Читаем Piccadilly Jim полностью

Gentleman Jack crossed the room slowly, the test-tube held aloft between fore-finger and thumb. He was level with Miss Trimble, who had lowered her revolver and had drawn to one side, plainly at a loss to know how to handle this unprecedented crisis, when the door flew open. For an instant the face of Howard Bemis, the poet, was visible.

"Mrs. Pett, I have telephoned—"

Then another voice interrupted him.

"Yipe! Yipe! Yipe!"

Through the opening the dog Aida, rejoicing in the removal of the obstacle, raced like a fur muff mysteriously endowed with legs and a tongue. She tore across the room to where Gentleman Jack's ankles waited invitingly. Ever since their first meeting she had wanted a fair chance at those ankles, but some one had always prevented her.

"Damn!" shouted Gentleman Jack.

The word was drowned in one vast cataclysm of noise. From every throat in the room there proceeded a shout, a shriek, or some other variety of cry, as the test-tube, slipping from between the victim's fingers, described a parabola through the air.

Ann flung herself into Jimmy's arms, and he held her tight. He shut his eyes. Even as he waited for the end the thought flashed through his mind that, if he must die, this was the manner of death which he would prefer.

The test-tube crashed on the writing-desk, and burst into a million pieces. . . .

Jimmy opened his eyes. Things seemed to be much about the same as before. He was still alive. The room in which he stood was solid and intact. Nobody was in fragments. There was only one respect in which the scene differed from what it had been a moment before. Then, it had contained Gentleman Jack. Now it did not.

A great sigh seemed to sweep through the room. There was a long silence. Then, from the direction of the street, came the roar of a starting automobile. And at that sound the bearded man with the spectacles who had formed part of Miss Trimble's procession uttered a wailing cry.

"Gee! He's beat it in my bubble! And it was a hired one!"

The words seemed to relieve the tension in the air. One by one the company became masters of themselves once more. Miss Trimble, that masterly woman, was the first to recover. She raised herself from the floor—for with a confused idea that she would be safer there she had flung herself down—and, having dusted her skirt with a few decisive dabs of her strong left hand, addressed herself once more to business.

"I let 'm bluff me with a fake bomb!" she commented bitterly. She brooded on this for a moment. "Say, shut th't door 'gain, some one, and t'run this mutt out. I can't think with th't yapping going on."

Mrs. Pett, pale and scared, gathered Aida into her arms. At the same time Ann removed herself from Jimmy's. She did not look at him. She was feeling oddly shy. Shyness had never been a failing of hers, but she would have given much now to have been elsewhere.

Miss Trimble again took charge of the situation. The sound of the automobile had died away. Gentleman Jack had passed out of their lives. This fact embittered Miss Trimble. She spoke with asperity.

"Well, he's gone!" she said acidly. "Now we can get down t' cases again. Say!" She addressed Mrs. Pett, who started nervously. The experience of passing through the shadow of the valley of death and of finding herself in one piece instead of several thousand had robbed her of all her wonted masterfulness. "Say, list'n t' me. There's been a double game on here t'night. That guy that's jus' gone was th' first part of th' entertainment. Now we c'n start th' sec'nd part. You see these ducks?" She indicated with a wave of the revolver Mr. Crocker and his bearded comrade. "They've been trying t' kidnap y'r son!"

Mrs. Pett uttered a piercing cry.

"Oggie!"

"Oh, can it!" muttered that youth, uncomfortably. He foresaw awkward moments ahead, and he wished to concentrate his faculties entirely on the part he was to play in them. He looked sideways at Chicago Ed. In a few minutes, he supposed, Ed. would be attempting to minimise his own crimes, by pretending that he, Ogden, had invited him to come and kidnap him. Stout denial must be his weapon.

"I had m' suspicions," resumed Miss Trimble, "that someth'ng was goin' t' be pulled off to-night, 'nd I was waiting outside f'r it to break loose. This guy here," she indicated the bearded plotter, who blinked deprecatingly through his spectacles, "h's been waiting on the c'rner of th' street for the last hour with 'n automobile. I've b'n watching him right along. I was onto h's game! Well, just now out came the kid with this plug-ugly here." She turned to Mr. Crocker. "Say you! Take off th't mask. Let's have a l'k at you!"

Mr. Crocker reluctantly drew the cambric from his face.

"Goosh!" exclaimed Miss Trimble in strong distaste. "Say, 've you got some kind of a plague, or wh't is it? Y'look like a coloured comic supplement!" She confronted the shrinking Mr. Crocker and ran a bony finger over his cheek. "Make-up!" she said, eyeing the stains disgustedly. "Grease paint! Goosh!"