LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

along at the end by the elevator. I’ll come in a few minutes and get a statement from you.”

      There were some nice cops, thought Farran, sitting by the whining elevator. Then he saw that the gum-chewer had lounged near and was watching them, and he thought, “Nice, but they don’t take chances where murder’s concerned.”

      The girl started off by holding her head between her hands, and then she got a little better and sat up and looked at Farran.

      He said, in that blunt way of his, “That was a shock to you. All that.” He didn’t soften his voice or try to express sympathy. It didn’t occur to him; he wasn’t built that way. Sometime later he realised a remarkable thing—that the girl didn’t want sentiment, didn’t want gestures of sympathy.

      In some curious way she understood his manner at once—accepted it and appreciated it.

      “Yes,” she said just now. “It was—a shock.” Her blue eyes were looking into immeasurable distances, all covering horror. They turned to Farran, looked at him. “You won’t leave me?” she whispered.

      Farran looked away to consider the request. “That’s asking something, isn’t it?” he said at length. “Why me? Haven’t you got relatives or friends hereabouts?”

      “Not here. In New York.” Her face was troubled. “That’s a long way, and—well, they’re not the kind to come distances.”

      “So you’re on your own?”

      “Now Joe’s gone—yes.”

      She began to cry again. Farran thought it might be a feminine device, even if unconscious, to arouse his sympathy. All the same he didn’t think the worse of her for that, because he had imagination—men who design aircraft must have—and he could project himself some way into the appalling situation she so suddenly found herself in.

      “I reckon at a time like this you do feel you’ve got to have someone around to talk to.” He told her who he was. “Farran. Russ Farran. I build planes. Good ones. I did,” he thought bitterly, remembering that strike picket at the gates of the mighty Farran works.

      “I know about you. Joe mentioned you sometimes.” And then the lieutenant came and separated them and took individual statements. When that was done, and the police doctor had examined the girl’s head (to corroborate her story, that she bad fainted and struck her head in falling, Farran thought cynically), the police lieutenant told them they could go. He said it very pleasantly, but he also added that they shouldn’t leave the city boundaries, because he might want to contact them again at any time.

      Farran took the girl down. When they went out into the white, late afternoon sunshine, it seemed to hit up from the sidewalk and sent the girl’s head spinning again, so he steered her into a café and ordered strong coffee for her. His theory was that strong coffee was good for a hangover; okay, what was the difference between a hangover and a bump on the head? Just one big pain in either case.

      The coffee did her good, too. She looked at it, got the strong smell up her nostrils, and shuddered. She didn’t touch it, but she got over her giddiness pretty quickly, so it could have been the coffee smell that helped.

      It wasn’t very crowded, but they couldn’t talk because the tables were on close, friendly terms with each other, and they didn’t want the fat guy back of them to hear what might be said.

      So after a time they rose and walked out. The girl seemed to lead, as if running away from something. Farran came after her because he knew she needed watching until she could settle down again.

      She turned and walked down towards the harbour road. The street was pretty quiet, but it was too hot in that white Californian sunshine for walking. Yet she seemed to want to walk.

      Farran humoured her as far as the end of the street, where the busy harbour road intersection was, and then he took her arm and said, “You’ve got to pull yourself together. Lady, you’re almost sleepwalking now. I was on my way sailing, but I can find time to drop you off some place if you want me to.”

      His brusque manner did her good, jolted her back to the present. She turned towards him, that white face too white to be pleasing, those blue eyes too big with shock to be attractive. And yet Russ Farran again had that feeling that she was a nice girl; there was some quality about her that appealed to him…something he didn’t usually notice in the butterflies who fluttered round his bachelor life.

      He heard her whispered voice—“You tell me what to do. I can’t think. I’m still trying to work out something awful.”

      His eyebrows lifted.

      “I’m a widow.” Her slight shoulders shrugged. “A very new widow. I can’t get over the shock. What’s it going to mean to my life to be a widow? Without Joe. My Joe!”

      He grabbed her quickly as she halted and swayed. Suddenly he was touched by the grief in her voice—here was one girl who loved her husband. He thought perhaps that was why he found her vaguely attractive to him; most of the girls he knew didn’t love their husbands if they had any, and wouldn’t love them when they got them. And “them” wasn’t a careless choice of word with the Lydia van Heusons in that part of America.

      He soothed her down. Anyone watching him, as there was, would have looked at his rough, unpractised gestures in that light.

      He patted her shoulder a few times, then stroked her back until he realised that was no thing to do to a lady. And all the time he was saying things like, “C’mon, you’ve got to keep living. Okay, make the best of it—just stop thinking for a coupla months and then let yourself wake up gradually.”

      It did her good, again. If he had softened his voice and spoken sympathy she would have broken down, but as it was he gave her no opportunity to indulge in self-sympathy.

      “Where shall I take you?” They were walking back towards his car. He thought, anyway, he wasn’t over-bothered about sailing. That was just to get his mind off the silent, nearly empty Farran works.

      She shrugged her slim shoulders again. “I don’t know. Don’t care. I know I don’t want to go home for a while.” She looked quickly at him, pleading with her eyes for understanding. “It’s a little place—a two-roomed apartment. It’ll be—full of Joe. You know what I mean. Reminding me. And Joe was a—was a.…” She couldn’t end it.

      “A fine guy.” Farran supplied the tail to the epitaph; it wasn’t inspired but it was sufficient. “Okay, keep away from your apartment for some time. Maybe don’t go back there again ever.” He thought for a moment. “I know a good place in the country—you know, flowers and fields and trees. It’d set you up again, maybe.”

      She was looking across the road, shaking her blonde head slowly. “I don’t know where I want to go. I—I’m afraid of loneliness. We felt pretty lonely as it was, coming to this strange town. But without Joe—” She was near to breaking down.

      It was a problem. Farran solved it. “Maybe you’d better move out to my place. We’ve hundreds of rooms. I suppose.” He wondered how she would get on with Elsa and the rest of the family, but decided it might work out all right. The family only gunned for him, Russ Farran, who had inherited the Farran Empire.

      “That’s nice of you.” Her blue eyes were searching his face. “You’d do me good, you know, being near me.” It shook him a bit. She went on, “You don’t fuss and say the right things—the right things that right people say, that is. You—you brace me when you talk. I’d like to come out to your place. Won’t I be in the way, though?” There was a wistful uncertainty in her voice.

      He spoke truthfully; he always did, which was why he had few friends, but they were very good ones. “Guess I’ll have work to do, but maybe I’ll be able to help with things.” He was wondering how girl-widows like this were able to cope with inquests and funerals and setting about the job of starting to live again. “You won’t see much of me, but Elsa—she’s my stepmother—can be quite friendly in her way.”

      He

Скачать книгу