Room 13 Read Online Free Page A

other’s face clouded.
    “Out six months? Are you sure?”
    Johnny nodded.
    “I didn’t know.”
    “I should have thought you would have heard from him,” said John quietly. “He doesn’t love you!”
    Peter’s slow smile broadened.
    “I know he doesn’t; did you get a chance of talking with him?”
    “Plenty of chances. He was in the laundry, and he straightened a couple of screws so that he could do what he liked. He hates you, Peter. He says you shopped him.”
    “He’s a liar,” said Peter calmly. “I wouldn’t shop my worst enemy. He shopped himself. Johnny, the police get a reputation for smartness but the truth is, every other criminal arrests himself. Criminals aren’t clever. They wear gloves to hide their fingerprints, and then write their names in the visitors’ book. Legge and I smashed the strong-room of the Orsork and got away with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in American currency – it was the last job I did. It was dead easy getting away, but Emanuel started boasting what a clever fellow he was; and he drank a bit. An honest man can drink and wake up in his own bed. But a crook who drinks says good morning to the gaoler.”
    He dropped the subject abruptly, and again his hand fell on the younger man’s shoulder.
    “Johnny, you’re not feeling sore, are you?”
    Johnny did not answer.
    “Are you?”
    And now the fight was to begin. John Gray steeled himself for the forlorn hope.
    “About Marney? No, only–”
    “Old boy, I had to do it.” Peter’s voice was urgent, pleading. “You know what she is to me. I liked you well enough to take a chance, but after they dragged you I did some hard thinking. It would have smashed me, Johnny, if she’d been your wife then. I couldn’t bear to see her cry even when she was quite a little baby. Think what it would have meant to her. It was bad enough as it was. And then this fellow came along – a good, straight, clean, cheery fellow – a gentleman. And well, I’ll tell you the truth – I helped him. You’ll like him. He’s the sort of man anybody would like. And she loves him, Johnny.”
    There was a silence.
    “I don’t bear him any ill-will. It would be absurd if I did. Only, Peter, before she marries I want to say–”
    “Before she marries?” Peter Kane’s voice shook. “John, didn’t Barney tell you? She was married this morning.”
     

3
    “Married?”
    Johnny repeated the word dully.
    Marney married…! It was incredible, impossible to comprehend. For a moment the stays and supports of existence dissolved into dust, and the fabric of life fell into chaos.
    “Married this morning, Johnny. You’ll like him. He isn’t one of us, old boy. He’s as straight as…well, you understand, Johnny boy? I’ve worked for her and planned for her all these years; I’d have been rotten if I took a chance with her future.”
    Peter Kane was pleading, his big hand on the other’s shoulder, his fine face clouded with anxiety and the fear that he had hurt this man beyond remedy.
    “I should have wired…”
    “It would have made no difference,” said Peter Kane almost doggedly. “Nothing could have been changed, Johnny, nothing. It had to be. If you have been convicted innocently – I don’t say you weren’t – I couldn’t have the memory of your imprisonment hanging over her; I couldn’t have endured the uncertainty myself. Johnny, I’ve been crook all my life – up to fifteen years ago. I take a broader view than most men because I am what I am. But she doesn’t know that. Craig’s here today–”
    “Craig – the Scotland Yard man?”
    Peter nodded, a look of faint amusement in his eyes.
    “We’re good friends; we have been for years. And do you know what he said this morning? He said, ‘Peter, you’ve done well to marry that girl into the straight way,’ and I know he’s right.”
    Johnny stretched back in the deep cane chair, his hand shading his eyes, as though he found the light too strong for