The Ringer & Again the Ringer - Complete Series: 18 Thriller Classics in One Volume. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
of Maurice?” She could hardly believe her ears. “Why, Maurice is the dearest thing! He has been kindness itself to Johnny and me, and we’ve known him all our lives.”
“I’ve known you all your life, too, Mary,” said Alan gently, but she interrupted him.
“But, tell me why?” she persisted. “What do you know against Maurice?”
Here, confronted with the concrete question, he lost ground.
“I know nothing about turn,” he admitted frankly. “I only know that Scotland Yard doesn’t like him.”
She laughed a low, amused laugh.
“Because he manages to keep these poor, wretched criminals out of prison! It’s professional jealousy! Oh, Alan,” she bantered him, “I didn’t believe it of you!”
No good purpose could be served by repeating his warning. There was one gleam of comfort in the situation; if she was to work for Meister she would be living in his division. He told her this.
“It will be rather dreadful, won’t it, after Lenley Court?” She made a little face at the thought. “It will mean that for a year or two I shall have no parties, no dances — Alan, I shall die an old maid!”
“I doubt that,” he smiled, “but the chances of meeting eligible young men in Deptford are slightly remote,” and they laughed together.
Chapter 5
Maurice Meister stood at the ragged end of a yew hedge and watched them. Strange, he mused, that never before had he realised the beauty of Mary Lenley. It needed, he told himself, the visible worship of this policeman to stimulate his interest in the girl, whom in a moment of impulse, which later he regretted, he had promised to employ. A bud, opening into glorious flower. Unobserved, he watched her; the contour of her cheek, the poise of her dark head, the supple line of her figure as she turned to rally Alan Wembury. Mr. Meister licked his dry lips. Queer that he had never thought that way about Mary Lenley. And yet…
He liked fair women. Gwenda Milton was fair, with a shingled, golden head. A stupid girl, who had become rather a bore. And from a bore she had developed into a sordid tragedy. Maurice shuddered as he remembered that grey day in the coroner’s court when he had stood on the witness stand and had lied and lied and lied.
Turning her head, Mary saw him and beckoned him, and he went slowly towards them.
“Where is Johnny?” she asked.
“Johnny at this moment is sulking. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.”
What a wonderful skin she had — flawless, unblemished! And the dark grey eyes, with their long lashes, how adorable! And he had known her all her life and been living under the same roof for a week, and had not observed her values before!
“Am I interrupting a confidential talk?” he asked.
She shook her head, but she did not wholly convince him. He wondered what these two had been speaking about, head to head. Had she told Alan Wembury that she was coming to Deptford? She would sooner or later, and it might be profitable to get in first with the information.
“You know, Miss Lenley is honouring me by becoming my secretary?”
“So I’ve heard,” said Alan, and met the lawyer’s eyes. “I have told Miss Lenley” — he spoke deliberately; every word had its significance— “that she will be living in my division…under my paternal eye, as it were.”
There was a warning and a threat there. Meister was too shrewd a man to overlook either. Alan Wembury had constituted himself the girl’s guardian. That would have been rather amusing in other circumstances. Even as recently as an hour ago he would have regarded Alan Wembury’s chaperonage as a great joke. But now…
He looked at Mary and his pulse was racing.
“How interesting!” his voice was a little harsh and he cleared his throat. “How terribly interesting! And is that duty part of the police code?”
There was the faintest sneer in his voice which Alan did not miss.
“The duty of a policeman,” he said quietly, “is pretty well covered by the inscription over the door of the Old Bailey.”
“And what is that?” asked Meister. “I have not troubled to read it.”
“‘Protect the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer,’” said Alan Wembury sternly.
“A noble sentiment!” said Maurice. And then: “I think that is for me.”
He walked quickly towards a telegraph messenger who had appeared at the end of the garden.
“Is Maurice annoyed with you?” asked Mary.
Alan laughed.
“Everybody gets annoyed with me sooner or later. I’m afraid my society manners are deplorable.”
She patted the hand that lay beside hers on the stone bench.
“Alan,” she said, half whimsically, half seriously, “I don’t think I shall ever be annoyed with you. You are the nicest man I know.”
For a second their hands met in a long, warm clasp, and then she saw Maurice walking back with the unopened telegram in his hand.
“For you,” he said jovially. “What a thing it is to be so important that you can’t leave the office for five minutes before they wire for you — what terrible deed has been committed in London in your absence?”
Alan took the wire with a frown. “For me?” He was expecting no telegram. He had very few personal friends, and it was unlikely that his holiday would be curtailed from headquarters.
He tore open the envelope and took out the telegram. It was closely written on two pages. He read: “Very urgent stop return at once and report to Scotland Yard stop be prepared to take over your division tomorrow morning stop Australian police report Ringer left Sydney four months ago and is believed to be in London at this moment message ends.”
The wire was signed “Walford.”
Alan looked from the telegram to the smiling old garden, from the garden to the girl, her anxious face upturned to his.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly.
The Ringer was in England!
His nerves grew taut at the realisation. Henry Arthur Milton, ruthless slayer of his enemies — cunning, desperate, fearless.
Alan Wembury’s mind went back to Scotland Yard and the Commissioner’s office. Gwenda Milton — dead, drowned, a suicide!
Had Maurice Meister played a part in the creation of that despair which had sent her young soul unbidden to the judgment of God? Woe to Maurice Meister if this were true!
Chapter 6
The Ringer was in London!
Alan Wembury felt a cold thrill each time the thought recurred on his journey to London.
It was the thrill that comes to the hunter, at the first hint of the man-slaying tiger he will presently glimpse.
Well named was The Ringer, who rang the changes on himself so frequently that police headquarters had never been able to circulate a description of the man. A master of disguise, a ruthless enemy who had slain without mercy the men who had earned his