WAX (A British Crime Thriller). Ethel Lina White

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СКАЧАТЬ of a change. This was not the familiar place she knew so well.

      It seemed to be full of people. Seen in the light from the street lamp, which streamed in through the high window, their faces were those of men and women of character and intelligence. They stood in groups as though in conversation, or sat apart in solitary reverie.

      But they neither spoke nor moved.

      When she had seen them last, a few hours ago, under the dim electric globes, they had been a collection of ordinary waxworks, representing conventional historical personages and Victorian celebrities. Only a few were in really good condition, while some were ancient, with blurred features and threadbare clothes.

      But now, they were all restored to health and electric with life. Napoleon frowned as he planned a new campaign. Charles II. mistook her for an orange-girl and ogled her. Henry VIII. shook with silent laughter.

      Mrs. Ames felt absurdly abashed by the transformation. She knew she had only to snap on the light to shatter the illusion. Restrained by the memory of the policeman, she did her best to put the figures back in their proper places.

      "Hallo, dearies," she called. "Mother's popped in to see you."

      Her voice echoed queerly under the domed mahogany roof. She had a vague impression that the Waxworks resented her liberty, as she hurried towards the Hall of Horrors.

      A crack of light which outlined its doors told her that her husband had been too optimistic about his memory. This smaller Gallery had not been wired, for it held no lurid attractions. She rushed inside, to see a guttering candle stuck upon the floor.

      Although no damage had been done, her indignation swept away imagination. But after she had blown out the flame, she became dimly afraid of her surroundings.

      There was no special reason for her to feel nervous. The Hall of Horrors housed only a small number of selected murderers, whom, normally, she despised. These figures were not spectacular, like her cherished Royalties. They wore dull coats and trousers, and could easily be mistaken for nonentities such as Gladstone and Tennyson.

      But, as she threw her torch over them, a pinprick of light gleamed in each glassy eye, imparting a fiction of life. They seemed to be looking at her with intent and furtive speculation, as though she were the object of a private and peculiarly personal inventory.

      Suddenly she remembered that she was among a company of—poisoners.

      Although she was furious with herself for her weakness, her nerve crashed. It was in vain that she reminded herself that these were, in reality, her very own Waxworks. She treated them as her children. It was true that they were a neglected family, for she was an amiable sloven; but, occasionally, she brushed their clothes and hair, or cleaned their faces with a lick of spit.

      Now, however, as she hurried down the Gallery, she felt that they had grown alien and aloof. They seemed to regard her with unfriendly eyes, as though she had interrupted some secret and exciting mystery.

      They resented her presence. At this hour, the gallery belonged to Them.

      Mrs. Ames lost no time in taking their hint. She shuffled through the door, locked it behind her, and ran down the street in flapping shoes. Less than five minutes later, she woke up her husband, to relate her experience.

      "I was never so scared in my life. They weren't like the Waxworks I knew. All the time I was there, they were watching me, just as if it was their place, and I'd no right there...Go on, laugh. You've been safe and warm in bed, after trying to burn the gallery down...But you listen to me, Ames. I tell you, those figures were up to some business of their own. And I felt in my bones that it was no good business either."

      CHAPTER II. LEGEND

       Table of Contents

      Before ever she saw her, Sonia Thompson looked upon Mrs. Cuttle as a predestined victim.

      She was stupid, complacent, blind. She possessed what other women coveted, but had not the wit to appraise its value, or the imagination to guard it. And she was at the mercy of unscrupulous persons.

      Of course, the first suggestion was the result of idle gossip. The impression it made upon Sonia was probably due to the fact that she was both physically tired and mentally excited, and therefore, strung up to a condition of sensitised perception.

      When, afterwards, she looked back on her first night at Riverpool, it always appeared intangible as the dust of a dream, so that she could not be sure of her memory. Every place seemed to be dark, and buildings rocked. There was confusion of senses, and optical illusion, in which men were transformed into waxworks and waxworks into men.

      She had travelled direct from Geneva, and she still swayed with the motion of the train when she signed the register of the Golden Lion Hotel.

      "Sonia Thompson." She lingered for a moment to look at it.

      "Wonder if that name will ever be famous," she thought.

      The coffee-room had a sunken floor, dark flock wallpaper, and was dimly lit. Apparently the windows were hermetically sealed, and the odours of heavy Victorian dinners—eaten long ago—were marooned on the warm still air. Directly she had gulped down a quick meal of bacon and eggs, Sonia went out to explore the town.

      It was between nine and ten, when Riverpool looked especially dreary, with shuttered shops and deserted streets. A fine spit of rain was falling which slimed the cobbles of the road. She wandered rather than walked, while the Channel steamer pitched again under her feet, so that—occasionally—she reeled in a nightmare of wet heaving pavements and flickering lights.

      It was in a sober and stationary moment that she found herself standing outside the Waxwork Gallery.

      The place had a sinister reputation. Built in 1833, it had been unlucky almost from its beginning. The speculative builder who erected it had hanged himself in the Hall of Horrors. During the Hungry Forties a tramp had been found inside—dead from starvation. In the Naughty Nineties a painted woman of the town had been murdered in the alcove, wherein was staged—appropriately—the final tableau in the career of Vice.

      Only recently, there had been a fresh link in the chain of tragedies. A stranger—a commercial traveller—had sought a free lodging in the Gallery, and had paid his bill, according to precedent. The porter discovered him in the morning, lying in Virtue's bed; and the worthy patriarch had a corpse for a bedfellow.

      The post-mortem disclosed cirrhosis of the liver. A letter, vowing ferocious vengeance, and signed, "Your loving husband," indicated an unfaithful wife. The combined effect of rage and drink had been a fit.

      Although Sonia knew nothing of its history, she felt the pull of some macabre attraction which drew her inside the Gallery. Directly she passed through its massive doors, she was further excited by its peculiar and distinctive atmosphere—sour-sweet, like the stale perfume of a soiled lace handkerchief.

      The building was large and dim, panelled with mahogany and draped with tawdry black velvet, filmed with dust. One side had been built into alcoves which housed tableaux depicting scenes in the careers of Virtue and Vice. In spite of being faintly lit with a few pendant electric globes, it smelt of gas.

      At first blink, Sonia СКАЧАТЬ