"Walsh, Thomas - Nightmare In Manhattan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walsh Thomas)

He wanted to know, putting it with impressive earnestness, if Frances supposed that a tiger like that could kill an elephant. A boy had said so, Frances was informed, but of course there were boys who said anything at all, werenТt there?

УIndeed there are,Ф Frances said warmly. УAnd I wouldnТt believe them. You donТt have to, you know.Ф

УOh, I donТt,Ф Tony Murchison said. УNot always. Do you want to know something? IТm in the first grade. I go to school. Did my daddy tell you about that?Ф

Frances was suitably impressed about school, and Tony Murchison was apparently impressed by her. At ten minutes to one, after a short but friendly conversation, he tucked the guardsmen into his pocket next to the Uncle Sam pencil, and prepared to go off to that very important first grade of his at St. HilaryТs Day School. Then, from the study doorway, he confessed something which pleased Frances inordinately.

УI like you,Ф he said, nodding at her very seriously. УYouТre nice Ч and I think youТre pretty, too. Where do you live?Ф

She did not see him again. He went off to school wearing the blue overcoat, red mittens and a blue school cap, and Frances had finished with her work twenty minutes or so before he was due home from St. HilaryТs. She had come up to North Rhinehill that morning to type at home for Mr. Murchison a long and important memorandum on Coronet Oil; and she left the house hurriedly now, with the completed report, in an attempt to catch the 2:55 down from the North Rhinehill railroad station.

It was a gray February afternoon, bad for driving, with thick flurries of snow evident now and again in a bitter wind; and once Charles, the elderly Murchison chauffeur, was almost maneuvered into an accident on the ridge road leading down past St. HilaryТs Day School to the village.

They had just passed the big gray buildings there, where Charles was to pick up Tony Murchison on the ride home, when a gun-metal sedan raced up back of them out of nowhere, swerved to the right or else skidded, and forced Charles into deeper snow at the edge of the road.

There were three men crowded together into the front seat of the sedan, but the one nearest her was the only one Frances saw at all clearly. He examined the Murchison car very quickly, with cold-looking and unpleasant blue eyes, and then he spoke to his driver. They sheered off at once.

That was the first time Frances saw him. She saw him again about an hour afterward at Chester Falls, which was two stations on along the line. The same gun-metal sedan skidded in recklessly there to the upper end of the passenger platform, and two men jumped out of it, ran diagonally across the platform, and swung themselves up onto the steps of the last coach Ч FrancesТs coach Ч just as the 2:55, which had been forty minutes late at North Rhinehill, was pulling out in a hurried attempt to make up for some of its lost time.

The blue-eyed man Ч very big and powerful-looking on his feet, Frances noticed, with a wide, harsh mouth, flat jaws and red hair Ч opened the coach door a moment afterward from the vestibule side; and then the other man squeezed in past him and against Frances, who was sitting in the first seat on the aisle. This man, who appeared to be extremely nervous and upset, had his hand under his overcoat, as if holding onto something; and it was only when the train lurched him against Frances that the overcoat swung open an inch or two, and she saw what he was holding under it Ч a gun. She saw it for no more than a second or so; then the smaller man was by her, into the car; and the big redheaded one, who did not appear to know the other at all now, had taken the first seat that offered, just across from Frances.

She began watching him covertly, uneasiness in her. It seemed odd that if they had wanted to catch the 2:55 they had not caught it at North Rhinehill, instead of racing down all the way to Chester Falls on icy and dangerous February roads. Perhaps they had done something up in North Rhinehill, Frances found herself thinking rather slowly and unwillingly; that could be why they had split up on the train as if they did not know each other, and why the smaller one was carrying a gun. They would have no desire to be noticed, remembered and described afterward; so they had driven to Chester Falls, and two of them had got on the train, and the third one, the driverЕ

The big man with the unpleasant blue eyes must have felt her watching him. He turned suddenly, with a kind of savage and alert quickness, and Frances looked away from him. She felt her heart beginning to pump rapidly, and she was foolishly relieved, even in that day coach filled with passengers, when he did not appear to recognize her from the Murchison car.

The big man looked at her for a moment or two, with the flat jaws squared, the wide mouth set; then he turned back to his window. They slowed for Ballerton. And Frances got up, her heart still beating quickly, and went out into the vestibule and ahead into the next car.

Of course, she told herself, she wasnТt going to do anything about those men, and about their gun. She had just wanted to get away from the big fellow, and from the other one with the gun. They were not her business, after all. No. She was very logical about it, and very cool now that the big fellow was not watching her with those unnaturally pale blue eyes. She sat down. And then the conductor came along and demanded her ticket, and began to fuss with her because she had not brought the seat check along from the rear coach.

She must have been more upset than she thought, because she began to fuss with him also. She said, in what was probably an excited and breathless manner, that instead of raising a commotion about things like seat checks he ought to watch what was going on in his train. Because Ч

The conductor, who probably had his own worries in looking after Train Number 52 in weather like this, put his hands on his hips and stared down at her.

УLike what things?Ф the conductor said.

So she told him about the gun, and about the men, but perhaps she was not too convincing in her exposition. The conductor made one brusque movement.

УSure,Ф he said. УA lot of people see a lot of things happen on trains, or from trains Ч or imagine they do. You know what you want to do here, lady? Forget it. Just forget it. Do me that favor, will you?Ф

There was an elderly man sitting next to Frances, and he and the conductor exchanged knowing glances in a superior masculine manner that absolutely infuriated her. She said some things; the conductor said some things; and then she followed him out to the vestibule and argued with him there almost all the way from Ballerton to Millvale Center.

УNow look,Ф the conductor said, putting his lips together for a moment. УDonТt keep yapping at me. IТm warning you, understand? Or youТll get into something you donТt like. The only thing I do in stuff like this, I wire ahead and have a cop waiting for you at Manhattan Depot. ThatТs all. ThatТs the way IТm told to handle this stuff. Do you want that or donТt you?Ф

Frances, who did not want it, hesitated and bit her lip. She had a suspicion what a policeman at Manhattan Depot would mean: questions for her, perhaps surliness, perhaps serious trouble if the gun was found, or even if it was not found.

УWell,Ф she said, УI donТt know that I Ч Ф

The conductor grinned there at just the wrong moment.