MR. J. G. REEDER SERIES: 5 Mystery Novels & 4 Detective Stories. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
to me: ‘I must leave you now, my dear. I don’t want that man to see me.’ I looked round to find who it was that she was so terribly afraid of, and there seemed to be the most harmless lot of people about. When I turned, Mrs. Jones was running up the steps. I didn’t wish to call her back, I felt so ridiculous. And then a man came up to me, a middle-aged man with the saddest face you could imagine. I told you that, daddy?”
He nodded.
“He took his hat off – his hair was almost white – and asked me if my name was Kane. I didn’t tell him the other name,” she said with a shiver. “‘May I take you to a place of safety, Miss Kane?’ he said. ‘I don’t think you ought to be seen with that rawboned female.’ I didn’t know what to do, I was so frightened, and I was glad of the company and protection of any man, and, when he called a cab, I got in without the slightest hesitation. He was such a gentle soul, Mr. Craig. He talked of nothing but the weather and chickens! I think we talked about chickens all the way to Lewisham.”
“Are you sure it was Lewisham?”
“It was somewhere in that neighbourhood. What other places are there there?
“New Cross, Brockley—” began Craig.
“That’s the place – Brockley. It was the Brockley Road. I saw it printed on the corner of the street. He took me into his house. There was a nice, motherly old woman whom he introduced to me as his housekeeper.”
“And what did he talk about?” asked the fascinated Craig.
“Chickens,” she said solemnly. “Do you know what chickens lay the best eggs? I’m sure you don’t. Do you know the best breed for England and the best for America? Do you know the most economical chickens to keep? I do! I wondered what he was going to do with me. I tried to ask him, but he invariably turned me back to the question of incubators and patent feeds, and the cubic space that a sitting hen requires as compared with an ordinary hen. It was the quaintest, most fantastic experience. It seems now almost like one of Alice’s dreams! Then, at ten o’clock, I found a motorcar had come for me. ‘I’m sending you home, young lady,’ he said.”
“Were you with him all the time, by the way?” asked Craig.
She shook her head.
“No, some part of the time I was with his housekeeper, who didn’t even talk about chickens, but knitted large and shapeless jumpers, and sniffed. That was when he was telephoning. I knew he was telephoning because I could hear the drone of his voice.”
“He didn’t bring you back?”
“No, he just put me into the car and told me that I should be perfectly safe. I arrived just a few minutes ahead of daddy.”
The detective scratched his chin, irritated and baffled.
“That’s certainly got me,” he said. “The rawboned lady I know, but the chicken gentleman is mysterious. You didn’t hear his name, by any chance?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know the number of the house?”
“Yes,” she said frankly, “but he particularly asked me to forget it, and I’ve forgotten it.” Then, in a more serious tone: “Is my – my—”
“Your nothing,” interrupted Peter. “The blackguard was married – married to Lila. I think I must have gone daft, but I didn’t realise this woman was planted in my house for a purpose. That type of girl wouldn’t come at the wages she did if she had been genuine. Barney was always suspicious of her, by the way.”
“Have you seen Johnny?” the girl asked Craig.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” said Craig carefully. “I thought of calling on him pretty soon.”
Then it came to her in a flash, and she gasped.
“You don’t think Johnny shot this man? You can’t think that?”
“Of course he didn’t shoot him,” said Peter loudly. “It is a ridiculous idea. But you’ll understand that Mr. Craig has to make inquiries in all sorts of unlikely quarters. You haven’t been able to get hold of Johnny tonight?”
A glance passed between them, and Peter groaned.
“What a fool! What a fool!” he said. “Oh, my God, what a fool!”
“Father, Johnny hasn’t done this? It isn’t true, Mr. Craig. Johnny wouldn’t shoot a man. Did anybody see him? How was he shot?”
“He was shot in the back.”
“Then it wasn’t Johnny,” she said. “He couldn’t shoot a man in the back!”
“I think, young lady,” said Craig with a little smile, “that you’d better go to bed and dream about butterflies. You’ve had a perfect hell of a day, if you’ll excuse my language. Say the firm word to her, Peter. Who’s that?” He turned his head, listening.
“Barney,” said Peter. “He has a distressing habit of wearing slippers. You can hear him miles away. He’s opening the door to somebody – one of your people, perhaps. Or he’s taking your chauffeur a drink. Barney has an enormous admiration for chauffeurs. They represent mechanical genius to him.”
The girl was calmer now.
“I have too much to thank God for to-day, for this terrible thing to be true,” she said in a low voice. “Mr. Craig, there is a mistake, I’m sure. Johnny couldn’t have committed such a crime. It was somebody else – one of Jeffrey Legge’s associates, somebody who hated him. He told me once that lots of people hated him, and I thought he was joking; he seemed so nice, so considerate. Daddy, I was mad to go through that, even to make you happy.”
Peter Kane nodded.
“If you were mad, I was criminal, girlie,” he said. “There was only one man in the world for you—”
The door opened slowly, and Barney sidled in. “Johnny to see you folks,” he said, and pulled the door wider.
John Gray was standing in the passage, and his eyes fell upon Craig with a look of quiet amusement.
Chapter XVII
In another second the girl was in his arms, clinging to him, weeping convulsively on his shoulder, her face against his, her clasped hands about his neck.
Craig could only look, wondering and fearing. Johnny would not have walked into the net unwarned. Barney would have told him that he was there. What amazed Craig, as the fact slowly dawned upon him, was that Johnny was still in evening dress. He took a step toward him, and gently Johnny disengaged the girl from his arms.
“I’ll like to see the right cuff of your shirt, Johnny,” said Craig.
Without a word. Gray held up his arm, and the inspector scrutinised the spotless linen, for spotless it was. No sign of a stain was visible.
“Either somebody’s doing some tall lying, or you’re being extraordinarily clever, Johnny. I’ll see that other cuff if I may.”
The second scrutiny produced no tangible result.
“Didn’t you go home and change tonight?”
“No, I haven’t been near my flat,” he said.
Craig was staggered.
“But your man said that you came in, changed, took a suitcase and went away.”
“Then Parker has been drinking,” was the calm reply “I have been enjoying the unusual experience of dining with the detective officer who was responsible for my holiday