The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ the twisted slip of paper came to her, Cynthia was engaged in a fruitless and so far as Lambaire was concerned, a profitless discussion on her brother’s projected expedition. She opened the note and coloured. “Yes,” she said with a nod to the maid, and crumpled the note in her hand.

      “I hardly think it is worth while continuing this discussion,” she said; “it is not a question of my approval or disapproval: if my brother elects to take the risk, he will go whatever my opinions are on the subject.”

      “But, my dear young lady,” said Lambaire eagerly, “you are wrong; it isn’t only the chart which you have placed at our disposal—”

      “At my brother’s,” she corrected.

      “It isn’t only that,” he went on, “it’s the knowledge that you are in sympathy with our great project: it means a lot to us, ye know, Miss Cynthia—”

      “Miss Sutton,” she corrected again.

      “It means more than you can imagine; I’ve made a clean breast of my position. On the strength of your father’s statement about this mine, I floated a company; I spent a lot of money on the expedition. I sent him out to Africa with one of the best caravans that have been got together — and now the shareholders are bothering me. ‘Where’s that mine of yours?’ they say. Why “ — his voice sank to an impressive whisper—” they talk of prosecuting me, don’t they, Whitey?”

      “They do indeed,” said his responsive companion truthfully.

      “So it was a case of fair means or foul,” he went on. “I had to get the plan, and you wouldn’t give it me. I couldn’t burgle your house for it, could I?”

      He smiled pleasantly at the absurdity of taking such a course, and she looked at him curiously.

      “It is strange that you should say that,” she replied slowly, “for remarkably enough this house was burgled twice after my refusal to part with the little map.”

      “Remarkable!” said Lambaire.

      “Astoundin’!” said Whitey, no less surprised.

      She rose from her chair.

      “Since the matter has been settled — so far as I have anything to do with it,” she said, “you will excuse my presence.”

      She left the room, and Amber, sitting in the little study, heard the swish of her skirts and rose to meet her.

      There was a touch of pink in her cheeks, but she was very grave and self-possessed, as she favoured him with the slightest of bows and motioned him to a seat.

      “Good of you to see me, Miss Sutton,” said Amber.

      She noted, with a little pang, that he was quite at ease. There could be little hope for a man who was so lost to shame that he gloried in his misspent career rather than showed some indication of embarrassment in the presence of a woman who knew him for what he was.

      “I felt I owed you this interview at least,” she replied steadily. “I wish—” She stopped.

      “Yes?” Amber perked his head on one side inquiringly, “You were going to say that you wished — ?”

      “It does not matter,” she said. She felt herself blushing.

      “You wish you could do something for me,” he said with a half-smile, “but, my lady, half the good people in the world are trying to do something for me. I am hopeless, I am incorrigible; regard me as that.”

      Nevertheless, lightly as he discussed the question of his regeneration, he eyed her keenly to see how she would take the rejection of help. To his relief, and somewhat to his annoyance also, be it admitted, he observed she accepted his valuation of himself very readily.

      “I have come to see you to-day,” he went on, “in relation to a matter which is of supreme importance to you. Do you mind answering a few questions I put to you?”

      “I have no objection,” she said. “Your father was an explorer, was he not?”

      “Yes.”

      “He knew Central Africa very well?” “ Yes, — very well.”

      “He discovered a mine — a diamond mine, or something of the sort?”

      She shook her head with a smile.

      “That has yet to be proved,” she said. “He had heard, from the natives, of a wonderful river — the River of Stars they called it, because in its bed were stones, many of which had been polished by the action of the water until they glittered, — they were undoubtedly diamonds, for my father purchased a number from the people of the country.”

      Amber nodded.

      “And then I suppose he came home and got into touch with Lambaire?”

      “That is so,” she said, wondering at the course the interview was taking.

      Amber nodded thoughtfully.

      “The rest of the story I know,” he said. “I was at pains to look up the circumstances attending your father’s death. You received from the Commissioner of the district a chart?”

      She hesitated.

      “I did — yes.”

      He smiled.

      “I have no designs upon the mine, but I am anxious to see the chart — and before you refuse me, Miss Sutton, let me tell you that I am not prompted by idle curiosity.”

      “I believe that, Mr. Amber,” she said; “if you wait, I will get it for you.”

      She was gone for ten minutes and returned with a long envelope. From this she extracted a soiled sheet of paper and handed it to the exconvict.

      He took it, and carried it to the window, examining it carefully.

      “I see the route is marked from a point called Chengli — where is that?”

      “In the Alebi forest,” she said; “the country is known as far as Chengli; from there on, my father mapped the country, inquiring his way from such natives as he met — this was the plan he had set himself.”

      “I see.”

      He looked again at the map, then from his pocket he took the compass he had found in Lambaire’s safe. He laid it on the table by the side of the map and produced a second compass, and placed the two instruments side by side.

      “Do you observe any difference in these, Miss Sutton?” he asked, and the girl looked carefully.

      “One is a needle compass, and on the other there is no needle,” she said.

      “That is so; the whole of the dial turns,” Amber nodded. “Nothing else?” he asked.

      “I can see no other difference,” she said, СКАЧАТЬ