"Smith, Guy N - Crabs 01 - Night of the Crabs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

CLIFF DAVENPORT remained at his West Hampstead home for three days. He did no work, and he ate little. He consumed on average an ounce of tobacco a day. Those lines on his face deepened. He was hardened to grief, but it was the very fact of not knowing that troubled him. If Ian and Julie were dead, then for a short while he would succumb to grief. If they were discovered alive, then he would rejoice. Until then he would endure untold mental agony.

Each day he rang the police headquarters at Harlech. The answer was always the same. In the end the Inspector there told him that they would telephone him the moment they had any news. That meant they were not hopeful of finding the couple alive.

By Saturday morning the telephone had still not rung. Cliff roused himself from the armchair which had, by now, been his sleeping place for five nights. He knew that he could not endure another night of waiting, the restless pacing up and down, of the feeling of utter helplessness. He went upstairs to his small, untidy bedroom and dragged a dusty suitcase from beneath the bed. Pulling open drawers at random he began throwing items of clothing into it.

It was scarcely nine o'clock when he backed the Cortina estate car out of the garage. The petrol gauge showed that the tank was full. He could be in Llanbedr by tea-time. The prospect of some kind of action was comforting and his spirits soared as he finally left London behind him.

The hotel in Llanbedr was not an hotel as such. Few holiday makers were aware of its existence and the friendly, widowed Mrs Jones preferred to keep it that way. She had her regular guests who returned, year after year, and that was how she wanted it.

'Goodness me!' she stood aghast as she recognised Cliff Davenport getting out of his car. 'Professor! This is a surprise!'

'Hallo, Mum,' the professor greeted her. Cliff always called Mrs Jones 'Mum', much to her delight.

'I'm sorry to arrive unannounced like this. It's urgent, though. Of course, if you haven't any room I shan't grumble.'

'It'll have to be the attic-room,' Mrs Jones was slightly embarrassed. 'I've got a full house, and if I'd known... '

'The attic will do fine,' Cliff assured her, lifting his suitcase out of the car. 'I don't want to put you to any trouble.'

'I'll put the kettle on,' she declared as she went indoors ahead of him.

'Now, Mum.' Cliff sipped his tea thankfully, and regarded her with a pair of steely-blue eyes, 'Tell me what you know about the missing bathers.'

'Nothing that the papers haven't already reported.' She busied herself with laying the table. 'If folks will go swimming where there's dangerous currents... '

'There aren't any dangerous currents of the South End of Shell Island,' Cliff Davenport snapped, 'and they were both first-class swimmers.'

'How d'you know that?' Mrs Jones paused. 'It isn't that what's brought you here, is it, Professor?'

'It is,' he replied. 'Ian Wright was my nephew, and the girl was his fiancщe.'

'Oh!' Mrs Jones sat down suddenly on the nearest chair, 'I didn't know... oh, I'm terribly sorry, Professor.'

'You weren't to know.' The Professor smiled wanly. 'But it's almost a week now since they disappeared, and everybody seems to have abandoned the search, content just to let the tide wash them up in its own time. Well, I'm not satisfied that everything's just as it should be. I intend to poke around a bit. I don't know what it is, but I've got a funny feeling that there's more to this than meets the eye. I also know in my own mind that they're both dead!'

Grimly, he continued drinking his tea.

Sergeant Hughes looked up from his desk as the tall man with the receding hairline walked into the police station.

'Yes, sir,' he grunted automatically, not bothering to rise to his feet. 'What can I do for you?'

'If you could find my nephew, Ian Wright, and his girl friend I should be delighted.' Professor Davenport's tone was terse. 'I have been waiting for a call from you and, as nothing transpired, I thought that I had better come down to Llanbedr.'

'Oh, you're Professor Davenport.' The sergeant rose to his feet and pulled thoughtfully at his moustache. 'Everything that can be done is being done. There was no need for you to ...'

'I prefer to,' Cliff snapped. 'They were both excellent swimmers, and there are no dangerous currents to speak of off the South End where their car was parked.'

'Any bathing is dangerous,' the sergeant stated adamantly. They're not the first to be drowned on this part of the coast, you know.'