CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.

      INTRODUCING MR. PETER RUFF

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      There was nothing about the supper party on that particular Sunday evening in November at Daisy Villa, Green Street, Streatham, which seemed to indicate in any way that one of the most interesting careers connected with the world history of crime was to owe its very existence to the disaster which befell that little gathering. The villa was the residence and also—to his credit—the unmortgaged property of Mr. David Barnes, a struggling but fairly prosperous coal merchant of excellent character, some means, and Methodist proclivities. His habit of sitting without his coat when carving, although deprecated by his wife and daughter on account of the genteel aspirations of the latter, was a not unusual one in the neighbourhood; and coupled with the proximity of a cold joint of beef, his seat at the head of the table, and a carving knife and fork grasped in his hands, established clearly the fact of his position in the household, which a somewhat weak physiognomy might otherwise have led the casual observer to doubt. Opposite him, at the other end of the table, sat his wife, Mrs. Barnes, a somewhat voluminous lady with a high colour, a black satin frock, and many ornaments. On her left the son of the house, eighteen years old, of moderate stature, somewhat pimply, with the fashion of the moment reflected in his pink tie with white spots, drawn through a gold ring, and curving outwards to seek obscurity underneath a dazzling waistcoat. A white tube-rose in his buttonhole might have been intended as a sort of compliment to the occasion, or an indication of his intention to take a walk after supper in the fashionable purlieus of the neighbourhood. Facing him sat his sister—a fluffy-haired, blue-eyed young lady, pretty in her way, but chiefly noticeable for a peculiar sort of self-consciousness blended with self-satisfaction, and possessed only at a certain period in their lives by young ladies of her age. It was almost the air of the cat in whose interior reposes the missing canary, except that in this instance the canary obviously existed in the person of the young man who sat at her side, introduced formally to the household for the first time. That young man’s name was—at the moment—Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald.

      It seems idle to attempt any description of a person who, in the past, had secured a certain amount of fame under a varying personality; and who, in the future, was to become more than ever notorious under a far less aristocratic pseudonym than that by which he was at present known to the inhabitants of Daisy Villa. There are photographs of him in New York and Paris, St. Petersburg and Chicago, Vienna and Cape Town, but there are no two pictures which present to the casual observer the slightest likeness to one another. To allude to him by the name under which he had won some part, at least, of the affections of Miss Maud Barnes, Mr. Spencer Fitzgerald, as he sat there, a suitor on probation for her hand, was a young man of modest and genteel appearance. He wore a blue serge suit—a little underdressed for the occasion, perhaps; but his tie and collar were neat; his gold-rimmed spectacles—if a little disapproved of by Maud on account of the air of steadiness which they imparted—suggested excellent son-in-lawlike qualities to Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. He had the promise of a fair moustache, but his complexion generally was colourless. His features, except for a certain regularity, were undistinguished. His speech was modest and correct. His manner varied with his company. To-night it had been pronounced, by excellent judges—genteel.

      The conversation consisted—naturally enough, under the circumstances—of a course of subtle and judicious pumping, tactfully prompted, for the most part, by Mrs. Barnes. Such, for instance, as the following:

      “Talking about Marie Corelli’s new book reminds me, Mr. Fitzgerald—your occupation is connected with books, is it not?” his prospective mother-in-law enquired, artlessly.

      Mr. Fitzgerald bowed assent.

      “I am cashier at Howell & Wilson’s in Cheapside,” he said. “We sell a great many books there—as many, I should think, as any retail establishment in London.”

      “Indeed!” Mrs. Barnes purred. “Very interesting work, I am sure. So nice and intellectual, too; for, of course, you must be looking inside them sometimes.”

      “I know the place well,” Mr. Adolphus Barnes, Junior, announced condescendingly,—“pass it every day on my way to lunch.”

      “So much nicer,” Mrs. Barnes continued, “than any of the ordinary businesses—grocery or drapery, or anything of that sort.”

      Miss Maud elevated her eyebrows slightly. Was it likely that she would have looked with eyes of favour upon a young man engaged in any of these inferior occupations?

      “There’s money in books, too,” Mr. Barnes declared with sudden inspiration. His prospective son-in-law turned towards him deferentially.

      “You are right, sir,” he admitted. “There is money in them. There’s money for those who write, and there’s money for those who sell. My occupation,” he continued, with a modest little cough, “brings me often into touch with publishers, travellers and clerks, so I am, as it were, behind the scenes to some extent. I can assure you,” he continued, looking from Mr. Barnes to his wife, and finally transfixing Mr. Adolphus—“I can assure you that the money paid by some firms of publishers to a few well-known authors—I will mention no names—as advances against royalties, is something stupendous!”

      “Ah!” Mr. Barnes murmured, solemnly shaking his head.

      “Marie Corelli, I expect, and that Hall Caine,” remarked young Adolphus.

      “Seems easy enough to write a book, too,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Why, I declare that some of those we get from the library—we subscribe to a library, Mr. Fitzgerald—are just as simple and straightforward that a child might have written them. No plot whatsoever, no murders or mysteries or anything of that sort—just stories about people like ourselves. I don’t see how they can pay people for writing stories about people just like those one meets every day!”

      “I always say,” Maud intervened, “that Spencer means to write a book some day. He has quite the literary air, hasn’t he, mother?”

      “Indeed he has!” Mrs. Barnes declared, with an appreciative glance at the gold-rimmed spectacles.

      Mr. Fitzgerald modestly disclaimed any literary aspirations.

      “The thing is a gift, after all,” he declared, generously. “I can keep accounts, and earn a fair salary at it, but if I attempted fiction I should soon be up a tree.”

      Mr. Barnes nodded his approval of such sentiments.

      “Every one to his trade, I say,” he remarked. “What sort of salaries do they pay now in the book trade?” he asked guilelessly.

      “Very fair,” Mr. Fitzgerald admitted candidly,—“very fair indeed.”

      “When I was your age,” Mr. Barnes said reflectively, “I was getting—let me see—forty-two shillings a week. Pretty good pay, too, for those days.”

      Mr. Fitzgerald admitted the fact.