “They’re born, they grow up, they marry,” he said, musing. “Funny thing, you can sort of picture marriage and home-leaving happening to other people’s children, but not to your own. Pat engaged to be married.… Well, well.”

      “It’s a pity she doesn’t use her head a bit more,” Gregory said He folded his table napkin neatly and laid it on one side. With the same methodical movements be produced a cigarette and looked at it. His father gazed down on him thoughtfully.

      “Use her head, Greg? How d’you mean?”

      “Simply that there are hundreds of men who’d make her a much better husband than Keith Robinson.”

      “Plenty who’d make her a worse one, too! СКАЧАТЬ