Storm Music

Dornford Yates

Description

Set in Austria, Spencer witnesses the burial of a liveried servant, murdered after an attempt to seize some gold in transit. Spencer identifies Lady Helena as the owner of the livery, warns her of murder, becomes her lover. Discovers the target is gold bullion in the cellar of her home, the castle at Yorick. Action is then the various attempts to steal the hidden bullion, the final elimination of the gang, and the reconciliation of the by then estranged lovers.

Sujets

• Fiction
• Suspense
• Thrillers

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774642801
• Langue: English

Extrait

Storm Music
by Dornford Yates

First published in 1934
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
STORM MUSIC

by Dornford Yates











To MY SON

CHAPTER I I ATTEND A FUNERAL
If my cousin, Geoffrey Bohun, had had to work forhis living, he would, as a painter of portraits, havemade his mark, for he was able not only to catch alikeness, but to render the spirit of his subject in aremarkable way: but work within doors he wouldnot, and since he cared nothing at all for riches orfame, he painted old buildings and landscapes andlazy streams, and though I think that he paintedthese very well, the public would not have them, butclamoured for portraits instead.
Whether Geoffrey was right or wrong, I cannotpretend to say, but I must confess that I was glad ofhis choice, for since my parents’ death I had livedwith him, and the work he preferred made us free ofthe countryside. Indeed, of the four years precedingthe matters which I am to tell we had not spent sixmonths at his London house, but had travelled winterand summer, at home and abroad, not at all as tourists,but wandering hither and thither according to Geoffrey’swhim. We visited many places which, if one may trustthe guide-books, are scarcely known, and we saw allmanner of beauties that few men see, for often enoughmy cousin would paint at dawn, when the dew laythick upon the meadows and the mountains stoodup like a rood-screen against the sky.
10
Of such was my education, after I left my school,and though I might have done better to go to Oxfordinstead, I learned to speak German and French with apretty good grace and to share with the peasants ofEurope their several hopes and fears.
Since our habits were very healthy, I was in as finea condition as a man of two-and-twenty may be, andmy only care was the knowledge that very soon nowthe agreeable life I was leading must come to an end.This by my cousin’s decree, for Geoffrey was trusteeof my fortune, and though he was only some twelveyears older than I, I had to a great extent to do as hesaid. And at twenty-three, he declared, I must taketo work: “and from then,” said he, “till you’rethirty your allowance will be exactly as much as youearn. Earn five pounds a week, and I’ll give youanother five. No more and no less, my son. You’vegot to make good.”
I was brooding on this one morning—for mybirthday was the first of October, and June was verynear out—when I heard the sound of voices a littleway off.
This was unusual enough, for, save for the birdsand beasts, an Austrian forest at dawn is a lonelyplace: but what was stranger still was that the voiceswere English, and coarse at that.
Geoffrey was painting a vista two furlongs away, andBarley, his man, was half a mile off with the Rolls. Itwas, therefore, plain that no one was talking with them,and I made my way quietly forward to see and hearwhat I could.
11
Almost at once I saw bushes which seemed to meto be screening the edge of some bluff, and though bynow the conversation had ceased, as I approached, Icould hear the sound of labour and the sob of a manas he wielded some heavy tool.
Then a spout of oaths startled the silence, and twomen were cursing each other, the one alleging that theother would be his death and the other insisting thatthe one had got in his way.
A third man spoke.
“Suppose you go on now.”
“But he’ll do me in in a minute, layin’ about withthat pick.”
“The world will be the cleaner,” said the other,and stifled a yawn. “Till then, get on with yourwork. I say, get on .”
His voice was deadly. Thin and quiet and icy, itseemed to cut like a lash, and I know that I winced tohear it, as though indeed a whip had been laid to myback. And so, I suppose, did the others, for withouta word they fell to working again.
More curious than ever, I laid myself down on theground and, wriggling cautiously forward, made myway into the bushes which screened the men from myview.
I shall never forget the scene.
Directly below me, in the midst of a sparkling dell,were five grown men. Two, with pickaxe and shovel,were digging a hasty grave: the sods had been piled toone side, but a third man was taking the earth andcasting it into a brook which watered the dell for alittle and then ran into a wood. A fourth man wasleaning against the trunk of a tree, musingly regardingthe others and smoking a cigarette. And the fifth laydead beside him, with his mouth and his eyes wideopen and his pitiful head on one side.
12
This spectacle shocked me so much that a momentor two went by before I had collected my wits: thenI knew that the man had been murdered, for his gay,green, belted smock was heavily stained with blood.
As the porter came back from the brook—
“That’s enough earth away, Dewdrop,” said theman who had spoken last. “Take another strollin the country and see there’s nobody up.”
The man who was shovelling stopped and straightenedhis back.
“Lemme do that, Pharaoh. I’m sick of this ——spade.”
The man addressed as Pharaoh wrinkled his brow.
“I’ve never liked you,” he said. “And when youquestion my orders, I like you less. There’s food forthought there, Rush. . . .”
I despair of describing the coldness with which hespoke: it lent to his words an inhumanity which mademy blood run cold, and I was not surprised to seeRush pale before them and stoop to his labour againwith goggling eyes.
An instant later Dewdrop was out of sight.
That I was now in some danger was perfectly clear,for Dewdrop had been charged to make sure that noone was doing exactly what I had done, and it seemedunpleasantly likely that if he should happen upon me,the four would spare no effort to take my life. I was,however, determined not to withdraw, for the corpsecried out for vengeance, and if once I lost touch withthe rogues, my chance of bringing them down mightbe gone for good.
13
And here I should say that I had the strangestfeeling that the dead was calling on me, for his headwas so turned that his eyes looked full into mine, andhis lips might well have been framing some franticappeal.
I, therefore, decided to try and ‘pick up’ Dewdropwithout delay, for, once I knew where he was, mywoodcraft would probably beat him, and I could, asthey say, bite the biter without being bitten myself.
Without more ado I therefore abandoned mycovert and thirty seconds later I swung myself into atree. . . .
Now though, because of the leaves, I could not lookout for Dewdrop, I had a good hope that his movementswould give him away, for the others were now out ofearshot and, but for the piping of birds, the forestwas still.
And so it fell out.
Almost at once I heard the fellow stumble over theroot of some tree and two minutes later I was afootbehind him, some thirty paces away.
Now I had hoped that after a casual survey the manwould return to the dell, for then I could reach mycousin and tell him my news. Whilst he was fetchingBarley, I could then go back to my covert to keep aneye on the rogues, and when the others came up, wecould decide together what action to take. Moreover,in the Rolls were two pistols, ready for use—for we hadbeen robbed in Spain some three years before, and,having learned our lesson, had ever since carriedarms. But Dewdrop stayed on.
14
To and fro he cast, patrolling the ground all aboutwith the greatest care, till at last I saw that hewould not return until summoned or until he knewthat the sods were back in their place. This wasdisconcerting, for though, to be sure, he was noisy,he was doing his work too well for me to bring up theothers until he was out of the way: indeed, I wasinwardly cursing, when under my eyes the fat fell intothe fire.
Dewdrop was passing the covert in which I hadlain, when he stopped and peered at the bushes andthen glanced round—this to my great surprise, for Icould have sworn that only a forester’s eye would havedetected such traces as I had left.
From behind a tangle of briers, I watched the mananxiously. . . .
Satisfied that no one was looking, he went on hishands and knees, to pluck from the heart of the bushesa paper some four inches long.
I shall never forget that moment—I think that myheart stood still: for, as my hand flew to my pocket,I knew what that paper was . . . a shoemaker’s bill,which had followed me out from London . . . completewith its envelope bearing my name and address—theaddress of the inn at which Geoffrey and I werelodging some five miles off.
It is my habit never to pocket such things: I donot pocket a letter once a year: but the day before,the post had arrived as we were leaving the house, soI read my bill in the car and then thrust it into apocket for lack of a table on which I could lay itdown. And I had forgotten the thing . . . God knowshow it left my pocket, but, as I wormed my wayforward, it must have made its way out, and when Icrawled back, have stayed caught in the midst of thethorns.
15
I saw Dewdrop finger the letter and find it dry.Then he looked from his find to the spot at which ithad lain. Then he lay down and drew himself forward,parting the bushes before him exactly as I had done.Plainly, the man was no fool. He wished to be surehow much John Spencer had seen— John Spencer, ofThe Three Kings, Lass .
The next moment he was up and was whipping backto the dell.
The murder was out.
* * * * * * * *
As we hurried back to the Rolls, I told my cousinmy tale, and though he made no comment, I saw thathe was perturbed.
Arrived at the car, he bade me take the wheel anddrive to our lodging at Lass as fast as I could: as Ilet in the clutch, I saw him take out a pistol and slipit into h