The Last Drive and Other Stories
- Автор: Стаут Рекс Тодхантер
- Год: 2015
- Язык: английский
- Год: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
- ISBN: 978-1-5040-1134-1
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Last Drive and Other Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
That night Sackerville lay awake to think. Not despairing thoughts, though it would seem that he had found the object of his dreams only to lose it. He was a man who had fought with mountains and deserts and gangs of lazy criminal men and sneaky little diplomats; and ordinary foes, such as social conventions and ambitious matrons and best families, held no terrors for him. On the whole, his thoughts were optimistic and happy.
“I wonder what kind of fellow this Gowanton is,” he said to his pillow, and turned over and went to sleep.
The next day, Sunday, he and his old friend Andrew sat on the porch and talked over old times while the mother and daughter went to church. In the afternoon they motored into the country. Sackerville sat in front beside the grocer, who drove, while the tonneau was occupied by Mrs. Beach, Melissa and Melissa’s fiancé.
Mr. Gowanton was a fat, red-faced young man without any neck, very jolly and talkative. He laughed continually, with or without reason, in a high thin falsetto, and his conversation consisted entirely of personal recollections of the most irrelevant nature.
“Regular fool. Sorry he got Melly,” said Andrew Beach in a hoarse aside to his friend.
Sackerville nodded, smiling.
When they got back from the ride Gowanton stayed to dine with the family, as a matter of course. At the table his jollity was more in evidence than ever, until, by a chance remark of his host’s, he discovered that Sackerville was the man who built the Tsing-Tso Railroad. Then he began talking construction and equipment, and displayed an insight and knowledge of the subject really surprising in a country capitalist. Sackerville warmed and by degrees allowed himself to be drawn into a recital of his varied adventures.
“Great stuff,” said Gowanton, chewing, “but it won’t pay dividends.”
“Military road,” observed the grocer sententiously.
“No doubt it’s exciting,” put in Mrs. Beach, “but it is so unsettling. One must have a home and a position in society. Going all over the world like that — no permanence—”
“Sort of superior vagabondange?” smiled Sackerville, who had been trying for an hour to meet Melissa’s eyes. “Yes, of course, such a life has its disadvantages. A man gets so he lives mostly in his dreams, as far as sentiment is concerned. Like a friend of mine, an army officer in India. He had a dream one night, sort of an apparition. It was the face of a girl, very beautiful, as he described her to me once, and he kept seeing that face for years. It took him entirely and he got superstitious about it. He fancied himself in love with her; he could not believe it was only a vision, and he would have nothing to do with any woman. For ten years he remained faithful to that shadow of a dream. Then he went home to England on leave, and he met her at a dinner in London — the eyes, the hair, the face, the voice, everything the same. She was married to another man.”
“Oh, how awful!” cried Melissa.
“Of course, being an officer and a gentleman, he could say nothing,” commented Mrs. Beach.
“What did he do?” demanded the grocer.
“He killed the husband and took her out to India,” said Sackerville calmly.
And he looked into Melissa’s eyes, to find them startled and a little skeptical but filled with a strange friendliness.
That night he lay awake again, thinking, and slept with a smile.
The next morning he was up early, but he appeared to have nothing in particular to do, for he accepted the grocer’s invitation to go downtown with him and look over the store and warehouse.
“We’ll come home for lunch,” said Andrew Beach. “This afternoon I have to go to the church and practice giving my daughter to that Gowanton. Rehearse a wedding! Tomfoolery! Well, it’ll all be over tomorrow noon. She’ll be married then. Crazy to leave your old daddy, are you, Melly? Come on, Harry, the car’s waiting.”
But when he had spent three hours gazing at rows of boxes of tomatoes, sardines, soup, cheese, and a thousand other things, and the time came to go to lunch, Sackerville said he would prefer to remain downtown. Nor would he meet his host later at the church, where the wedding was to be rehearsed.
“Don’t blame you,” said Andrew Beach. “Damn nonsense. Wish you’d let me leave the car for you.”
Sackerville declined this offer again and set off afoot. All afternoon he roamed over the city alone, searching landmarks of his youth; and now and then he would meet a face that lookd familiar and yet strange, awakening a memory that had lain dormant for many years. He found nothing that attracted or moved him, and his thoughts were really of Melissa, who was to be married to John Gowanton at noon of the following day. He still felt the strangeness of having seen her and spoken to her in her youth and fresh beauty, just as she had so often appeared to his fancy; there seemed to be something fantastic about it. How beautiful she was! What unbelievable luck!
“If I had been four days later—” he thought, and grew pale.
It was an aimless afternoon, except for one errand which he performed at the city hall about four o’clock, in a dingy little room with a sign: “Marriage Licenses,” over the door. Sackerville walked to the desk and asked for a license for the marriage of Henry Sackerville and Melissa Beach.
“What!” said the astonished clerk, a sharp-nosed young man who knew things. ‘Why, Miss Beach is to be married—”
“Listen,” Sackerville interrupted. “This is a joke. I’m going to play a joke on Gowanton. I ask for the license. It’s your business to make it out.”
With a meaning look at the sharp-nosed young man he pushed a ten-dollar bill across the counter, and five minutes later departed with the license in his pocket.
That evening at the dinner table the talk was all of the wedding. They discussed the rehearsal, which Mrs. Beach declared had gone off beautifully. Even Dan Harrison, the best man — by the way, Sackerville would remember Dan Harrison as an old classmate — even he had seemed for once to lose some of his awkwardness. If only it went as well tomorrow!
“I hope John behaves himself tonight and retires early,” said Mrs. Beach. “He is so... so popular. Melissa, you must go to bed right after dinner and get some rest. I’m sure I don’t know how we’ve stood it all. Did you see Mrs. Carroll’s gift, Mr. Sackerville? So tasteful and rich! You should be a very happy woman, Melissa, so many friends—”
The end of dinner stopped her. The men went out on the porch to smoke their cigars, and for once Andrew Beach was silent, as befitted a man who was to lose his only daughter on the morrow. It was barely nine o’clock when Sackerville arose to go to his room, saying that his long walk had made him sleepy.
“I’m going to turn in, too,” said Andrew Beach, following him. “I hope I can sleep.”
“If only she’s happy—” said the grocer, parting from his guest at the head of the stairs.
But Sackerville did not go to bed when he entered his room. Instead, he sat down on a chair near the window and lit another cigar. It was a long black cigar and took some time to smoke, but when it was finished he lit another. Though the window was open, few sounds entered in that quiet residential district. Now and then an automobile passed, and occasionally the jangle of a streetcar could be heard at a distance. Sackerville kept looking at his watch, and when it said eleven o’clock he arose, threw away his third cigar, went to the door of his room and opened it.
The hall was quite dark, but he knew his position. At the further end, some distance away, was the room of the grocer and his wife, who, he hoped, were both sound asleep. In the other direction, across the hall, was another door; he stepped forward, groping along the wall — it ought to be about here — ah! He raised his hand and tapped softly on the panel. After a pause he tapped again, a little louder.