The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ by a second, who closed the door behind him.

      Now Pointer had noticed a man stroll twice past the compartment at Verona. He had a bright brass eyelet shining from his black boot. When the man in the long coat and braided cap of the conductor slid open the door, Pointer's eye was upon a similar brass eyelet in his right boot. He roused O'Connor with the danger signal of "Wake up, Tozer!" But a mistake either way would be awkward. With his left hand he slipped the tickets along the seat, the next second he caught the sham ticket-collector's wrist in a vice that sent the knife to the floor. Then they grappled. The man was a big, sinewy chap, strong as a conger eel and almost as difficult to hold. O'Connor was dealing with his companion, but he, too, was having his work cut out. Though the Englishmen did not know it, they were struggling with a couple of the most dreaded of the Naples Maffei, killers by trade, with lists of victims as long as their own arms. They fought like savages. Pointer's allotment always trying with his thumbs for the other's eyes, his teeth snapping at his throat. If Pointer and O'Connor were both well up in jiu-jitsu, these men had similar tricks handed down from the Moors of Sicily, and used by Neapolitan criminals for centuries. But there was one thing that the Englishman knew, and their assailants did not, and that was about the door. With a wrench, Pointer managed to slew his man around, and fling him against it. The Italian went hurtling out. O'Connor's man struggled desperately, but they heaved him after his friend. Then Pointer pulled the chain. He did not want the two men to possibly crawl away to safety.

      The express did not stop, but the guard, the ticket collector—the real one—and the soldier who generally accompanies Italian expresses, rushed up to the corridor door.

      "Two men came in just now, one wearing a ticket collector's cap and coat," Pointer explained "They attacked my friend and me. In our struggle the door catches must have given way. The door flew open, and the man fell on the line. I pulled the signal at once."

      "The catches are in perfect order," the conductor said trying them, "and very stiff. One goes up, the other down. If the door opened, it was opened. And how could two men fall out? The affair will be inquired into thoroughly. And how about thy cap and coat?" The guard turned to the ticket collector.

      That official's story was that taking them off to enjoy his supper more at his ease, he had hung them on a nail outside the compartment. He had just discovered their absence when the alarm signal was pulled.

      Pointer felt sure that he could have got him twisted up in his own statements in no time, had his Italian been as his English. What he felt sure had happened was a bribe, unless the man belonged to the same organisation. The soldier was left to guard the compartment, bayonet fixed, "in case of any more accidents," as the conductor said grimly. Pointer resolutely refused to show his papers, and he and O'Connor were marched off at once on arrival at Milan to the chief of the station police's room.

      When the short stop of the express was nearly over, two figures dressed in Pointer and O'Connor's travelling coats and caps got into their compartment, but as the train started they strolled down to the end and dropped off with the ease of railwaymen. Pointer had decided to wait over a train. Being a night express, their absence might not be noticed, for the officials on the train were instructed to keep their compartment locked, and the blinds drawn after the two temporary substitutes had left. As for Pointer and his friend, they spent the night in the apologetic station-master's office, which he put at their disposal, together with his dog Wolf. When they unobtrusively slipped into the buffet early next morning for a cup of coffee, and some of Milan's famous panetone, they were told of an accident which had happened to last night's express. It was a singular accident, too. Just after the frontier tunnel was left behind, the express ran past a goods' train between two Swiss stations. A slight shock was felt, and the whole side of a first-class coach was ripped open, as though by something suddenly protruded from the goods' train. Only one coach was damaged. It was the one in which the two Englishmen had been sitting. All the occupants in it were severely injured, one man being killed. The express was delayed at the next station, where the injured were attended to by some doctors who happened to be waiting at the station for another train.

      "'Happened to be waiting,' is good," was Pointer's only comment to his friend, when they took their seats next morning in an empty carriage. They were joined by other travelers who now got in, now got out, till they were left at Lausanne with a quiet, ill-looking young man, and a doctor, his anxious, attentive companion. They were French, and judging by his talk, the younger man was a consumptive back from a "cure" in the mountains which had not cured. He fell into an uneasy slumber after the train started on again, tossing and turning. Pointer and O'Connor occupied the two middle seats. The least comfortable, but the safest. Should the window seats be taken, they had arranged to stand in the corridor.

      During the war, O'Connor had come across an eye-signal language hailing from America. He and Pointer had practised it, and changed it, till they were masters of its capabilities. It was undetectable.

      Pointer occasionally glanced up from the paper which he was reading, generally looking out of the window, but sometimes at O'Connor, and sometimes at his fellow-travellers. O'Connor was equally at his ease. But they were talking hard, and this is what they were saying to each other:

      Pointer: "The right hand of the young man beside me seems to get more and more out of sight. Watch it."

      O'Connor: "I am. His companion's feet beside me look a bit braced. How about it?"

      Pointer: "When you see that right arm move forward again, give a sniff and duck. You're right. His companion next you is getting ready for a jump. I'll tackle his feet if he does."

      O'Connor: "And I'll see to—"

      Pointer and he ducked simultaneously. A shot rang out. The young man with a wild white face was shouting, "Tirez! Tirez donc! Passeront pas! Passeront pas!"

      The shot would have gone through Pointer's head from ear to ear had that essential part of his body been where it was expected to be, instead of down near his boots.

      It was charming to see how Pointer and O'Connor worked together. Never getting in each other's way, however cramped the space. Like the swing of a couple of navvies' hammers, what Thornton insisted on in life and in art, rhythm and harmony were never lost sight of. First, Pointer pulled the feet from under the pale young man. O'Connor did the same with the young man's companion. Pointer laid his kicking and screaming captive on top of O'Connor's, where they started pummelling each other. O'Connor sat on their chests, Pointer on their feet, while the occupants of the other compartments flocked to the door and tried to pull it open.

      "Third party locked it when he stood with his back to us just now. Look out for him," Pointer warned.

      But it was the genuine conductor who unlocked it with loud requests to know the meaning of this.

      "Passeront pas! Passeront pas!" shrieked the young man, trying to get his revolver.

      "Without doubt wounded in the war, and not recovered even yet!" murmured sympathetic voices in the corridor.

      "Possibly," Pointer said, getting up, "but he swore in another tongue altogether when his friend kicked him in the eye just now."

      "Here, don't claw down me socks like that," O'Connor protested indignantly; "where's your manners." He gave the young man a tap as he only sat the harder.

      "Why this treatment?" shrieked the man used as a mattress by all the three. "I am this gentleman's medical attendant. I cannot understand—I demand explanations, and—"

      "Reparations," added O'Connor under his breath. Three railway officials freed the under-dog. Pointer spoke to him reproachfully.

      "But, СКАЧАТЬ