Читать книгу Circular Saws - Humbert Wolfe - Страница 11

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THE electric bell had rung for the fourth time, when the door was opened by an agreeable young man dressed in the height of fashion.

“Who are you?” he inquired in the amiable tone of one who begins an interesting conversation.

“I’m the Milk,” retorted the young man with the cans a little shortly, for he was not pleased at being so long delayed.

“Will you not come in one moment?” the young householder retorted. “I have within the butcher, the grocer and the baker, and I have long desired to add you to the list of my visitors.”

The young milkman (still carrying his heavy can) followed the polite young gentleman into a fine, lofty room. The whole was arranged with exquisite taste, and many deep rugs indicated a luxurious vein in the young man’s character. At the further end of the room, arranged neatly in an isosceles triangle (for the baker was much shorter than the other two), were the corpses of the butcher, the baker, and the grocer.

“May I inquire,” said the Milk, after surveying the scene in silence for a minute, “why you have killed these three gentlemen?”

“You have the best of rights in the world to ask, and I shall be delighted to explain,” answered the young gentleman courteously. “You must know, then, that I have a speculative interest in the manner in which the smaller British tradesman meets death. I have been much charmed by the experience I have gleaned with the help of my three friends there. The butcher,” he added, pointing smilingly to a discolouration on his forehead, “was the least graceful. And now as I have answered you, perhaps you will allow me to ask you a question?”

“But pray do,” answered the Milk, not to be outdone in courtesy.

“I thank you. I was going to inquire whether you knew any reason why I should not add you to my list.”

“I apprehended,” returned the Milk, “that your question might be something of that sort. I had gone so far as to prepare an answering question.”

“And what might that be?” inquired the young gentleman?

“Why should I not kill you?” retorted the Milk affably.

“There is something in what you say,” exclaimed the young gentleman. “I had not considered the question. Will you give me a minute or two to meditate?”

“I must be about my business, I am afraid,” returned the Milk, quietly bludgeoning the young man as he spoke with his milk can. “Yet how sad it is,” he said reflectively surveying the four corpses, “that speculation must inevitably make way for practical affairs.”

And with that he proceeded to replace the milk he had spilled with water from a neighbouring table.