The Christmas Conundrum (20 Thrillers in One Edition). Артур Конан Дойл

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СКАЧАТЬ "but I was just off too."

      We reached Marseilles. I rejoiced to see its almond-trees and its white villas. I should feel safer when I was on board ship, and my treasure with me. I was not of a suspicious temperament, but I had thought it remarkable that during that long journey from Lyons to the seaboard, I had never fallen asleep without waking and finding an eye upon me—either the major's or his wife's. Levison had slept during the last four hours incessantly. Latterly, we had all of us grown silent, and even rather sullen. Now we brightened up.

      "Hôtel de Londres! Hôtel de l'Univers! Hôtel Impérial!" cried the touts, as we stood round our luggage, agreeing to keep together.

      "Hôtel Impérial, of course," said the major; "best house."

      A one-eyed saturnine half-caste tout shrunk up to us.

      "Hôtel Impérial, sare. I am Hôtel Impérial; all full; not a bed; no—pas de tout—no use, sare!"

      "Hang it! the steamer will be the next thing to fail."

      "Steamer, sare—accident with boiler; won't start till minuit et vingt minutes—half-past midnight, sare."

      "Where shall we go?" said I, turning round and smiling at the three blank faces of my companions. "Our journey seems doomed to be unlucky. Let us redeem it by a parting supper. My telegraphing done, I am free till half-past eleven."

      "I will take you," said Levison, " to a small but very decent hotel down by the harbour. The Hôtel des Etrangers."

      "Curséd low nasty crib—gambling place!" said the major, lighting a cheroot, as he got into an open fly.

      Mr. Levison drew himself up in his punctilious way. "Sir," he said, "the place is in new hands, or I would not have recommended the house, you may rely upon it."

      "Sir," said the major, lifting his broad-brimmed white hat, "I offer you my apologies. I was not aware of that."

      "My dear sir, never mention the affair again."

      "Major, you're a hot-headed simpleton," were Mrs. B.'s last words, as we drove off together.

      As we entered a bare-looking salon with a dinner-table in the middle and a dingy billiard-table at one end, the major said to me, "I shall go and wash and dress for the theatre, and then take a stroll while you do your telegraphing. Go up first, Julia, and see the rooms."

      "What slaves we poor women are!" said Mrs. B., as she sailed out.

      "And I," said Levison, laying down his railway rug, "shall go out and try and do some business before the shops shut. We have agents here in the Canabière."

      "Only two double-bedded rooms, sare," said the one-eyed tout, who stood over the luggage.

      "That will do," said Levison, promptly, and with natural irritation at our annoyances. "My friend goes by the boat tonight; he does not sleep here. His luggage can be put in my room, and he can take the key, in case he comes in first,"

      "Then now we are all right," said the major. "So far, so good!"

      When I got to the telegraph-office, I found a telegram from London awaiting me. To my surprise and horror, it contained only these words:

      "You are in great danger. Do not wait a moment on shore. There is a plot against you. Apply to the prefect for a guard."

      It must be the major, and I was in his hands! That rough hearty manner of his was all a trick. Even now, he might be carrying off the chests. I telegraphed back:

      "Safe at Marseilles. All right up to this."

      Thinking of the utter ruin of our house if I were robbed, and of dear Minnie, I flew back to the hotel, which was situated in a dirty narrow street near the harbour. As I turned down the street, a man darted from a doorway and seized my arm. It was one of the waiters. He said hurriedly, in French: "Quick, quick, monsieur; Major Baxter is anxious to see you, instantly, in the salon. There is no time to lose."

      I ran to the hotel, and darted into the salon. There was the major pacing up and down in extraordinary excitement; his wife was looking anxiously out of window. The manner of both was entirely changed. The major ran up and seized me by the hand. "I am a detective officer, and my name is Arnott," he said. "That man Levison is a notorious thief. He is at this moment in his room, opening one of your specie chests. You must help me to nab him. I knew his little game, and have check-mated him. But I wanted to catch him in the act. Julia, finish that brandy-and-water while Mr. Blamyre and myself transact our business. Have you got a revolver, Mr. Blamyre, in case he shows fight? I prefer this." (He pulled out a staff.) "I have left my revolver in the bedroom," I breathlessly exclaimed.

      "That's bad; never mind, he is not likely to hit us in the flurry. He may not even think of it. You must rush at the door at the same moment as I do. These foreign locks are never any good. It's No. 15. Gently!"

      We came to the door. We listened a moment. We could hear the sound of money chinking in a bag. Then a low dry laugh, as Levison chuckled over the word he had heard me utter in my sleep. " Cotopaxo—ha! ha!"

      The major gave the word, and we both rushed at the door. It shook, splintered, was driven in. Levison, revolver in hand, stood over the open box, ankle deep in gold. He had already filled a huge digger's belt that was round his waist, and a courier's bag that hung at his side. A carpet-bag, half full, lay at his feet, and, as he let it fall to open the window bolt, it gushed forth a perfect torrent of gold. He did not utter a word. There were ropes at the window, as if he had been lowering, or preparing to lower, bags into the side alley. He gave a whistle, and some vehicle could be heard to drive furiously off.

      "Surrender, you gallows-bird! I know you," cried the major. "Surrender! I've got you now, old boy."

      Levison's only reply was to pull the trigger of the revolver; fortunately, there was no discharge. I had forgotten to cap it.

      "The infernal thing is not capped. One for you, Bobby," he said quietly. Then hurling it at the major with a sudden fury, he threw open the window and leaped out.

      I leaped after him—it was a ground floor room—raising a hue and cry. Arnott remained to guard the money.

      A moment more and a wild rabble of soldiers, sailors, mongrel idlers, and porters, were pursuing the flying wretch with screams and hoots, as in the dim light (the lamps were just beginning to be kindled) we tore after him, doubling and twisting like a hare, among the obstacles that crowded the quay. Hundreds of blows were aimed at him; hundreds of hands were stretched to seize him; he wrested himself from one; he felled another; he leaped over a third; a Zouave's clutch was all but on him, when suddenly his foot caught in a mooring ring, and he fell headlong into the harbour. There was a shout as he splashed and disappeared in the dark water, near which the light of only one lamp moved and glittered. I ran down the nearest steps and waited while the gendarmes took a boat and stolidly dragged with hooks for the body.

      "They are foxes, these old thieves. I remember this man here at Toulon. I saw him branded. I knew his face again in a moment. He has dived under the shipping, got into some barge and hid. You'll never see him again," said an old grey gendarme who had taken me into the boat.

      "Yes we shall, for here he is!" cried a second, stooping down and lifting a body out of the water by the hair.

      "Oh, he was an artful file," said a man from a boat behind us. It was Arnott. "Just came СКАЧАТЬ