War in Heaven by Charles Williams (free children's online books .txt) đ
- Author: Charles Williams
- Performer: -
Book online «War in Heaven by Charles Williams (free children's online books .txt) đ». Author Charles Williams
âAnd does Mr. Rackstraw look after that too?â asked Colquhoun.
âWell, some of it,â the publisher answered. âBut of course, in a place like this things arenât exactly divided justâjust exactly. Mornington, now, Mornington looks after some books. Under me, of course,â he added hastily. âAnd then he does a good deal of the publicity, the advertisements, you know. And he does the reviews.â
âWhat, writes them?â the inspector asked.
âCertainly not,â said the publisher, shocked. âReads them and chooses passages to quote. Writes them! Really, inspector!â
âAnd how long has Mr. Mornington been here?â Colquhoun went on.
âOh, years and years. I tell you they all came before I did.â
âI understand Mr. Rackstraw was out a long time at lunch to-day, with one of your authors. Would that be all right?â
âI daresay he was,â Persimmons said, âif he said so.â
âYou donât know that he was?â asked Colquhoun. âHe didnât tell you?â
âReally, inspector,â the worried Persimmons said again, âdo you think my staff ask me for an hour off when they want to see an author? I give them their work and they do it.â
âSir Giles Tumulty,â the inspector said. âYou know him?â
âWeâre publishing his last book, âHistorical Vestiges of Sacred Vessels in Folkloreâ. The explorer and antiquarian, you know. Rackstrawâs had a lot of trouble with his illustrations, but he told me yesterday he thought heâd got them through. Yes, I can quite believe he went up to see him. But you can find out from Sir Giles, canât you?â
âWhat Iâm getting at,â the inspector said, âis this. If any of your people are out, is there anything to prevent anyone getting into any of their rooms? Thereâs a front way and a back way in and nobody on watch anywhere.â
âThereâs a girl in the waiting-room,â Persimmons objected.
âA girl!â the inspector answered. âReading a novel when sheâs not talking to anyone. Sheâd be a lot of good. Besides, thereâs a corridor to the staircase alongside the waiting-room. And at the back thereâs no-one.â
âWell, one doesnât expect strangers to drop in casually,â the publisher said unhappily. âI believe they do lock their doors sometimes, if they have to go out and have to leave a lot of papers all spread out.â
âAnd leave the key in, I suppose?â Colquhoun said sarcastically.
âOf course,â Persimmons answered. âSuppose I wanted something. Besides, itâs not to keep anyone out; itâs only just to save trouble and warn anyone going in to be careful, so to speak; it hardly ever happens. Besidesââ
Colquhoun cut him short. âWhat people mean by asking for a Government of business men, I donât know,â he said. âI was a Conservative from boyhood, and Iâm stauncher every year the more I see of business. Thereâs nothing to prevent anyone coming in.â
âBut they donât,â said Persimmons.
âBut they have,â said Colquhoun. âItâs the unexpected that happens. Are you a religious man, Mr. Persimmons?â
âWell, notânot exactly religious,â the publisher said hesitatingly. âNot what youâd call religious unpleasantly, I mean. But whatââ
âNor am I,â the inspector said. âAnd I donât get the chance to go to church much. But Iâve been twice with my wife to a Sunday evening service at her Wesleyan Church in the last few months, and itâs a remarkable thing, Mr. Persimmons, we had the same piece read from the Bible each time. It ended upââAnd what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.â It seemed to me fairly meant for the public. âWhat I say unto you,â thatâs us in the police, âI say unto all, Watch.â If there was more of that thereâd be fewer undiscovered murders. Well, Iâll go and see Mr. Balling. Good day, Mr. Persimmons.â
Adrian Rackstraw opened the oven, put the chicken carefully inside, and shut the door. Then he went back to the table, and realized suddenly that he had forgotten to buy the potatoes which were to accompany it. With a disturbed exclamation, he picked up the basket that lay in a corner, put on his hat, and set out on the new errand. He considered for a moment as he reached the garden gate to which of the two shops at which Mrs. Rackstraw indifferently supplied her needs he should go, and, deciding on the nearest, ran hastily down the road. At the shop, âThree potatoes,â he said in a low, rather worried voice.
âYes, sir,â the man answered. âFive shillings, please.â
Adrian paid him, put the potatoes in the basket, and started back home. But as at the corner he waited for the trams to go by and leave a clear crossing, his eye was caught by the railway station on his left. He looked at it for a minute or two in considerable doubt; then, changing his mind on the importance of vegetables, went back to the shop, left his basket with orders that the potatoes should be sent at once, and hurried back to the station. Once in the train, he saw bridges and tunnels succeed one another in exciting succession as the engine, satisfactorily fastened to coal-truck and carriages, went rushing along the Brighton line. But, before it reached its destination, his mother, entering the room with her usual swiftness, caught the station with her foot and sent it flying across the kitchen floor. Her immediate flood of apologies placated Adrian, however, and he left the train stranded some miles outside Brighton in order to assist her in preparing the food for dinner. She sat down on a chair for a moment, and he broke in again hastily.
âOh, mummie, donât sit down there, thatâs my table,â he said.
âDarling, Iâm so sorry,â Barbara Rackstraw answered. âHad you got anything on it?â
âWell, I was going to put the dinner things,â Adrian explained. âIâll just see if the chickenâs cooked. Oh, itâs lovely!â
âHow nice!â Barbara said abstractedly. âIs it a large chicken?â
âNot a very large one,â Adrian admitted. âThereâs enough for me and you and my Bath auntie.â
âOh,â said Barbara, startled, âis your Bath auntie here?â
âWell, she may be coming,â said Adrian. âMummie, why do I have a Bath auntie?â
âBecause a baby grew up into your Bath auntie, darling,â his mother said. âUnintentional but satisfactory, as far as it goes. Adrian, do you think your father will like cold sausages? Because there doesnât seem to be anything else much.â
âI donât want any cold sausages,â Adrian said hurriedly.
âNo, my angel, but itâs the twenty-seventh of the month, and thereâs never any money then,â Barbara said. âAnd here he is, anyhow.â
Lionel, in spite of the shock that he had received in the afternoon, found himself, rather to his own surprise, curiously free from the actual ghost of it. His memory had obligingly lost the face of the dead man, and it was not until he came through the streets of Tooting that he began to understand that its effect was at once more natural and more profound than he had expected. His usual sense of the fantastic and dangerous possibilities of life, a sense which dwelled persistently in a remote corner of his mind, never showing itself in full, but stirring in the absurd alarm which shook him if his wife were ever late for an appointmentâthis sense now escaped from his keeping, and, instead of being too hidden, became too universal to be seized. The faces he saw, the words he heard existed in an enormous void, in which he himselfâ reduced to a face and voice, without deeper existenceâhung for a moment, grotesque and timid. There had been for an hour some attempt to re-establish the work of the office, and he had initialled, before he left, a few memoranda which were brought to him. The âL. R.â of his signature seemed now to grow balloon-like and huge about him, volleying about his face at the same time that they turned within and around him in a slimy tangle. At similar, if less terrifying, moments, in other days, he had found that a concentration upon his wife had helped to steady and free him, but when this evening he made this attempt he found even in her only a flying figure with a face turned from him, whom he dreaded though he hastened to overtake. As he put his key in the lock he was aware that the thought of Adrian had joined the mad dance of possible deceptions, and it was with a desperate and machine-like courage that he entered to dare whatever horror awaited him.
Nor did the ordinary interchange of greetings do much to disperse the cloud. It occurred to him even as he smiled at Barbara that perhaps another lover had not long left the house; it occurred to him even as he watched Adrian finding pictures of trains in the evening paper that a wild possibilityâfor a story perhaps; not, surely not, as truthâ might be that of a child whose brain was that of the normal man of forty while all his appearance was that of four. An infant prodigy? No, but a prodigy who for some horrible reason of his own concealed his prodigiousness until the moment he expected should arrive. And when they left him to his evening meal, while Barbara engaged herself in putting Adrian to bed, a hundred memories of historical or fictitious crimes entered his mind in which the victim had been carefully poisoned under the shelter of a peaceful and happy domesticity. And not that alone or chiefly; it was not the possibility of administered poison that occupied him, but the question whether all food, and all other things also, were not in themselves poisonous. Fruit, he thought, might be; was there not in the nature of things some venom which nourished while it tormented, so that the very air he breathed did but enable him to endure for a longer time the spiritual malevolence of the world?
Possessed by such dreams, he sat listless and alone until Barbara returned and settled herself down to the evening paper. The event of the afternoon occupied, he knew, the front page. He found himself incapable of speaking of it; he awaited the moment when her indolent eyes should find it. But that would not be, and indeed was not, till she had looked through the whole paper, delaying over remote paragraphs he had never noticed, and extracting interest from the mere superfluous folly of mankind. She turned the pages casually, glanced at the heading, glanced at the column, dropped the paper over the arm of her chair, and took up a cigarette.
âHeâs beginning to make quite recognizable letters,â she said. âHe made quite a good K this afternoon.â
This, Lionel thought despairingly, was an example of the malevolence of the universe; he had given it, and her, every chance. Did she never read the paper? Must he talk of it himself, and himself renew the dreadful memories in open speech?
âDid you see,â he said, âwhat happened at our place this afternoon?â
âNo,â said Barbara, surprised; and then, breaking off, âDarling, you look so ill. Do you feel ill?â
âIâm not quite the thing,â Lionel admitted. âYouâll see why, in there.â He indicated the discarded Star.
Barbara picked it up. âWhere?â she asked. ââMurder in City publishing house.â That wasnât yours, I suppose? Lionel, it was! Good heavens, where?â
âIn my office,â Lionel answered, wondering whether some other corpse wasnât hidden behind the chair in which she sat. Of course, they had found that one this afternoon, but mightnât there be a body that other people couldnât find, couldnât even see? Barbara herself now: mightnât she be really lying there dead? and this that
Comments (0)