The Greatest Christmas Murder Mysteries & Thrillers. Джером К. Джером

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СКАЧАТЬ it blows, outside!’ said old Reuben, ‘and how snug I am, in here!’

      He unlocked the cash box, and taking it on his knee, looked down on the mask that lay inside. Gradually, the pride and pleasure at first appearing in his eyes, gave place to a dreamy fixed expression. He gently closed the lid, and reclined back in his chair; but he did not shut up the cash box for the night, for he never turned the key in the lock.

      Old recollections were crowding on him, revived by his conversation of the morning with Mr Colebatch; and now evoked by many a Shakespeare association of his own, always connected with the treasured, the inestimable mask. Tender remembrances spoke piteously and solemnly within him. Poor Columbine — lost, but never forgotten — moved loveliest and holiest of all those memory shadows, through the dim world of his waking visions. How little the grave can hide of us! The love that began before it, lasts after it. The sunlight to which our eyes looked, while it shone on earth, changes but to the star that guides our memories when it passes to heaven!

      Hark! the church clock chimes the quarters; each stroke sounds with the ghostly wildness of all bell-tones, when heard amid the tumult of a storm, but fails to startle old Reuben now. He is far away in other scenes; living again in other times. Twelve strikes; and then, when the clock bell rings its long midnight peal, he rouses — he hears that.

      The fire has died down to one, dull, red spot: he feels chilled; and sitting up in his chair, yawning, tries to summon resolution enough to rise and go upstairs to bed. His expression is just beginning to grow utterly listless and weary, when it suddenly alters. His eyes look eager again; his lips close firmly; his cheeks get pale all at once — he is listening.

      He fancies that, when the wind blows in the loudest gusts, or when the rain dashes heaviest against the window, he hears a very faint, curious sound — sometimes like a scraping noise, sometimes like a tapping noise. But in what part of the house — or even whether outside or in — he cannot tell. In the calmer moments of the storm, he listens with especial attention to find this out; but it is always at that very time that he hears nothing.

      It must be imagination. And yet, that imagination is so like a reality that it has made him shudder all over twice in the last minute.

      Surely he hears that strange noise now! Why not get up, and go to the window, and listen if the faint tapping comes by any chance from outside, in front of the house? Something seems to keep him in his chair, perfectly motionless — something makes him afraid to turn his head, for fear of seeing a sight of horror close at his side —

      Hush! it sounds again, plainer and plainer. And now it changes to a cracking noise — close by — at the shutter of the back drawing-room window.

      What is that, sliding along the crack between the folding doors and the floor? — a light! — a light in that empty room which nobody uses. And now, a whisper — footsteps — the handle on the lock of the door moves —

      ‘Help! Help! for God’s sake! — Murder! Mur — ’

      Just as that cry for help passed the old man’s lips, the two robbers, masked and armed, appeared in the room; and the next instant, Chummy Dick’s gag was fast over his mouth.

      He had the cash box clasped tight to his breast. Mad with terror, his eyes glared like a dead man’s, while he struggled in the powerful arms that held him.

      Grimes, unused to such scenes, was so petrified by astonishment at finding the old man out of bed, and the room lit up, that he stood with his pistol extended, staring helplessly through the eyeholes of his mask. Not so with his experienced leader. Chummy Dick’s ears and eyes were as quick as his hands — the first informed him that Reuben’s cry for help (skilfully as he had stifled it with the gag) had aroused some one in the house: the second instantly detected the cash box, as Mr Wray clasped it to his breast.

      ‘Put up your pop-gun, you precious yokel, you!’ whispered the housebreaker fiercely. ‘Look alive; and pull it out of his arms. Damn you! do it quick! they’re awake, up stairs!’

      It was not easy to ‘do it quick’. Weak as he was, Reuben actually held his treasure with the convulsive strength of despair, against the athletic ruffian who was struggling to get it away. Furious at the resistance, Grimes exerted his whole force, and tore the box so savagely from the old man’s grasp, that the mask of Shakespeare flew several feet away, through the open lid, before it fell, shattered into fragments on the floor.

      For an instant, Grimes stood aghast at the sight of what the contents of the cash box really were. Then, frantic with the savage passions produced by the discovery, he rushed up to the fragments, and, with a horrible oath, stamped his heavy boot upon them, as if the very plaster could feel his vengeance. ‘I’ll kill him, if I swing for it!’ cried the villain, turning on Mr Wray the next moment, and raising his horse-pistol by the barrel over the old man’s head.

      But, exactly at the same time, brave as his heroic namesake, ‘Julius Caesar’ burst into the room. In the heat of the moment, he struck at Grimes with his wounded hand. Dealt even under that disadvantage, the blow was heavy enough to hurl the fellow right across the room, till he dropped down against the opposite wall. But the triumph of the stout carpenter was a short one. Hardly a second after his adversary had fallen, he himself lay stunned on the floor by the pistol-butt of Chummy Dick.

      Even the nerve of the London housebreaker deserted him, at the first discovery of the astounding self-deception of which he and his companion had been the victims. He only recovered his characteristic coolness and self-possession when the carpenter attacked Grimes. Then, true to his system of never making unnecessary noise, or wasting unnecessary powder, he hit ‘Julius Caesar’ just behind the ear, with unerring dexterity. The blow made no sound, and seemed to be inflicted by a mere turn of the wrist; but it was decisive — he had thoroughly stunned his man.

      And now, the piercing screams of the landlady, from the bedroom floor poured quicker and quicker into the street, through the opened window. They were mingled with the fainter cries of Annie, whom the good woman forcibly detained from going into danger down stairs. The female servant (the only other inmate of the house) rivalled her mistress in shrieking madly and incessantly for help, from the window of the garret above.

      ‘The whole street will be up in a crack!’ cried Chummy Dick, swearing at every third word he uttered, and hauling the partially-recovered Grimes into an erect position again, ‘there’s no swag to be got here! step out quick, young yokel, or you’ll be nabbed!’

      He pushed Grimes into the back drawing-room; hustled him over the windowsill on to the wash-house roof, leaving him to find his own way, how he could, to the ground; and then followed, with Mr Wray’s watch and purse, and a brooch of Annie’s that had been left on the chimneypiece, all gathered into his capacious greatcoat pocket in a moment. They were not worth much as spoils; but the dexterity with which they were taken instantly with one hand, while he had Grimes to hold with the other; and the strength, coolness, and skill he displayed in managing the retreat, were worthy even of the reputation of Chummy Dick. Long before the two Tidbury watchmen had begun to think of a pursuit, the housebreaker and his companion were out of reach — even though the Bow Street Runners themselves had been on the spot to give chase. How long the old man has kept in that one position! — crouching down there in the corner of the room, without stirring a limb or uttering a word. He dropped on his knees at that place, when the robbers left him; and nothing has moved him from it since.

      When Annie broke away from the landlady, and ran down stairs — he never stirred. When the long wail of agony burst from her lips, as she saw the dead look of the brave man lying stunned on the floor — he never spoke. When the street door was opened; and the crowd of terrified, half-dressed neighbours all rushed together into the house, shouting and trampling СКАЧАТЬ