"Charlie Chan - 7402 - The SIlent Corpse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chan Charlie)

He moved to a wall phone just inside the hall door, punched a series of buttons set in the panel while he held the handset to his ear. After waiting a moment, he hung up, dialed again, listened again in vain. He tried a third time, pushing different buttons, talked briefly with Willie, the butler who had met Chan in the hall on his return with Dr. Smith from the funeral services.
"To the waiting room?" he said, "If she's there, we can't reach her. Service outside the house proper is malfunctioning."
Dr. Smith blinked behind his glasses, said, "I've been expecting a call from Hilo for over an hour. Do you suppose...?"
"Not in Burdon Point ground," said Zachariah, "When we had the phones reinstalled five years ago, they were set just there - in the ground, in cable casings of insulation fibre and zinc. But beyond our fences, I'd say the odds were ninety-nine to one they're down and out somewhere."
Dr. Smith uttered a four-letter word which shocked no one. Under existing conditions, it seemed a quite suitable expression. Then Lenore spoke again.
"Dave," she said to her husband, "I think we should search the entire house, including the basements."
Davis Wilmot, a quietly handsome rust-colored man who had spoken little during the evening, said mildly, "But why would Harriet go to the basements?"
"There could be any number of reasons," Lenore insisted, her handsome gray-green eyes narrow. "Because of the storm, something for the household, anything."
Ellen Burdon, another quiet one, said, "Harriet was very fond of Lionel. I think she probably slipped off to be by herself for a while."
Lowell Burdon disagreed with his wife. "I think Lenore's right, dear," he said. "Of course Harriet is full of grief, but she's not the type to hole up in a corner in a time of crisis. And this, what with Lionel's death and the storm, is a time of double crisis."
"But searching the basements..." said Ellen Burdon in dismay. "That's like searching the Catacombs in Rome."
"There's another possibility nobody seems to want to consider," said young Kent. "Something may have happened to her."
The room floated in shock at this expression of the eventuality nobody seemed to wish to consider. Then Zachariah Burdon drained his inhaler of brandy and put it down on the mantelpiece. He said, "Come on, Chan. If we're going to do it, let's get at it. You and I are the only trained investigators in the group."
"Very well." Chan got to his feet. Such reluctance as he showed was feigned for reasons of tact rather than genuine. He wanted very much to look for Harriet, had been considering making the suggestion himself when Armand spoke up.
"There's no sense any of us going," said Lenore, as Carol indicated her wish to go with the men by rising.
"But I want to go," Carol protested, her face losing much of its prettiness as her expression became a sullen pout. "What's wrong with going?"
"Oh, very well," said Lenore, looking cross in turn.
"Coming, Dr. Smith?" Zachariah asked.
Dr. Smith, who had been across the room trying to make a trans-island phone call, put the instrument down. "All right, Burdon" he said. You were right about the lines. They're down."
Zachariah gave an I-told-you-so shrug and led the way toward the rear of the huge house via hall, dining room and butler's pantry beyond. Chan was next, then Lowell Burdon, then Dr. Smith, followed by the young couple and some of the other males present. Zachariah, pausing at a swinging pantry door, looked back at his troup, seemed to shudder, then looked down at the shorter detective inspector with an expression that said clearly, "We can't expect much from this bunch."
Yes, Chan thought, Zachariah Burdon was a trained investigator. He was also a trained executive officer both in combat and business, a rakehell adventurer with an instant computer brain, a man who had earned more millions for the Burdon clan than any other member. Yet he had never in his life won a Good Conduct Medal, nor had he been awarded a voting seat on the family board of directors and trustees. Zachariah had enlisted in the army the day after Pearl Harbor - in direct defiance of the clan. They had never forgiven him, or so it seemed.
Following the rangy redhead as he led them down a narrow staircase, the detective wondered how deeply this last rare lack of recognition rankled - or if it rankled at all...
The basements and sub-basements of the big house at Burdon Point were indeed an extensive catacomb, extending underground over an area greater than that of the house they served. They comprised a catacomb of steel and concrete, air conditioned and moisture controlled, power-fed by its own huge generators, a subterranean fortress built to resist the most destructive efforts of nature - or of man
After moving slowly and carefully through what seemed like hundreds of yards of passages and looking into a score of storerooms and fuel storage banks, various engine rooms and living quarters, Chan said to Zachariah, "Very impressive, but who keeps it running?"
"A very small staff," said the former Marine colonel. "The machinery that runs Burdon Point is almost entirely automated. Frankly, I was against it when Lionel decided to install it. The plan seemed ruinously and needlessly expensive, even for us. But for once in his life, Lionel had the better vision."
Chan pondered the implications of this remark, then said, "I suppose it's weatherproof."
"Charlie," said Zachariah, "below ground, this house is proof against anything but a ten-point Richter scale earthquake and a direct hit by a megaton H-bomb."
They had become separated from the others, some of whom had followed the two young people, others the massive liveried back of Willie, the butler. Zachariah led the way into a silent control room which, to the detective, looked more like the control room of some as-yet undreamt of space ship. Banks of gauges and indicators lined three of the otherwise faceless steel walls. In front of the fourth was a massive control table or desk with banks of buttons and indicators.
Zachariah Burden turned to the slender young man with owlish granny glasses who had risen at their entrance. He said, "Everything in order, Johanssen?"
"Everything shipshape so far, Colonel," said Johanssen. "I have Henderson and Yashimuru checking the cliffside passages just in case of leaks."
"Fat chance of that," said Zachariah. He introduced Chan, adding, "Johanssen graduated from both Cal Tech and M.I.T. He helped install the machinery and stayed on to keep it running."
Pleasantries concluded, Zachariah pushed on out of the control room via another door with Charlie Chan following. The detective said, "When you speak of leaks, you make the house sound like a ship."
"It is," said the former Marine. "The ventilation is entirely artificial. Naturally, there is a back-up system if it should break down - two of them, in fact. But in the unlikely event of this Maginot Line fortress springing a leak, a lot of circuits might short. Nothing serious, understand, but a damned nuisance to fix."
Chan forced himself to breathe deeply. He had once taken a trial trip on an atomic submarine and had been sensitive to sealed air ever since. Until then, he had not been aware of it but now he felt vaguely uncomfortable.
Zachariah, regarding him out of the corner of one eye, said sardonically, "Don't go claustrophobic on us, Charlie. It's out of character for you."
The detective became aware that there was sweat on his forehead and in the curves of his nostrils. He did not enjoy having his companion discover this rupture of his poise. Ignoring it, Chan said, "Do you really think Harriet is down here?"
"I doubt it very much," said Zachariah. "Harriet's a fresh-air fiend. If she hadn't opened the windows to air out the guest rooms we wouldn't have been flooded upstairs." A pause, then, "Unless somebody hung her up on a hook in the meat locker."
"Better look," said Chan.
Zachariah's right eyebrow rose. Then he shrugged and led the way along another corridor. Following him, the detective's thoughts were upstairs. If Harriet's presence in the basement were so unlikely, why had Lenore Burdon Wilmot been so insistent upon the search? Nerves and worry? Possibly, he decided. Chan recalled that the seemingly unflappable Lenore was an adult version of the unstable and neurotic teenager who had connived with a declasse lover to exact ransom from her own family.
Further speculation on these lines was cut off when Zachariah Burden opened a massive, perfectly balanced grey painted steel door whose thick glass window was frosted inside. Again, the detective followed him through. He found himself in a deep freezer large enough to serve a big hotel.
"We'd better go through this quickly, Charlie," said the colonel. "It doesn't take long to turn a man into an icicle without a cold suit."
Sides of beef dangled in ghostly array from ceiling hooks of gleaming metal - as did the carcasses of whole sheep, hogs and a long battery of immense turkeys. Lesser fowl and fish were stored in orthodox freeze lockers along the walls.
Zachariah said, "You take the left aisle, I'll take the right."
It was sensible advice, but Chan began to feel oddly uneasy as Zachariah passed out of sight behind the double rows of flayed and frozen animal corpses. After all, he was alone with a man of violent action, a man he did not really know, in a room that could quickly become a deathtrap once the door was closed. The recent attack in his room was also in Chan's mind. By the time he reached the room's far end, he could feel the chill to the very marrow of his bones.
During the return trip, Chan forced himself to walk slowly, even to inspect the smaller wall lockers through their glass lids. Each was easily large enough to hold a human body. But they contained only small fowl and fish of a vast variety of shapes and sizes. By the time he reached the entrance, he was fighting to keep his teeth from chattering.
Chan felt a moment of real panic when he discovered the door was shut - panic hardly abated by the fact that it was designed, like most such freezer doors, to be opened only from the outside.
The door was opened at that moment and Zachariah stood aside to permit Chan to pass. He said, "Sorry, Charlie, but you took your time. Me, I can't stand that kind of cold very long. I guess my blood's too thin after my years in the tropics."
The detective felt himself warm to the man about whom he had so recently been entertaining the most sinister suspicions. Thanks to his frankness, they were now all even - Zachariah one up on the air conditioning bit, Chan one up on his greater tolerance for cold.
What fools we mortals be, he thought...
"Harriet on your side?" Zachariah asked, and, at Chan's headshake, "Not on mine, either." He turned right into a passage they had not explored, adding, "Let's cut through the back way. It will save us about fifty yards."