Читать книгу Death Makes a Prophet - Ernest Elmore - Страница 11

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In the large, severely-furnished drawing-room across the hall another conversation was in progress. It was by no means a fluent conversation. In fact, silence and speech were mixed in about equal proportions. The room itself was not exactly conducive to light and witty badinage. There was a vast amount of hard polished wood underfoot, with here and there an unreliable rush-mat which, at the slightest provocation, would skid from under one with all the consequent social embarrassment. Hard wooden chairs were set about, defying the intruder to make himself comfortable. Strange appliquéd figures, representing scenes from the Book of the Dead, marched in stiff procession round the wooden-panelled walls. Two stone Thoths, one Anubis, three Hathors, a Beb, a Mut and a Set were the principal ornaments, save for one enormous imaginative oil-painting over the wooden fireplace depicting Am-Mit, the Eater of the Dead, enjoying with immense gusto the unvarying plat du jour. A few scraggy sprays of “everlastings” stuck up from the necks of several wooden vases and to either side of the door, like the immobile sentinels of a past epoch, stood two anthropoid coffins of carved and painted wood.

Yet by far the most wooden object in the room at that particular moment was Terence Mildmann. He was sitting on the very edge of a small upright chair, his brawny knees gleaming in the firelight, his two ham-like hands clasped over his thighs. Despite the raw November day he was dressed, save for walking-stick and rucksack, like a hiker. His expression was difficult to analyse but among the more fleeting emotions it was possible to isolate delight, incredulity and acute bashfulness. Seated opposite to him on a small, hard, wooden coffin-stool, was Denise.

Neither was prepared to say just what had happened to them over the luncheon-table. Once, twice, perhaps three times, their eyes had met for a brief instant, yet within that flash of time something incredible had transpired. Terence, at any rate, knew that he had never seen anything quite so breathlessly lovely as Denise, and Denise knew that she had never met anything quite so pathetically helpless as Terence. Once they were in the drawing-room he had offered her a cigarette. She said she didn’t smoke. Terence said he didn’t, either. He wasn’t allowed to. His father didn’t like it. After that they both looked into the fire and said nothing for a time. Then Terence tried again:

“You work for the Blot, don’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I say!—I shouldn’t have said that. I meant Mrs. Hagge-Smith.”

“Yes, I’m her secretary.”

“Phew!”

After which expressive ejaculation there was again a long silence. This time it was Denise who stepped in.

“Don’t you find it cold wearing shorts in the winter?”

“I have to. My father believes in rational clothing.”

“But he doesn’t wear shorts.”

“I mean, he believes in it for other people.”

“I see.”

“Mind you, I’m pretty tough.” Terence crooked an arm to show off his biceps and threw out his barrel-like chest. “I do dumb-bells and clubs before my open window every morning. I can do the mile in four minutes, twenty seconds. Not bad, is it?”

“It’s jolly good,” said Denise warmly. “I’m not very hot at that sort of thing. I was in the second eleven hockey at school. But even that was rather a fluke.”

After a further pause, Terence enquired:

“Do you believe in all this Children of Osiris stuff? I know I oughtn’t to talk like this. After all it was the Guv’nor’s idea. I suppose it’s all right if you like that sort of thing. But I don’t. I’m keen on sports. Er...do you belong?”

“Well,” admitted Denise, “I’m a member of the Order, if that’s what you mean. You see in my job it would be a bit awkward if I wasn’t. Mrs. Hagge-Smith more or less made me join when she engaged me. And as I have to earn my own living...”

“I say, what rotten luck. Of course, my father being the High Prophet, I can’t very well get out of it. I’m a Symbol-Bearer in the Temple. But I’m not much cop at it.” He boomed happily: “I’m awfully glad you’re going to be staying here for a bit. It will cheer things up for me no end.”

Denise flushed with pleasure at the compliment, but not knowing quite what to say, she wisely said nothing. Terence scratched his knees, which were burning in the heat from the fire, shot a quick glance at the miracle in his midst and asked abruptly:

“I say, don’t think this rude of me, but do you have manifestations?”

“Manifestations?”

It sounded as if he were referring to insects or pimples.

“Yes, you know—astral visions and all that sort of thing. Spirit shapes.”

“No—I can’t say that I do. I dream rather a lot after a late supper. But I’m not at all psychic, if that’s what you mean.”

“I am,” announced Terence, to Denise’s surprise. “I’m always having astral manifestations. I get quite a kick out of it.” His eyes assumed a dreamy expression and then suddenly narrowed, as if he were trying, there and then, to penetrate the Veil. “It’s marvellous sometimes how clearly I see things. They’re so terribly realistic.”

“Things?” enquired Denise. “What things?”

“Steaks mostly. But sometimes it’s mutton-chops or steak and kidney pudding. I just have to close my eyes, relax my mind and body, and there they are.” He passed a healthy red tongue round his lips and swallowed rapidly. “You think it’s blasphemous of me to see things like that, don’t you? I know it’s not very high-minded, but—”

“I don’t think anything of the sort. I think it’s very clever of you to see anything at all.”

Terence shot a quick glance at the door, shied away from the painted glaring eyes of the mummy-cases, and lowering his voice, went on:

“I just can’t help it. I suppose it’s a kind of wish fulfilment, as the psychologists call it. The point is, I’ve got a pretty healthy appetite and all these vegetarian fripperies leave me cold. I’ve no interest in the food I’m supposed to eat, only in that which I’m not allowed to. Sickening, isn’t it? I mean I just can’t work up any real enthusiasm for peanut cutlets and raw cabbage. Pretty low-minded of me, isn’t it?”

“Oh I don’t know. I’m only a vegetarian myself because in Rome one has to do as the Romans do. But then, I never worry much about food.”

“You never worry?” said Terence with a shocked and incredulous look. “Never worry about food!” For the second time he lowered his voice and cast a guilty glance at the door. “Look here, can you keep a secret?”

“Of course.”

“You promise not to give me away?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll let you in on something. Last week I went on the binge. And it’s not the first time, either.” There was a proud and defiant ring in his rumbling bass voice. “Yes, I sneaked out last Tuesday night and went on the binge.”

“Where?”

“Wilson’s Restaurant in Chives Avenue.” He sighed profoundly and his eye was lit with a retrospective gleam. “Gravy soup, sole à la bonne femme and a double portion of silver-side! Oh boy!” He chuckled happily. “What a binge! What a glorious, all-in, slap-up binge! I’d been saving up for that. Ten weeks’ pocket-money gone in a flash. You can’t keep that sort of thing up on sixpence a week. There are long blank periods in between, worse luck!”

“Oh you poor boy!” breathed Denise, genuinely moved by his predicament. “Fancy you getting only sixpence a week at your age.”

“Father’s pretty stingy, you know. He doesn’t believe in money. At least, not for other people.”

“Like rational clothing.”

“Yes—that’s it. Like rational clothing.”

They laughed happily together, each conscious of the undercurrent of sympathy which was flowing between them. Already they were fast overcoming their shyness.

“I say—what’s the Blot doing here? Any idea?”

“None at all at present. I daresay we shall soon find out.”

“Well, whatever she’s got up her sleeve,” observed Terence sagaciously, “I’ll wager it’s going to land us in all sorts of trouble. Whenever she turns up in Welworth things start to happen. And the trouble is you can never tell where they’re going to end!”

Which was about the wisest and most penetrating remark Terence Mildmann had ever made.