Room 13 (4 page)

John Gray rose.

“No,” he said. “I’ll wander through your alleged rosary. I want nothing to remind me of The Awful Place, thank you.”

Johnny had disappeared through an opening of the box hedge at the lower end of the lawn when Barney returned with the visitor.

Mr Emanuel Legge was a man below middle height, thin of body and face, grey and a little bald. On his nose perched a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. He stood for a second or two surveying the scene, his chin lifted, his thin lips drawn in between his teeth. His attire was shabby, a steel chain served as a watch-guard, and, as if to emphasise the rustiness of his wrinkled suit, he wore boots that were patently new and vividly yellow. Hat in hand, he waited, his eyes slowly sweeping the domain of his enemy, until at last they came to rest upon his host.

It was Peter Kane who broke the deadly silence.

“Well, Emanuel? Come over and sit down.”

Legge moved slowly toward his host.

“Quite a swell place, Peter. Everything of the best, eh? Trust you! Still got old Barney, I see. Has he reformed too? That’s the word, ain’t it – ‘reformed’?”

His voice was thin and complaining. His pale blue eyes blinked coldly at the other.

“He doesn’t go thieving any more, if that is what you mean,” said Peter shortly, and a look of pain distorted the visitor’s face.

“Don’t use that word; it’s low–”

“Let me take your hat.” Peter held out his hand, but the man drew his away.

“No, thanks. I promised a young friend of mine that I wouldn’t lose anything while I was here. How long have you been at this place, Peter?”

“About fourteen years.”

Peter sat down, and the unwelcome guest followed his example, pulling his chair round so that he faced the other squarely.

“Ah!” he said thoughtfully. “Living very comfortable, plenty to eat, go out and come in when you like. Good way of spending fourteen years. Better than having the key on you four o’clock in the afternoon. Princetown’s the same old place – oh, I forgot you’d never been there.”

“I’ve motored through,” said Peter coolly, deliberately, and knew that he had touched a raw place before the lips of the man curled back in a snarl.

“Oh, you’ve motored through!” he sneered. “I wish I’d known; I’d have hung my flags out! They ought to have decorated Princetown that day, Peter. You drove through!” he almost spat the words.

“Have a cigar?”

Emanuel Legge waved aside the invitation.

“No, thanks. I’ve got out of the habit – you do in fifteen years. You can get into some, too. Fifteen years is a long time out of a life.”

So Emanuel had come to make trouble, and had chosen his day well. Peter took up the challenge.

“The man you shot would have been glad of a few – he died two years after,” he said curtly, and all the pent fury of his sometime comrade flamed in his eyes.

“I hope he’s in hell,” he hissed, “the dirty flattie!” With an effort he mastered himself. “You’ve had a real good time, Peter? Nice house, that wasn’t bought for nothing. Servants and what not
and
motoring through the moor! You’re clever!”

“I admit it.”

The little man’s hands were trembling, his thin lips twitched convulsively.

“Leave your pal in the lurch and get away yourself eh? Every man for himself – well, that’s the law of nature, ain’t it? And if you think he’s going to squeak, send a line to the busies in charge of the case and drop a few hundred to ’em and there you are!” He paused, but no reply came. “That’s how it’s done, ain’t it, Peter?”

Kane shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“I don’t know – I’m never too old to learn.”

“But that’s the way it’s done?” insisted the man, showing his teeth again. “That’s the way you keep out of boob, ain’t it?”

Peter looked at his tormentor, outwardly untroubled.

“I won’t argue with you,” he said.

“You can’t,” said the other. “I’m logical.” He gazed around. “This house cost a bit of money. What’s half of two hundred thousand? I’m a bad counter!” Peter did not accept the opening. “It’s a hundred thousand, ain’t it? I got sixty thousand – you owe me forty.”

“We got less than a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, if you’re talking about the ship job. You got sixty thousand, which was more than your share. I paid it into your bank the day you went down.”

Legge smiled sceptically.

“The newspapers said a million dollars,” he murmured.

“You don’t believe what you read in the newspapers, do you? Emanuel, you’re getting childish.” Then suddenly: “Are you trying to put the black on me?”

“Blackmail?” Emanuel was shocked. “There’s honour amongst – friends surely, Peter. I only want what’s right and fair.”

Peter laughed softly, amusedly.

“Comic, is it? You can afford to laugh at a poor old fellow – who’s been in ‘stir’ for fifteen years.”

The master of Manor Hill snapped round on him.

“If you’d been in hell for fifty I should still laugh.”

Emanuel was sorry for himself. That was ever a weakness of his; he said as much.

“You wouldn’t, would you? You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you? Young? Married today, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Married money – a swell?”

“Yes. She married a good man.”

“He doesn’t know what you are, Peter?” Emanuel asked the question carelessly, and his host fixed him with a steely glance.

“No. What’s the idea? Do you think you’ll get forty thousand that way?”

“I’ve got a boy. You’ve never sat in a damp cell with the mists of the moor hanging on the walls and thought and thought till your heart ached? You can get people through their children.” He paused. “I could get you that way.”

In a second Peter Kane was towering above him, an ominous figure.

“The day my heart ached,” he said slowly, “yours would not beat! You’re an old man, and you’re afraid of death! I can see it in your eyes. I am afraid of nothing. I’d kill you!”

Before the ferocity of voice and mien, Legge shrank farther into his chair.

“What’s all this talk about killing? I only want what’s fair. Fond of her, ain’t you, Peter? I’ll bet you are. They say that you’re crazy about her. Is she pretty? I don’t suppose she takes after you. Young Johnny Gray was sweet on her too. Peter, I’ll get you through her–”

So far he got, and then a hand like a steel damp fell on his neck, and he was jerked from his chair.

Peter spoke no word but, dragging the squirming figure behind him, as if it had neither weight nor resistance, he strode up the narrow pathway by the side of the house, across the strip of garden, through the gate and into the road. A jerk of his arm, and Emanuel Legge was floundering in the dusty road.

“Don’t come back, Emanuel,” he said, and did not stop to listen to the reply.

John Gray passed out of sight and hearing of the two men, being neither curious to know Legge’s business nor anxious to renew a prison acquaintance.

Below the box hedge were three broad terraces, blazing with colour, blanketed with the subtle fragrance of flowers. Beyond that, a sloping meadow leading to a little river. Peter had bought his property wisely A great cedar of Lebanon stood at the garden’s edge; to the right, massed bushes were patched with purple and heliotrope blooms.

He sat down on a marble seat, glad of the solitude which he shared only with a noisy thrush and a lark invisible in the blue above him.

Marney was married. That was the beginning and the end of him. But happy. He recognised his very human vanity in the instant doubt that she could be happy with anybody but him.

How dear she was! And then a voice came to him, a shrill, hateful voice. It was Legge’s – he was threatening the girl, and Johnny’s blood went cold. Here was the vulnerable point in Peter Kane’s armour; the crevice through which he could be hurt.

He started to his feet and went up the broad steps of the terrace three at a time. The garden was empty, save for Barney setting a table. Kane and his guest had disappeared. He was crossing the lawn when he saw something white shining in the gloom beyond the open french windows of a room. Something that took glorious shape. A girl in bridal white, and her hands were outstretched to him. So ethereal, so unearthly was her beauty, that at first he did not recognise her.

“Johnny!”

A soldierly figure was at her side, Peter Kane was behind her, but he had no eyes for any but Marney.

She came flying toward him, both his hands were clasped in her warm palm.

“Oh, Johnny… Johnny!”

Then he looked up into the smiling face of the bridegroom, that fine, straight man to whom Peter had entrusted his beloved girl. For a second their eyes met, the debonair Major Floyd and his. Not by a flicker of eyelash did Johnny Gray betray himself.

The husband of the woman he loved was Jeff Legge, forger and traitor, the man sworn with his father to break the heart of Peter Kane.

Had he betrayed himself, he wondered? All his will power was exercised to prevent such a betrayal. Though a tornado of fury swept through him, though he saw the face of the man distorted and blurred, and brute instinct urged his limbs to savage action, he remained outwardly unmoved. It was impossible for the beholder to be sure whether he had paled, for the sun and wind of Dartmoor had tanned his lean face the colour of mahogany. For a while so terrific was the shock that he was incapable of speech or movement.

“Major Floyd” was Jeff Legge! In a flash he realised the horrible plot. This was Emanuel’s revenge – to marry his crook son to the daughter of Peter Kane.

Jeff was watching him narrowly, but by no sign did Johnny betray his recognition. It was all over in a fraction of a second. He brought his eyes back to the girl, smiling mechanically. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings. That her new husband stood by, watching her with a gleam of amusement in his eyes, that Peter was frowning anxiously, and that even old Barney was staring open-mouthed, meant nothing.

“Johnny, poor Johnny! You aren’t hating me, are you?”

John smiled and patted the hand that lay in his.

“Are you happy?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes, oh yes, I’m happily married – that’s what you mean, isn’t it? I’m very happy… Johnny, was it terrible? I haven’t stopped thinking about you, I haven’t. Though I didn’t write after… Don’t you think I was a beast…? I know I was. Johnny, didn’t it hurt you, old boy?”

He shook his head.

“There’s one thing you mustn’t be in Dartmoor – sorry for yourself. Are you happy?”

She did not meet his eyes.

“That is twice you’ve asked in a minute! Isn’t it disloyal to say that I am? Don’t you want to meet Jeffrey?”

“Why, of course I want to meet Jeffrey.”

He crossed to the man, and Jeff Legge watched him.

“I want you to meet Captain Gray, a very old friend of mine,” she said with a catch in her voice.

Jeffrey Legge’s cold hand gripped his.

“I’m glad to meet you, Captain Gray.”

Had he been recognised? Apparently not, for the face turned to him was puckered in an embarrassed smile.

“You’ve just come back from East Africa, haven’t you? Get any shooting?”

“No, I didn’t do any shooting,” said Johnny.

“Lots of lions, aren’t there?” said Jeff.

The lips of the ex-convict twitched.

“In that part of the country where I was living, the lions are singularly tame,” he said dryly.

“Marney, darling, you’re glad to see Gray on your wedding day, aren’t you? – it was good of you to come, Gray. Mrs Floyd has often spoken about you.”

He put his arm about the girl, his eyes never leaving Johnny’s face. He designed to hurt – to hurt them both. She stood rigidly, neither yielding nor resisting, tense, breathless, pale. She knew! The realisation came to John Gray like a blow. She knew that this man was a liar and a villain. She knew the trick that had been played upon her father!

“Happy, darling?”

“Very – oh, very.”

There was a flutter in her voice, and now Johnny was hurt, and the fight to hold himself in became terrific. It was Peter who for the moment saved the situation.

“Johnny, I want you to know this boy. The best in the world. And I want you to think with me that he’s the best husband in the world for Marney.”

Jeff Legge laughed softly.

“Mr Kane, you embarrass me terribly. I’m not half good enough for her – I’m just an awkward brute that doesn’t deserve my good luck.”

He bent and kissed the white-faced girl. Johnny did not take his eyes from the man.

“Happy, eh? I’ll bet you’re happy, you rascal,” chuckled Kane.

Marney pulled herself away from the encircling arm.

“Daddy, I don’t think this is altogether amusing Johnny.” Her voice shook. The man from Dartmoor knew that she was on the verge of tears.

“It takes a lot to bore me.” John Gray found his voice. “Indeed, the happiness of young people – I feel very old just now – is a joy. You’re a Canadian, Major Floyd?”

“Yes – a French Canadian, though you wouldn’t guess that from my name. My people were
habitant
and went west in the ’sixties to Alberta and Saskatchewan, long before the railway came. You ought to go to Canada; you’d like it better than the place you’ve been to.”

“I’m sure I should.”

Peter had strolled away, the girl’s arm in his.

“No lions in Canada, tame, or wild,” said Jeff, regarding him from under his drooped eyelids.

Gray had lit a cigarette. He was steady now, steady of nerve and hand.

“I should feel lonely without lions,” he said coolly, and then: “If you will forgive my impertinence, Major Floyd, you have married a very nice girl.”

“The very, very best.”

“I would go a long way to serve her – a long way. Even back to the lions.”

Their eyes met. In the bridegroom’s was a challenge; in Johnny Gray’s cold murder. Jeff Legge’s eyes fell and he shivered.

“I suppose you like – hunting?” he said. “Oh, no, you said you didn’t. I wonder why a man of your character went abroad?”

“I was sent,” said Johnny, and he emphasised every word. “Somebody had a reason for sending me abroad – they wanted me out of the way. I should have gone, anyhow, but this man hurried the process.”