"Mr. Zero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth Patricia)

IV

Gay went to the window, wrestled with it, opened it, and stuck her head out into the foggy, frosty air. Sylvia was exactly like a jelly, a beautiful, bright, quivering jelly with plenty of sweet whipped cream round it. If you had to talk to her for any length of time, you began to feel as if you were sinking into the jelly and smothering there. The warm room, Marcia’s fripperies, Sylvia’s violet scent, and all that rose colour were suddenly too much for her. The carpet had begun to wave up and down in a horrid pink mist. She much preferred the January fog outside with the lights shining through it like orange moons, and the hard smell of soot and frost. It was cold though. Her head steadied and she drew back with a shiver, but she left an open handsbreath to keep the carpet steady.

Sylvia was doing her mouth with a pale pink lipstick. She gazed earnestly at her own reflection in the little platinum-backed mirror which belonged to the bag, and said in a plaintive voice,

“Darling-such a draught!”

“You made my head go round,” said Gay. “You’d make anyone’s head go round. Now, Sylvia, put all that rubbish away and listen!”

“Rubbish?” said Sylvia. She turned the mirror to show the diamond S on the back. “Why, it cost masses of money.”

Gay pounced, removed the lipstick and mirror, put them into the grey suede bag, and shut it with a snap.

“Now, Sylvia, listen. You say you were told all about stealing this paper on the telephone, but here-” she put the blue-pencilled message down on Sylvia’s knee,-“here it says, ‘Same time-same place-same money.’ What does that mean? It doesn’t fit in. What time? What place?”

Sylvia looked at the torn piece of paper. Then she looked at Gay.

“Well, he wanted me to go there again, but I wouldn’t.”

“He wanted you to go where? Where had you gone?”

“Well, it was at Cole Lester, you know.”

“You were at Cole Lester when the man rang you up about stealing the paper?”

Sylvia looked surprised.

“Oh, no, darling, that was in London, but we were just going down to Cole Lester, and he said to wait till it was dark and then go and walk in the yew alley. It’s very old, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years, and it meets overhead, so that it’s like being in a tunnel. I didn’t like it very much, but I thought I’d better go, and when I got to the end he said, ‘Is that you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, and please be quick,’ because that sort of place always has spiders and earwigs in it, and he hurried up and told me how to get the paper.”

“He was in the alley?”

“Oh, no, darling-outside. I was the one who was in the alley. He was outside. There’s a sort of window, and we talked through it, all whispery. I didn’t like it a bit, and Francis might have thought the most dreadful things, so when he wanted me to go again I wouldn’t. And now he says he’ll tell Francis I took the paper, and if he does, Francis will know about the five hundred pounds, and I don’t know what he’ll say.”

Gay tried to keep her head.

“You say this person wants another paper. How do you know he does?”

Sylvia’s eyes widened.

“Darling, he told me.”

Gay put a hand on her shoulder-a firm and angry little hand.

“Sylly, I shall shake you in about half a minute. How many times have you talked to this man?”

Sylvia began to count on her fingers.

“There was the time he rang up-that was the first time. And there was the time I’ve been telling you about at Cole Lester, and the time I was just starting for Wellings. And then I took the paper, and gave it to him, and he gave me the money-I don’t know if you count that.”

“Count everything,” said Gay. “That’s four. Now what is five?”

“I suppose it was when he rang me up again.”

“He rang you up again? Where?”

“In Bruton Street. And he said he wanted me to do something else, and I said I couldn’t, and I thought I heard Francis coming, so I rang off. And he rang up next day, and the minute I heard his voice I hung up, and he went on ringing for ages, and I just let him. And then I got a big cut out of a paper, and it just said, ‘Two hundred and fifty pounds reward.’ And next day this bit of paper-” she touched the torn piece on her knee-“and today there was the other one to say he was going to tell Francis, and if he does, I shall die.”

Gay took her hand away, walked to the window, stared blankly at the fog, and came back again.

“You’ll have to tell Francis,” she said.

Sylvia’s colour failed suddenly and completely.

“He’ll kill me,” she said in a frightened whisper.

“Nonsense, Sylly!”

“He said he would.”

“Francis said he’d kill you?”

Sylvia’s eyes were terrified.

“No, no-the man-he said he’d kill me if I told Francis-and he would-he said he’d kill me if I even thought about telling Francis.”

“When did he say all this?”

“I think it was last night,” said Sylvia vaguely. “I didn’t mean to listen, but he said I must. And we’re going down to Cole Lester, and if I don’t take him the papers, he’ll tell Francis-”

“What papers does he want this time?” said Gay.

Sylvia looked at her with brimming eyes.

“The ones Francis keeps in the safe in his study,” she said.