The Ringer & Again the Ringer - Complete Series: 18 Thriller Classics in One Volume. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
there is something saved from the wreck?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing — absolutely nothing! I have a very tiny income from my mother’s estate, and that will keep me from starvation. And Johnny’s really clever, Alan. He has made quite a lot of money lately — that’s queer, isn’t it? One never suspected Johnny of being a good business man, and yet he is. In a few years we shall be buying back Lenley Court.”
Brave words, but they did not deceive Alan!
Chapter 3
He saw her look over his shoulder, and turned. Two men were walking towards them, Though it was a warm day in early summer, and the Royal Courts of Justice forty miles away, Mr. Meister wore the conventional garb of a successful lawyer. The long-tailed morning coat fitted his slim figure faultlessly, his black cravat with its opal pin was perfectly arranged. On his head was the glossiest of silk hats, and the yellow gloves which covered his hands were spotless. A sallow, thin-faced man with dark, fathomless eyes, there was something of the aristocrat in his manner and speech. “He looks like a duke, talks like a don and thinks like a devil,” was not the most unflattering thing that had been said about Maurice Meister.
His companion was a tall youth, hardly out of his teens, whose black brows met at the sight of the visitor. He came slowly across the lawn, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, his dark eyes regarding Alan with an unfriendly scowl.
“Hallo!” he said grudgingly, and then, to his companion: “You know Wembury, don’t you, Maurice — he’s a sergeant or something in the police.”
Maurice Meister smiled slowly.
“Divisional Detective Inspector, I think,” and offered his long, thin hand. “I understand you are coming into my neighbourhood to add a new terror to the lives of my unfortunate clients!”
“I hope we shall be able to reform them,” said Alan good-humouredly. “That is really what we are for!”
Johnny Lenley was glowering at him. He had never liked Alan, even as a boy and now for some reason, his resentment at the presence of the detective was suddenly inflamed.
“What brings you to Lenley?” he asked gruffly. “I didn’t know you had any relations here?”
“I have a few friends,” said Alan steadily.
“Of course he has!” It was Mary who spoke. “He came to see me, for one, didn’t you, Alan? I’m sorry we can’t ask you to stay with us, but there’s practically no furniture left in the house.”
John Lenley’s eyes snapped at this.
“It isn’t necessary to advertise our poverty all over the kingdom, my dear,” he said sharply. “I don’t suppose Wembury is particularly interested in our misfortunes, and he’d be damned impertinent if he was!”
He saw the hurt look on his sister’s face, and his unreasonable annoyance with the visitor was increased. It was Maurice Meister who poured oil upon the troubled water.
“The misfortunes of Lenley Court are public property, my dear Johnny,” he said blandly. “Don’t be so stupidly touchy! I, for one, am very glad to have the opportunity of meeting a police officer of such fame as Inspector Alan Wembury. You will find your division rather a dull spot just now, Mr. Wembury. We have none of the excitement which prevailed when I first moved to Deptford from Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
Alan nodded.
“You mean, you’re not bothered with The Ringer?” he said.
It was a perfectly innocent remark, and he was quite unprepared for the change which came to Meister’s face. He blinked quickly as though he had been confronted with a brilliant light. The loose mouth became in an instant a straight, hard line. If there was not fear in those inscrutable eyes of his, Alan Wembury was very wide of the mark.
“The Ringer!” His voice was husky. “Ancient history, eh? Poor beggar, he’s dead!”
He said this with almost startling emphasis. It seemed to Alan that the man was trying to persuade himself that this notorious criminal had passed beyond the sphere of human activity.
“Dead…drowned in Australia.”
The girl was looking at him wonderingly.
“Who is The Ringer?” she asked.
“Nobody you would know anything about, or ought to know,” he said, almost brusquely. And then, with a little laugh: “We’re all talking ‘shop,’ and criminal justice is the worst kind of ‘shop’ for a young lady’s ears.”
“I wish to heaven you’d find something else to talk about,” growled John Lenley fretfully, and was turning away when Maurice Meister asked: “You are at present in a West End division, aren’t you, Wembury? What was your last case? I don’t seem to remember seeing your name in the newspapers.”
Alan made a little grimace.
“We never advertise our failures,” he said. “My last job was to inquire into some pearls that were stolen from Lady Darnleigh’s house in Park Lane on the night of her big Ambassadors’ party.”
He was looking at Mary as he spoke. Her face was a magnet which lured and held his gaze. He did not see John Lenley’s hand go to his mouth to check the involuntary exclamation, or the quick warning glance which Meister shot at the young man. There was a little pause.
“Lady Darnleigh?” drawled Maurice. “Oh, yes, I seem to remember…as a matter of fact, weren’t you at her dance that night, Johnny?”
He looked at the other and Johnny shook his shoulder impatiently.
“Of course I was…I didn’t know anything about the robbery till afterwards. Haven’t you anything else to discuss, you people, than crimes and robberies and murders?”
And, turning on his heel, he slouched across the lawn.
Mary looked after him with trouble in her face.
“I wonder what makes Johnny so cross in these days — do you know, Maurice?”
Maurice Meister examined the cigarette that burnt in the amber tube between his fingers. “Johnny is young; and, my dear, you mustn’t forget that he has had a very trying time.”
“So have I,” she said quietly. “You don’t imagine that it is nothing to me that I am leaving Lenley Court?” Her voice quivered for a moment, but with a resolution that Alan could both understand and appreciate, she was instantly smiling. “I’m being very pathetic; I shall be weeping on Alan’s shoulder if I am not careful. Come along, Alan, and see what is left of the rosery — perhaps when you have seen its present condition, we will weep together!”
Chapter 4
Johnny Lenley looked after them until they had disappeared from view. His face was pale with anger, his lips trembled.
“What brings that swine here?” he demanded.
Maurice Meister, who had followed across the lawn, looked at him oddly.
“My dear Johnny, you’re very young and very crude. You have the education of a gentleman and yet you behave like a boor!”
Johnny turned on him in a fury.
“What do you expect me to do — shake him cordially by the hand and bid him welcome to Lenley Court? The fellow’s risen from the gutter. His father was our gardener—”
Maurice