The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ pouring off him, his ears strained to catch some fancied sound. The little clock over the fireplace ticked mercilessly, “ten years, ten years,” until he got out of bed, and after a futile attempt to stop it, wrapped it in a towel and then in a dressing-gown to still its ominous prophecy.

      All night long he lay, turning over in his mind plans, schemes, methods of escape, if escape were necessary. His bandaged head throbbed unpleasantly, but still he thought, and thought, and thought.

      If Amber had the plates, what would he do with them? It was hardly likely he would take them to the police. Blackmail, perhaps. That was more in Amber’s line. A weekly income on condition he kept his mouth shut. If that was the course adopted, it was plain sailing. Whitey would do something, Whitey was a desperate, merciless devil…. Lambaire shuddered — there must be no murder though.

      He had been reading that very day an article which showed that only four per cent, of murderers in England escape detection… if by a miracle this blew over, he would try a straighter course. Drop the “ silver business “ and the “ printing business “ and concentrate on the River of Stars. That was legitimate. If there was anything shady about the flotation of the Company, that would all be forgotten in the splendid culmination…. De Beers would come along and offer to buy a share; he would be a millionaire… other men have made millions and have lived down their shady past. There was Isadore Jarach, who had a palatial residence off Park Lane, he was a bad egg in his beginnings. There was another man… what was his name…?

      He fell into a troubled sleep just as the dawn began to show faintly. A knocking at the door aroused him, and he sprang out of bed. He was full of the wildest fears, and his eyes wandered to the desk wherein lay a loaded Derringer.

      “Open the door, Lambaire.”

      It was Whitey’s voice, impatiently demanding admission, and with a trembling hand Lambaire slipped back the little bolt of the door.

      Whitey entered the room grumbling. If he too had spent a sleepless night, there was little in his appearance to indicate the fact,

      “It’s a good job you live at an hotel,” he said. “I should have knocked and knocked without getting in. Phew! Wreck! You’re a wreck.”

      Whitey shook his head at him disapprovingly.

      “Oh, shut up, Whitey!” Lambaire poured out a basin full of water, and plunged his face into it. “I’ve had a bad night.”

      “I’ve had no night at all,” said Whitey, “no night at all,” he repeated shrilly. “Do I look like a seasick turnip? I hope not. You in your little bed, — me, tramping streets looking for Amber — I found him.”

      Lambaire was wiping his face on a towel, and ceased his rubbing to stare at the speaker.

      “You didn’t—” he whispered fearfully.

      Whitey’s lips curled.

      “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean,” he said shortly. “Don’t jump, Lambaire, you’re a great man for jumping — no, I didn’t kill him — he lives in the Borough,” he added inconsequently.

      “How did you find out?” asked Lambaire.

      “Don’t pad,” begged the other testily. “Don’t Ask Questions for the sake of Asking Questions, — get dressed, — we’ll leave Amber.”

      “Why?”

      Whitey put two long white fingers into his waistcoat pocket and found a golden toothpick; he used this absentmindedly, gazing through the window with a faraway expression.

      “Lambaire,” he said, as one who speaks to himself, “drop Amber, — cut him out. Concentrate on diamonds.”

      “That’s what I thought,” said Lambaire eagerly, “perhaps if we went out ourselves and looked round—”

      “Go out be — blowed,” snapped Whitey. “If you see me going out to Central Africa… heat… fever… Rot! No, we’ll see the young lady, tell her the tale; throw ourselves, in a manner of speaking, on her mercy — I’ve fixed an interview with young Sutton.”

      “Already?”

      “Already,” said Whitey. “Got him on the ‘phone.”

      “What about Amber and the plates?”

      “Blackmail,” said Whitey, and Lambaire chuckled gleefully.

      “So I thought, of course that is the idea — what about Sutton?”

      “He’s coming here to breakfast; hurry up with your dressing.”

      Half-an-hour later Lambaire joined him in the big lounge of the hotel. A bath and a visit to the hotel barber had smartened him, but the traces of his night with Conscience had not been entirely removed, and the black silk bandage about his head gave him an unusually sinister appearance.

      On the stroke of nine came Francis Sutton, carrying himself a little importantly, as became an explorer in embryo, and the three adjourned to the diningroom.

      There is a type of character which resolutely refuses to be drawn, and Francis Sutton’s was such an one. It was a character so elusive, so indefinite, so exasperatingly plastic, that the outline one might draw to-day would be false tomorrow. Much easier would it be to sketch a nebula, or to convey in the medium of black and white the changing shape of smoke, than to give verity to this amorphous soul.

      The exact division of good and bad in him made him vague enough; for no man is distinguished unless there is an overbalancing of qualities. The scale must go down on the one side or the other, or, if the adjustment of virtue and evil is so nice that the scale’s needle trembles hesitatingly between the two, be sure that the soul in the balance is colourless, formless, vague.

      Francis Sutton possessed a responsive will, which took inspiration from the colour and temperature of the moment. He might start forth from his home charged with a determination to act in a certain direction, and return to his home in an hour or so, equally determined, but in a diametrically opposite course, and, curiously enough, be unaware of any change in his plans.

      Once he had come to Lambaire for an interview which was to be final. An interview which should thrust out of his life an unpleasant recollection (he usually found this process an easy one), and should establish an independence of which — so he deluded himself — he was extremely jealous. On this occasion he arrived in another mood; he came as the approved protégé of a generous patron.

      “Now we’ve got to settle up matters,” said Lambaire as they sat at breakfast. “The impertinence of that rascally friend of yours completely put the matter out of my mind yesterday—”

      “I’m awfully sorry about that business,” Sutton hastened to say. “It is just like Cynthia to get mixed up with a scoundrel like Amber. I assure you—”

      Lambaire waved away the eager protestations with a large smile.

      “My boy,” he said generously, “say no more about it. I exonerate you from all blame, don’t I, Whitey?”

      Whitey nodded with vigour.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ