Outrageous Fortune by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

drive—”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI was going to go next day, because the Van Bergs were coming. I will say you had a nerve.”
    â€œWhat did I do?”
    She stared at him resentfully.
    â€œWhy you got me to work it so that I stayed on. It was quite easy for old Caroline. She said I was her cousin and the Van Bergs didn’t care. And then—”
    â€œAnd then?”
    She reached out for another cigarette, struck a match, and looked at him over the little yellow flame.
    â€œAre you trying to make me believe I’m telling you something you don’t know?”
    â€œI can’t make you believe anything,” said Jim.
    She threw the match into the grate just short of the spangled shavings.
    â€œOh, have it your own way! Do you want me to tell you how you pinched the emeralds?”
    He had himself well in hand. He said coolly,
    â€œI stole them?”
    Nesta laughed.
    â€œYou make me tired, Jimmy Riddell! I stole them !” She tried to mimic his voice. “Do you think you can act the innocent with me like that after the way I’ve heard you talk in your sleep? Why, you’ve never stopped talking, and if I hadn’t got you out of that hospital in double quick time, we should all have been inside.” She laughed again at his blank look and flung out, “Jug—quod—stir! Haven’t ever done time, I suppose? Well you will over this if you don’t cure yourself of talking at night.”
    He leaned forward with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand.
    â€œYou say I took these emeralds?”
    â€œI say you did—and I’ll say it was a pretty nippy bit of work. Pity you shot him, though.”
    He jerked away from the word.
    â€œWhat are you saying?”
    â€œYou shouldn’t have carried a gun,” said Nesta maliciously. “I said so all along.”
    He got up. His spine had gone cold. He felt the sweat break out upon his temples.
    â€œWhat’s that you’re saying?”
    Nesta got up too.
    â€œI’m saying that you shot Mr Van Berg.”
    He went over to the mantelpiece, leaning on it with his two hands, his head bent between them, his eyes staring blankly at the spangled shavings in the grate. What damned nightmare was this? He had broken into a house, stolen property, shot a man for a handful of green stones..… eight square green stones—chained two by two with pearls—swinging from a man’s hand. Whose hand? Van Berg’s hand? He could see it under the light. It was as plain as anything he had seen in all his life—a powerful hand, with spatulate fingers and an old healed scar running from the lower knuckle of the first finger to the root of the thumb. He didn’t see Min’s carefully polished grate with the dazzle of shavings and the small bright blue tiles; he saw Van Berg’s hand with the scar on it, and he knew how the scar had come there. Out of all the things that he had forgotten he remembered this one—that Van Berg had got that scar playing with a pet monkey. No, it wasn’t a bite. The monkey had got fooling with a razor. It was a clean cut. He had forgotten everything in the world, but he hadn’t forgotten Van Berg’s monkey.
    His head swam for a moment. Then he straightened up and half turned, still leaning on the mantelpiece. He caught a curious look on Nesta’s face, a watching look, but it went past him.
    â€œIs Van Berg dead?” he said.
    â€œNot yet ,” said Nesta.
    â€œIs he bad?”
    She shrugged her shoulders.
    â€œIf he doesn’t die for a year and a day they can’t hang you.”
    His voice came at her with an angry leap.
    â€œIs he bad?”
    â€œSo so.” And then, “It’s not your fault he’s not dead. You let him have it all right.”
    He went over to the window and threw it up. He had to push past the pink geraniums; one of the bright blooms snapped off. The room had suddenly