Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel. John Russell Fearn

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СКАЧАТЬ page. She put the date, then began to write swiftly in her neat, scholastic handwriting—

      “First impressions are variable. Richard seems to be a likeable boy with a penchant for young ladies—both in and out of his shows, I should imagine. A rather wicked smile, and much D’Artagnan in the eye. Alice still questions her own rather inane remarks, but she answers my guarded inquiries with an ease that makes her seem innocent of anything ulterior. It is this innocence that I feel compelled to question, in view of De Vanhart’s ‘First Impressions of a Criminal.’ I shall test this thesis for myself.... Walters, the manservant, is a strange, impassive being with unsteady eyes. I begin to wonder if he is looking for some­thing. So far as I can gather all have benefited financially from Ralph’s death. I have yet to meet Patricia and Janet. The time is 5:10 p.m.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      In the lounge prior to dinner Dick Black found himself called upon to answer questions. He would not have minded so much had not the necessity of answering kept the brandy and soda he had prepared from reaching his lips.

      Patricia was his cross-examiner, marching up and down as she interrogated him. She was dressed in a close-fitting gown of green, a color that matched her eyes. A certain lack of development about the shoulders still testified to her twenty years—but certainly nothing else was undeveloped. Her face was cast in a shrewd, coldly beautiful mold. The green eyes offset the straight nose and firm, full lips. The blonde hair swept back in shimmering waves from her high forehead gave her an odd, robot-like appearance. In fact, as Dick had often observed, if he ever needed anybody in his show to portray the spirit of the future he had only to ask Pat to hold a lamp over her head. But this was a piece of cynical humor that had so far found no inroads to Pat’s forthright soul.

      “If you’d put that darned siphon down for a moment and start talking maybe we’d get somewhere!” she exclaimed irritably, flinging herself down at last on the divan. “Come on, give! What is she like? She’s an English headmistress—that’s all I hear. But to me that spells a woman with folded arms and pro bono publico stamped on her petticoats.”

      Dick got his drink down at length. “She’s all right, Pat—take it from me. A bit hardboiled, maybe, but I can’t blame her if the girls she teaches have anything in common with you.... Try to imagine dad as a woman, then you have it.”

      “Still smells bad to me.” Pat got up and moved to the siphon herself. “What is more I still think it is a piece of confounded nerve her coming here— She came to see Johnson: we know that. Why couldn’t she do it by proxy? Why travel three thousand miles just for that?”

      “Search me. Maybe she wanted a holiday.”

      “And took good care to foist herself on to us to get it! A perfectly blatant example of muscling in, if you ask me.”

      “I didn’t ask you,” Dick sighed. “And if it comes to that what are you beefing about anyway? She isn’t going to upset your arrangements, is she?”

      “She’d better not try!” Pat’s lips tightened for a moment as she considered her drink, then she turned as Janet came in.

      It was not Janet’s fault that she entered like a mannequin at a dress salon. Years of concert platforms had instilled it into her—the measured tread and well-poised head. She had a regal calm, an intense and unshatterable assurance. Her dark coloring lent a touch of the Juno to her. Raven-headed, black-eyed, the taller of the two girls. When she spoke it was in a voice that was richly mellow.

      “What’s the matter, Pat? Don’t you like the advent of Aunt Maria?”

      “No, I do not!”

      “All right, all right—don’t bite my head off! Suppose you wait and meet her before opening the sea-cocks? After all—”

      Dick interrupted: “Take no notice of her, Jan. She’s nuts. Been that way for some time now, but I’m dashed if I can figure out why. Maybe the hot weather. It does bring out a rash.”

      “Dick,” Janet said, turning to him, “what is she like?”

      “Holy cats, do I have to start in all over again? What do you think I am—an information bureau? She is all—”

      “Can it be that I am the cause of this little argument?”

      Maria had come quietly into the room. Undoubtedly the girls of Roseway would not have recognized their empress this evening. The bun was still there unfortunately—but the rest of Maria, ex­quisitely gowned and matronly, was divorced completely from the somber college ruler.

      Dick jumped to his feet immediately, caught Janet’s arm.

      “This is Janet, Aunt. Remember her? She was five when—”

      “When we last met,” Maria nodded, and stood gravely as the girl kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then she went on, “So this is the five-year-old who ate all my butter-creams when she came to England? Well! Amazing—! And now you are a public figure—a singer.... You make me feel quite old, my dear.”

      Janet smiled. “I’m afraid the old man with the scythe has no sense of humor, aunt. One just grows up, and there it is. But look, you have never met Pat, in the flesh that is. Her photographs don’t do her justice, you know— Come on, Pat!” she insisted. “Don’t stand sulking over there.”

      Patricia shrugged and came forward rather sullenly. She re­turned Maria’s calm, blue-eyed gaze with one of equal power, and infused into it a definite challenge. Finally she held out a milky hand indifferently.

      Maria ignored it and said calmly, “You may kiss me, Patricia.”

      Pat hesitated, lowered her hand, then administered a peck. She stood back as though uncertain, color mounting slowly in her smooth cheeks.

      “Aunt, why do you stare at me like this?” she asked abruptly. “Am I so—extraordinary?”

      “I was just thinking how very beautiful you are, child. The photographs I have seen of you in crude monochrome haven’t done you justice in the leapt. I am also thinking I can see a lot of your poor father in you.”

      “Isn’t that a trifle pointless?”

      “I don’t think so. It is not uncommon for a daughter to inherit some of her parents’ characteristics— Yes, yes, indeed,” Maria mused. “I see it in all three of you. Like a cross-section of your father with part of your mother. In you, Dick, I behold your father’s reckless ambition without its hard side. In you, Janet, I see the calm repose your father cultivated in his later years. I too have that characteristic— And in you, Patricia, I see something different. Even a part of me, as I might have been had I ever been as beautiful as you.”

      Patricia’s long lashes masked her insolent green eyes for a moment.

      “After all,” she said, “we didn’t expect to be psycho-analyzed, Aunt. All you are seeing are two sisters and one brother. So what?”

      Dick glanced at her irritably. “What in heck are you trying to do, Pat? Start a war? Come down off your pedestal! Now that you have met Aunt you can see she isn’t what you said—about pro bono publico and—and things.”

      Janet said: “I have a day or two free, Aunt, before I resume my work. Perhaps you’d like me to show you around? Plenty to see, you know.”

      “Yeah, СКАЧАТЬ