Chronicles of the Secret Service (9 page)

‘Did you speak?’ asked Sonia frigidly.

‘Wha’sat?’ with a loud hiccough from the man. ‘Don’ speak temme – yah, aris’crats! Of course I spoke,’ came immediately afterwards in a whisper. ‘Take my advice! You’re going into danger.’

Such a warning in their state of mind was calculated to have the opposite effect to that intended. The tramp was not to know this, however, and he grunted a remark that sounded like ‘Pig-headed fools’, as they continued on their way. Anstruther had reached the conclusion that he and the girl had unconsciously become involved in something of the nature of that for which he had so long been in search, and he meant to see it through. He regretted the fact that Sonia was present, but did not believe that any real danger could threaten them. However, as a concession to his conscience, he asked if she would rather not enter the hunchback’s house.

‘Of course we’re going in,’ she whispered. ‘I feel quite thrilled. The tramp man must be only pretending to be drunk, though he smells as though he’s swallowed a public house. Perhaps he’s a detective in disguise, Tony.’

‘Detective be blowed,’ muttered Anstruther contemptuously. ‘Detectives don’t play Noughts and Crosses on cars.’

The hunchback unlocked the door of a three-storied house and threw it open for them to enter. Sonia had had an idea that the buildings in that district were mostly devoted to tenements and flats; wondered what the hunchback wanted with a whole house. From the little she had seen of it, before entering a narrow, musty hall, she had concluded that, by daylight, it would look very dilapidated. The passage was in darkness.

‘Wait,’ came in the hunchback’s thick accents. ‘I will put the light. So!’

A single electric bulb flared into life, rendering visible the hall in all its nakedness. Except for linoleum under foot, it was completely devoid of furniture. A door on their right was opened, and Sonia and Anstruther shown into a room, which rather surprised them, after the appearance of the hall. It was not exactly luxurious, but it was comfortable-looking. The two easy chairs, the couch, were by no means new, but they were upholstered in good quality material that must have once appeared impressive. An oak bookcase filled the whole of one wall and was crammed with books, a sideboard was placed against another. A large table in the centre of the room with three chairs on each side and one at either end was covered with a red cloth. The carpet was attractive and thick while, on the huge old-fashioned mantelshelf, was a valuable clock, also vases of flowers.

‘This my sit-room,’ announced the hunchback. ‘I am landlord,’ he went on to explain, ‘that let the rooms to my countrypeoples.’

‘Are you French?’ inquired Tony.

‘No, no, no,’ was the emphatic reply. ‘Me I am Roosian. You like the Roosian?’ he asked Sonia.

‘Oh – er – yes, of course,’ she hastened to assure him, though she did not remember having ever met one before then.

‘I am please. Will you sit? I will send my servant Ivan to clean the car at once.’

‘I say,’ acknowledged Anstruther, ‘it’s jolly good of you to take all this trouble.’

‘It is the pleasure.’ He clicked his tongue as though annoyed
with himself. ‘Ah! I forget the leetle man. I have the weakness for Noughts and Crosses and, too sad, I cannot play them mooch because mos’ people t’ink it is children’s games. When to your help I come, I am a leetle selfish, for I t’ink at last I find a man who like the game wi’ the passion of me.’

‘But,’ objected Tony, ‘he is a tramp – and drunk.’

‘What matter is that? Pardon, I mus’ go find heem.’

He hastened from the room. Sonia looked at Tony and smiled.

‘Noughts and Crosses!’ she murmured. ‘That tramp must have dreamt about there being danger here. A man who is keen on playing a kid’s game like that can’t be dangerous.’

‘Unless he’s mad,’ hazarded Anstruther.

‘O – oh!’ Sonia’s eyes opened wide. ‘I never thought of that. Do you think he is, Tony?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. He looks sane enough.’

‘He has queer eyes, though. Have you noticed them? There is something about them that seems – wicked. I can’t tell what it is; but, when he looked at me just now, I felt like shuddering.’

Anstruther laughed softly.

‘That little blighter of a tramp has made you imaginative,’ he remarked. ‘I wonder what happened to him. He followed us in, didn’t he?’

‘I don’t know – I didn’t notice. I should like to know why he was pretending to be drunk. He isn’t a tramp either – really a tramp I mean; he had such a nice, well-bred sort of voice when he warned us not to come in here.’

Anstruther stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘You’re right; so he had. I hadn’t thought of that before. I hope there isn’t any actual danger, Sonia. I should never forgive
myself, if I were the cause of anything happening to you.’

‘Don’t be silly! What could happen to me? Besides, I accepted the invitation to come here – you didn’t. Therefore, you wouldn’t be to blame if something did go wrong.’

‘I would. I backed you up.’

‘You’re not getting the wind up, old boy, are you?’ she scoffed. ‘After all, both you and I have been longing for a thrill. If we get one from the hunchback, we ought to be grateful.’ She sighed. ‘It’s too much to hope for I’m afraid.’

‘I say,’ he observed suddenly, lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘perhaps we shouldn’t be talking aloud like this. Someone may be listening.’

She laughed.

‘I believe you
have
got the jim-jams,’ she bantered.

‘I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy about you,’ he confessed. ‘If I were alone, I’d be all for an adventure, preferably with a spice of danger in it. Goodness knows I’ve been hoping and searching for something of the sort long enough. It’s a different matter to drag you in, though. The disappearance of the tramp has made me wonder, and I’ve had time to think. There must have been some reason for—’

The sound of voices outside the room interrupted him. The door opened, and the hunchback entered, escorting the ragged individual who had uttered the strange warning. Under the glare of the electric light, he looked more disreputable than he had done in the illumination diffused from the street lamps. His garments, if they could be dignified with such a description, were filthy, his hands and face repulsively dirty. Yet Sonia could not help feeling there was something attractive about him,
despite the fact that he bestowed on Anstruther and her a most uncomplimentary and resentful scowl. The extraordinary number of wrinkles on his face and his magnetic brown eyes fascinated her. Apart from that, she was tremendously intrigued at the thought that his drunkenness was assumed. As he stood inside the room, swaying gently, she began to doubt if it was; he looked so completely intoxicated. Nevertheless, she could not forget the warning he had uttered in a completely sober voice.

‘I find heem,’ announced the hunchback unnecessarily. ‘He go back himself to the car and start the play again. I am sorry, but he not seem to like you. I have mooch trouble persuade heem to come in.’

‘Dir’y aris’crats,’ mumbled the tramp. ‘T’ hell wi’ all aris’crats – mo’ cars an’ jewels an’ money an’ food ’n’everythin’! Yah!’

He scowled again, hiccoughed loudly, and lapsed into silence.

‘You mus’ not mind heem,’ insisted the hunchback. ‘He do not mean the harm. I have send my servant to make clean the car. Soon it will be all right. Madame and sir, I regret I do not before introduce myself. I am Nicholas Karen, ver’ mooch to your service.’

‘We are greatly obliged to you, Mr Karen, for your kindness,’ responded Anstruther. ‘My name is Anthony Anstruther. This lady is Miss Hardinge.’

‘So!’ Karen bowed politely. ‘We now know each other. Please be seat.’ They sat side by side on the couch. ‘Maybe you are honger or thirst? Will you take the refreshment? It will not make the trouble.’ They thanked him, but declined. ‘Ah! You do not mind if I wi’ my frien’ play the game?’

‘Not at all,’ Tony assured him. ‘Go ahead! Miss Hardinge and I will watch.’

‘T’ank you. I will go fetch the slate. Excuse for the moment.’

He left the room, closing the door behind him. Tony and Sonia sat looking at the tramp, who still stood swaying slightly, his eyes sometimes wide open, sometimes very nearly closed, the very picture of sullen inebriation. They both were anxious to speak to him, but were not sure whether it would be wise. He settled the point for them, by addressing them in a whisper they only just heard. His lips did not seem to move.

‘Having got in,’ he breathed, ‘the question is how to get you out. Perhaps he means you no harm, but I can’t imagine his going out of his way to do anyone a good turn. No; don’t speak. This may be a trap. I don’t think he suspects me, but one never knows. Whatever happens, don’t by word or sign show that you think me anything but what I look. I’ve got to rely on you to that extent – can’t help myself. If there’s any trouble coming to you, I’ll do my best to get you out of it.’ Suddenly he raised his voice, and again spoke in thick, drunken accents. ‘Wharrer yer thinkin’ ’bout, you two, eh? Tha’s wha’ I wan’ to know. I’m’s good s’you ’ny day, an’ don’ yer forget it, see? If I wanter play Noughts an’ Crosses on yer bloomin’ car why shouldn’ I, answer me tha’ – why shouldn’ I?’ He waved his right arm in an emphatic gesture that almost caused him to overbalance. ‘If I’d m’way, I’d drown all aris’crat babies a’ birth, tha’s wha’ I’d do – s’truth I would, s’elp m’bob.’

The hunchback had returned during this drunken diatribe, and stood, for a moment, listening, a smile on his sallow face. He stepped forward as the little man showed signs of becoming violent; took him by the arm.

‘You please don’t mind heem,’ he advised the others. ‘He too
mooch drunk to know what it is he say. Look,’ he added to the tramp, ‘I have the slate. We will play.’

He placed a large slate of the type used by small school children on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down, inviting his ragged guest to take another. The latter did so after fumbling ineffectually for a while and eventually needing help. He took the piece of chalk handed to him with a grunt of satisfaction.

‘Noughts me,’ he enunciated. ‘You c’n be cross-crosses.’

‘As you like, my frien’, but it would have been proper if first we have toss the coin.’

The tramp leered at him.

‘Not on yer life,’ he vowed. ‘P’raps yer would ’a called noughts, an’ I allus star’s we’ noughts – nev’ lose then. Are yer ready, pal?’

‘Yes, I am ready.’

‘Then off we goes.’

To Sonia and Tony sitting there watching, the scene was fantastic, incredible. That two men – even though one appeared drunk and a tramp, and the other a foreigner, a hunchback and possibly rendered eccentric through his deformity – should solemnly sit at a table and play Noughts and Crosses on a slate was almost beyond belief. Anstruther could not rid himself of the feeling that he was dreaming. The whole affair – the drunk tramp playing the game on his car, the interposition of the hunchback, the warning from the inebriated man in anything but an uncouth or intoxicated voice, and now the two queer individuals playing Noughts and Crosses on a slate, both appearing in deadly earnest – was of the absurd stuff of which dreams are made. There was nothing real about the situation. Sonia did not regard it in quite the same light as Tony. She was most struck by the
humour of the circumstances and badly wanted to giggle. They had been much impressed by the whispered remarks of the little man during the absence from the room of Nicholas Karen and, more than ever, Anstruther felt he had been extremely foolish in allowing Sonia to enter the house. It was obvious to them both now that the tramp was playing a part, that he was no more drunk than they were, even though he looked it and exuded such an unpleasant odour of strong liquor. They had become intensely interested in him; wondered who he was, and what was behind his extraordinary pretence. Tony would have been delighted at the prospect of becoming concerned at last in something that promised adventure, had it not been for the presence of the girl. She, for her part, was feeling delightfully thrilled. The prospect of danger did not frighten her; on the contrary, she welcomed it. Probably that was because she did not really feel in her heart that any actually existed.

The two men at the table played Noughts and Crosses with the seriousness of experts engaged in a game of chess. This was most marked in the case of Karen, whose dark eyes grew almost feverish as he found the tramp, despite his drunkenness, a foeman worthy of his steel. The onlookers began to realise that there was more in the game, as played by these two utterly dissimilar beings, than they had thought possible. At last, the concentration of each and the deliberation with which the noughts or crosses were inserted on the slate seemed to indicate this. Karen won the first game, and gave vent to a chuckle of glee. The tramp grunted with disgust; made a remark under his breath that was not audible. The Russian had provided himself with a little sponge with which he rubbed out the filled-in diagram, after he had indicated his win with a short line at the top of the slate. The figure was drawn again. This time the
little man won, and a line was put to his credit. Thus it went on, sometimes one, sometimes the other winning; each game taking a considerable time to play, because of the thought each man gave to his moves. It became very monotonous to the watchers on the couch. They wondered uneasily why the servant had not entered the room to announce that he had cleaned the car. He seemed to be taking an unconscionable time about it. Both Karen and the tramp appeared totally to have forgotten their existence. At last, as the two finished their tenth game, and the Russian boasted six wins to four, Anstruther touched Sonia on the arm, and rose to his feet.

‘I am sorry to interrupt, Mr Karen,’ he observed, ‘but it is time Miss Hardinge and I left. I am sure your servant must have removed the chalk marks from the car by now.’

The Russian looked up at them and, for the first time, they had actual indication that his friendliness had been assumed. The expression on his face was definitely antagonistic, and Tony became aware of the evil that lurked in his eyes of which Sonia had already spoken.