Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (any book recommendations TXT) 📖
- Author: Melville Davisson Post
Book online «The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post (any book recommendations TXT) 📖». Author Melville Davisson Post
“'Dope's wrong, Governor,' he said; 'he was sure comin' this way.' Then he explained: 'If a man's walkin' forward in sand or mud or snow the toe of his shoe flirts out a little of it, an' if he's walkin' backward his heel flirts it out.'
“At this point I began to have some respect for the creature's ability. He got up and came back into the shed. And there he stood, in his old position, with his fingers over his mouth, looking round at the empty shed, in which, as I have said, one could not have concealed a bird's egg.
“I watched him without offering any suggestion, for my interest in the thing had awakened and I was curious to see what he would do. He stood perfectly motionless for about a minute; and then suddenly he snapped his fingers and the light came into his face.
“'I got it, Governor!' Then he came over to where I stood. 'Gimme a quarter to git a bucket.'
“I gave him the coin, for I was now profoundly puzzled, and he went out. He was gone perhaps twenty minutes, and when he came in he had a bucket of water. But he had evidently been thinking on the way, for he set the bucket down carefully, wiped his hands on his canvas breeches, and began to speak, with a little apologetic whimper in his voice.
“'Now look here, Governor,' he said, 'I'm a-goin' to talk turkey; do I git the five thousand if I find this stuff?'
“'Surely,' I answered him.
“'An' there'll be no monkeyin', Governor; you'll take me down to a bank yourself an' put the money in my hand?'
“'I promise you that,' I assured him.
“But he was not entirely quiet in his mind about it. He shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and his soft rubber nose worked.
“'Now, Governor,' he said, 'I'm leery about jokers—I gotta be. I don't want any string to this money. If I git it I want to go and blow it in. I don't want you to hand me a roll an' then start any reformin' stunt—a-holdin' of it in trust an' a probation officer a-pussyfootin' me, or any funny business. I want the wad an' a clear road to the bright lights, with no word passed along to pinch me. Do I git it?'
“'It's a trade!' I said.
“'O. K.,' he answered, and he took up the bucket. He began at the door and poured the water carefully on the hard tramped earth. When the bucket was empty he brought another and another. Finally about midway of the floor space he stopped.
“'Here it is!' he said.
“I was following beside him, but I saw nothing to justify his words.
“'Why do you think the plates are buried here?' I said.
“'Look at the air bubbles comin' up, Governor,' he answered.”
Walker stopped, then he added:
“It's a thing which I did not know until that moment, but it's the truth. If hard-packed earth is dug up and repacked air gets into it, and if one pours water on the place air bubbles will come up.”
He did not go on, and I flung at him the big query in his story.
“And you found the plates there?”
“Yes, Sir Henry,” he replied, “in the false bottom of an old steamer trunk.”
“And the hobo got the money?”
“Certainly,” he answered. “I put it into his hand, and let him go with it, as I promised.”
Again he was silent, and I turned toward him in astonishment.
“Then,” I said, “why did you begin this story by saying the hobo faked you? I don't see the fake; he found the plates and he was entitled to the reward.”
Walker put his hand into his pocket, took out a leather case, selected a paper from among its contents and handed it to me. “I didn't see the fake either,” he said, “until I got this letter.”
I unfolded the letter carefully. It was neatly written in a hand like copper plate and dated Buenos Aires.
DEAR COLONEL WALKER: When I discovered that you were planting an agent on every ship I had to abandon the plates and try for the reward. Thank you for the five thousand; it covered expenses.
Very sincerely yours,
D. Mulehaus.
III. The Lost Lady
It was a remark of old Major Carrington that incited this adventure.
“It is some distance through the wood—is she quite safe?”
It was a mere reflection as he went out. It was very late. I do not know how the dinner, or rather the after-hours of it, had lengthened. It must have been the incomparable charm of the woman. She had come, this night, luminously, it seemed to us, through the haze that had been on her—the smoke haze of a strange, blighting fortune. The three of us had been carried along in it with no sense of time; my sister, the ancient Major Carrington and I.
He turned back in the road, his decayed voice whipped by the stimulus of her into a higher note.
“Suppose the village coachman should think her as lovely as we do—what!”
He laughed and turned heavily up the road a hundred yards or so to his cottage set in the pine wood. I stood in the road watching the wheels of the absurd village vehicle, the yellow cut-under, disappear. The old Major called back to me; his voice seemed detached, eerie with the thin laugh in it.
“I thought him a particularly villainous-looking creature!”
It was an absurd remark. The man was one of the natives of the island, and besides, the innkeeper was a person of sound sense; he would know precisely about his driver.
I should not have gone on this adventure but for a further incident.
When I entered the house my sister was going up the stair, the butler was beyond in the drawing-room, and there was no other servant visible. She was on the first step and the elevation gave precisely the height that my sister ought to have received in the accident of birth. She would have been wonderful with those four inches added—lacking beauty, she had every other grace!
She spoke to me as I approached.
“Winthrop,” she said, “what was in the package that Madame Barras carried
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