The Doings of Raffles Haw. Артур Конан Дойл

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СКАЧАТЬ foresight, old McIntyre struggled into his great-coat and wrapped his scarf round his long thin throat. A sharp gust of cold wind made the lamps flicker as he threw open the hall-door. His two children listened to the dull fall of his footsteps as he slowly picked out the winding garden path.

      “He gets worse – he becomes intolerable,” said Robert at last. “We should not have let him out; he may make a public exhibition of himself.”

      “But it’s Hector’s last night,” pleaded Laura. “It would be dreadful if they met and he noticed anything. That was why I wished him to go.”

      “Then you were only just in time,” remarked her brother, “for I hear the gate go, and – yes, you see.”

      As he spoke a cheery hail came from outside, with a sharp rat-tat at the window. Robert stepped out and threw open the door to admit a tall young man, whose black frieze jacket was all mottled and glistening with snow crystals. Laughing loudly he shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and kicked the snow from his boots before entering the little lamplit room.

      Hector Spurling’s profession was written in every line of his face. The clean-shaven lip and chin, the little fringe of side whisker, the straight decisive mouth, and the hard weather-tanned cheeks all spoke of the Royal Navy. Fifty such faces may be seen any night of the year round the mess-table of the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth Dockyard – faces which bear a closer resemblance to each other than brother does commonly to brother. They are all cast in a common mould, the products of a system which teaches early self-reliance, hardihood, and manliness – a fine type upon the whole; less refined and less intellectual, perhaps, than their brothers of the land, but full of truth and energy and heroism. In figure he was straight, tall, and well-knit, with keen grey eyes, and the sharp prompt manner of a man who has been accustomed both to command and to obey.

      “You had my note?” he said, as he entered the room. “I have to go again, Laura. Isn’t it a bore? Old Smithers is short-handed, and wants me back at once.” He sat down by the girl, and put his brown hand across her white one. “It won’t be a very large order this time,” he continued. “It’s the flying squadron business – Madeira, Gibraltar, Lisbon, and home. I shouldn’t wonder if we were back in March.”

      “It seems only the other day that you landed.” she answered.

      “Poor little girl! But it won’t be long. Mind you take good care of her, Robert when I am gone. And when I come again, Laura, it will be the last time mind! Hang the money! There are plenty who manage on less. We need not have a house. Why should we? You can get very nice rooms in Southsea at 2 pounds a week. McDougall, our paymaster, has just married, and he only gives thirty shillings. You would not be afraid, Laura?”

      “No, indeed.”

      “The dear old governor is so awfully cautious. Wait, wait, wait, that’s always his cry. I tell him that he ought to have been in the Government Heavy Ordnance Department. But I’ll speak to him tonight. I’ll talk him round. See if I don’t. And you must speak to your own governor. Robert here will back you up. And here are the ports and the dates that we are due at each. Mind that you have a letter waiting for me at every one.”

      He took a slip of paper from the side pocket of his coat, but, instead of handing it to the young lady, he remained staring at it with the utmost astonishment upon his face.

      “Well, I never!” he exclaimed. “Look here, Robert; what do you call this?”

      “Hold it to the light. Why, it’s a fifty-pound Bank of England note. Nothing remarkable about it that I can see.”

      “On the contrary. It’s the queerest thing that ever happened to me. I can’t make head or tail of it.”

      “Come, then, Hector,” cried Miss McIntyre with a challenge in her eyes. “Something very queer happened to me also to-day. I’ll bet a pair of gloves that my adventure was more out of the common than yours, though I have nothing so nice to show at the end of it.”

      “Come, I’ll take that, and Robert here shall be the judge.”

      “State your cases.” The young artist shut up his sketch-book, and rested his head upon his hands with a face of mock solemnity. “Ladies first! Go along Laura, though I think I know something of your adventure already.”

      “It was this morning, Hector,” she said. “Oh, by the way, the story will make you wild. I had forgotten that. However, you mustn’t mind, because, really, the poor fellow was perfectly mad.”

      “What on earth was it?” asked the young officer, his eyes travelling from the bank-note to his fiancee.

      “Oh, it was harmless enough, and yet you will confess it was very queer. I had gone out for a walk, but as the snow began to fall I took shelter under the shed which the workmen have built at the near end of the great new house. The men have gone, you know, and the owner is supposed to be coming to-morrow, but the shed is still standing. I was sitting there upon a packing-case when a man came down the road and stopped under the same shelter. He was a quiet, pale-faced man, very tall and thin, not much more than thirty, I should think, poorly dressed, but with the look and bearing of a gentleman. He asked me one or two questions about the village and the people, which, of course, I answered, until at last we found ourselves chatting away in the pleasantest and easiest fashion about all sorts of things. The time passed so quickly that I forgot all about the snow until he drew my attention to its having stopped for the moment. Then, just as I was turning to go, what in the world do you suppose that he did? He took a step towards me, looked in a sad pensive way into my face, and said: `I wonder whether you could care for me if I were without a penny.’ Wasn’t it strange? I was so frightened that I whisked out of the shed, and was off down the road before he could add another word. But really, Hector, you need not look so black, for when I look back at it I can quite see from his tone and manner that he meant no harm. He was thinking aloud, without the least intention of being offensive. I am convinced that the poor fellow was mad.”

      “Hum! There was some method in his madness, it seems to me,” remarked her brother.

      “There would have been some method in my kicking,” said the lieutenant savagely. “I never heard of a more outrageous thing in my life.”

      “Now, I said that you would be wild!” She laid her white hand upon the sleeve of his rough frieze jacket. “It was nothing. I shall never see the poor fellow again. He was evidently a stranger to this part of the country. But that was my little adventure. Now let us have yours.”

      The young man crackled the bank-note between his fingers and thumb, while he passed his other hand over his hair with the action of a man who strives to collect himself.

      “It is some ridiculous mistake,” he said. “I must try and set it right. Yet I don’t know how to set about it either. I was going down to the village from the Vicarage just after dusk when I found a fellow in a trap who had got himself into broken water. One wheel had sunk into the edge of the ditch which had been hidden by the snow, and the whole thing was high and dry, with a list to starboard enough to slide him out of his seat. I lent a hand, of course, and soon had the wheel in the road again. It was quite dark, and I fancy that the fellow thought that I was a bumpkin, for we did not exchange five words. As he drove off he shoved this into my hand. It is the merest chance that I did not chuck it away, for, feeling that it was a crumpled piece of paper, I imagined that it must be a tradesman’s advertisement or something of the kind. However, as luck would have it, I put it in my pocket, and there I found it when I looked for the dates of our cruise. Now you know as much of the matter as I do.”

      Brother and sister stared at the black and white crinkled note with astonishment upon СКАЧАТЬ