CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ badly, that I was an alien, and that the hand of the law was against me. I talked wildly then, perhaps. When I put up my sign and sat down for clients, I meant to cheat the law, if I could. Things have changed, Violet. I want nothing of that sort. I have kept my hands clean and I mean to do so. Why, years ago,” he continued, “when I was feeling at my wildest, these very jewels were within my grasp one foggy night, and I never touched them.”

      “What would happen if you refused to help?”

      “I do not know,” Peter Ruff answered. “The conditions are a little severe. But, after all, there are no hard and fast rules. It rests with the Marquis himself to shrug his shoulders and appreciate my position. Perhaps he may not even exchange a word with me. Here is Lord Sotherst coming to talk to you, and Captain Hamilton is waiting for me to tell him an address. Remember, don’t recognize Sogrange.”

      Dinner that night was an unusually cheerful meal. Peter Ruff, who was an excellent raconteur, told many stories. The Marquis de Sogrange was perhaps the next successful in his efforts to entertain his neighbors. Violet found him upon her left hand, and although he showed not the slightest signs of having ever seen her before, they were very soon excellent friends. After dinner, Sogrange and Peter Ruff drifted together on their way to the billiard-room. Sogrange, however, continued to talk courteously of trifles until, having decided to watch the first game, they found themselves alone on the leather divan surrounding the room.

      “This is an unexpected pleasure, my friend,” Sogrange said, watching the ash of his cigar. “Professional?”

      Peter Ruff shook his head. “Not in the least,” he answered. “I have had the good fortune to render Lady Mary and her brother, at different times, services which they are pleased to value highly. We are here as ordinary guests—my wife and I.” The Marquis sighed.

      “Ah, that wife of yours, Ruff,” he said. “She is charming, I admit, and you are a lucky man; but it was a price—a very great price to pay.”

      “You, perhaps, are ambitious, Marquis,” Peter Ruff answered. “I have not done so badly. A little contents me.”

      Sogrange looked at him as though he were some strange creature.

      “I see!” he murmured. “I see! With you, of course, the commercial side comes uppermost. Mr. Ruff, what do you suppose the income from my estate amounts to?” Peter Ruff shook his head. He did not even know that the Marquis was possessed of estates!

      “Somewhere about seven millions of francs,” Sogrange declared. “There are few men in Paris more extravagant than I, and I think that we Frenchmen know what extravagance means. But I cannot spend my income. Do you think that it is for the sake of gain that I have come across the Channel to add the Clenarvon diamonds to our coffers?”

      Peter Ruff sat very still.

      “You mean that?” he said.

      “Of course!” Sogrange answered. “Didn’t you realize it directly you saw me? What is there, do you think, in a dull English house-party to attract a man like myself? Don’t you understand that it is the gambler’s instinct—the restless desire to be playing pitch-and-toss with fate, with honor, with life and death, if you will—that brings such as myself into the ranks of the ‘Double-Four’? It is the weariness which kills, Peter Ruff. One must needs keep it from one’s bones.”

      “Marquis,” Peter Ruff answered, “I do not profess to understand you. I am not weary of life, in fact I love it. I am looking forward to the years when I have enough money—and it seems as though that time is not far off—when I can buy a little place in the country, and hunt a little and shoot a little, and live a simple out-of-door life. You see, Marquis, we are as far removed as the poles.”

      “Obviously!” Sogrange answered.

      “Your confidence,” Peter Ruff continued, “the confidence with which you have honored me, inspires me to make you one request. I am here, indeed, as a friend of the family. You will not ask me to help in any designs you may have against the Clenarvon jewels?”

      Sogrange leaned back in his chair and laughed softly. His lips, when they parted from his white teeth, resolved themselves into lines which at that moment seemed to Peter Ruff more menacing than mirthful. Sogrange was, in many ways, a man of remarkable appearance.

      “Oh, Peter Ruff,” he said, “you are a bourgeois little person! You should have been the burgomaster in a little German town, or a French mayor with a chain about your neck. We will see. I make no promises. All that I insist upon, for the present, is that you do not leave this house-party without advising me—that is to say, if you are really looking forward to that pleasant life in the country, where you will hunt a little and shoot a little, and grow into the likeness of a vegetable. You, with your charming wife! Peter Ruff, you should be ashamed to talk like that! Come, I must play bridge with the Countess. I am engaged for a table.”

      The two men parted. Peter Ruff was uneasy. On his way from the room, Lord Sotherst insisted upon his joining a pool.

      “Charming fellow, Sogrange,” the latter remarked, as he chalked his cue. “He has been a great friend of the governor’s—he and his father before him. Our families have intermarried once or twice.”

      “He seems very agreeable,” Peter Ruff answered, devoting himself to the game.

      The following night, being the last but one before the wedding itself, a large dinner-party had been arranged for, and the resources of even so princely a mansion as Clenarvon Court were strained to their utmost by the entertainment of something like one hundred guests in the great banqueting-hall. The meal was about half-way through when those who were not too entirely engrossed in conversation were startled by hearing a dull, rumbling sound, like the moving of a number of pieces of heavy furniture. People looked doubtfully at one another. Peter Ruff and the Marquis de Sogrange were among the first to spring to their feet.

      “It’s an explosion somewhere,” the latter cried. “Sounds close at hand, too.”

      They made their way out into the hall. Exactly opposite now was the room in which the wedding presents had been placed, and where for days nothing had been seen but a closed door and a man on duty outside. The door now stood wide open, and in place of the single electric light which was left burning through the evening, the place seemed almost aflame.

      Ruff, Sogrange and Lord Sotherst were the first three to cross the threshold. They were met by a rush of cold wind. Opposite to them, two of the windows, with their boardings, had been blown away. Sergeant Saunders was still sitting in his usual place at the end of the table, his head bent upon his folded arms. The man who had been on duty outside was standing over him, white with horror. Far away in the distance, down the park, one could faintly hear the throbbing of an engine, and Peter Ruff, through the chasm, saw the lights of a great motor-car flashing in and out amongst the trees. The room itself—the whole glittering array of presents—seemed untouched. Only the great center-piece—the Clenarvon diamonds—had gone. Even as they stood there, the rest of the guests crowding into the open door, John Dory tore through, his face white with excitement. Peter Ruff’s calm voice penetrated the din of tongues.

      “Lord Sotherst,” he said, “you have telephones in the keepers’ lodges. There is a motor-car being driven southwards at full speed. Telephone down, and have your gates secured. Dory, I should keep every one out of the room. Some one must telephone for a doctor. I suppose your man has been hurt.”

      The guests were wild with curiosity, but Lord Clenarvon, with an insistent gesture, led the way back to the diningroom.

СКАЧАТЬ