Дэшил Хэммет - The Collected Dashiell Hammett

Phil got to his feet and advanced warily up the hall. His legs touched a body. Something liquid, warm and sticky, was under his bare feet. He stumbled on and opened the first door he reached. He found the light button and pressed it. Then he turned and looked down the hall in the light that came through the open doorway...

He closed his eyes and groped his way to the stairs, down to the room where he had left the girl.

The girl ran to him. “Your face! You are hurt!”

“Just a scratch. I had forgotten it.”

She drew his head down and dabbed at this torn cheek with a handkerchief.

“The others?” she asked.

“Dead! Did you get the police?”

She said, “Yes,” and then could no longer withstand the weakness that tugged at her. She drooped into his arms, sobbing. He carried her to a couch and knelt beside her, stroking her hands and soothing her.

When she had mastered her weakness sufficiently to sit up, he asked her, more to take her mind from the gruesome termination of the affair than because his curiosity was so pressing, “Now, what’s this all about?”

As she talked she gradually regained her composure, and the dread that the night’s events had stirred within her subsided. Her voice grew steadier, her words more coherent, and some measure of color returned to her cheeks.

Her father had been a Russian nobleman, her mother an American woman. Her mother had died when she was still a child. Later the little girl had been sent to a convent in the United States, in accordance with her mother’s desire. When the war broke out in Europe she had returned to Russia, despite her father’s orders, with the childish thought that she would be near him. She had seen him twice before his death. He was reported “killed in action” shortly before the revolution. His brother Boris had been appointed her guardian and administrator of the estate. Then the revolution came. Her uncle had foreseen the uprising and had converted much of the girl’s wealth — he had no personal means — into money, which he had deposited in English and French banks. When they were forced to leave their native land they had considerable wealth at their disposal. For the next few years they had moved from place to place. Her uncle had seemed filled with a strange uneasiness, and would seldom stay long in one city or country. He had taken the name of Kapaloff and had persuaded the girl to do likewise, though he had given no reason for the change. Finally they came to the United States, lived in various cities, and then came to Burlingame. Since their departure from Russia her uncle had been withdrawing more and more from society, and frowning upon Romaine’s desire for friends. In the United States she had made no new acquaintances. He had selected the most isolated house he could find in Burlingame and had had the windows fitted with heavy shutters, and massive doors and bolts installed. She had wondered at the change in him but had never questioned him. His manner toward her was, as always, affectionate, protecting and generous. Except in the matter of making new acquaintances — and he was not crudely insistent there — he allowed her to indulge every whim.

Then, late the preceding Monday night, she had found the letter that was in the bag. She had found it on the library floor, had picked it up carelessly to lay it on the table, from which she supposed it had blown. Her eyes had fallen upon the word murder, in Russian, heavily underscored. She had read the next few words, and then feverishly read the letter from beginning to end. It had been written to her uncle by someone who apparently had been very intimate with him in Russia, and boldly threatened that unless Boris paid the money he had promised the truth about his brothers murder would be published.

She could not miss the import of the letter. It could mean but one thing: that Boris, whose own means had been dissipated, had had his brother killed that he might gain control of the estate until the child became of age. Dazed and bewildered, she went to her room, carrying the letter with her, and threw herself across the bed. But she had something to do. She knew of but one person to whom she could turn: a prominent Los Angeles attorney, the father of one of her schoolmates. She took what money she had, left the house, got in her roadster, and started for the city, intending to take the first train to Los Angeles. But she had wasted too much time. Her uncle had missed the letter and, fearing the worst, had gone to her room. Not finding her there, he had come downstairs just as she drove away. He had sent Mikhail and Serge in another machine to bring her back. They had done so, but the bag had been lost in the scuffle on Washington Street.

She had been imprisoned in her room until the afternoon, when she was taken to call on Phil. Her uncle had coached her carefully and she feared him too much to risk open defiance, but she had mastered her fright sufficiently to drop her purse and signal Phil. Then she had been brought back to the house and locked in. She had made one attempt to escape but had been caught at the window.

Phil tried to keep his mind on her story but he missed great stretches of it, watching her face, which, with youthful resilience, was regaining its bloom. The shadows that lingered under the eyes enhanced their beauty.

When she had finished they were silent for a moment. Phil wondered how much of the story he had missed. He cleared his throat and said, “You’ll probably have to stay in Burlingame for a day or two until the police get through with their investigating. But if you’ll give me that fellow’s address — the Los Angeles lawyer — I’ll wire him to come up if he can and take you back with him when it’s all over.”

She looked puzzled. “But everything is all right now. I won’t have to bother him.”

“You’ll need him. There’ll be lots of trouble straightening out your affairs and your uncle’s; and you’ll have to have somebody to take care of you.”

“But you are—” She stopped and the blood flooded her face.

Phil shook his head emphatically. “Listen! I would—” He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. “We are going to do this different. You arc going to have this lawyer made your legal guardian. If you don’t, the courts will probably appoint some old bum who happens to be a friend of the judge’s. Then I’m going to convince him that I’m — that I’m not too tough an egg. And then we’ll see.”

A strange speech for one whose creed was: When your luck runs good, force it!

The girl frowned. “But—”

“Now don’t argue! I haven’t got what you might call a spotless record. Nothing so terrible, maybe, but plenty that’s bad enough. And another thing: you’ve got money, and I — well, when the cards run right I have enough to eat regular; when they run wrong... Anyway, we’ll see. I’ll do my talking to this lawyer fellow after he’s made your guardian.”

The doorbell forestalled the girl’s answer. Phil went to the door, where four uniformed policemen stood, using their nightsticks to keep the hounds at bay. Phil led them back to the room where the girl was waiting and told his story briefly. The grizzled sergeant in charge stared with round eyes from the girl to the youth with bloodstained bare feet, but he made no comment. Leaving one man with Phil and Romaine, he led the others upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later he returned.

“I thought you said the dead men were in the hall?”

“That’s right,” Phil said.

The sergeant shook his head. “They’re both dead, all right; and one of ’em is in the hall with half a dozen bullets in him. But we found the other one in one of the rooms — all mangled up — leaning over a sort of desk, with this under his arm.”