Read Online Dead Man's Quarry by Ianthe Jerrold - Free Book Online Page B

Browning’s disgust. “If you can identify him also, so much the better.”
    â€œBut you can’t!” protested Dr. Browning. “Surely, my dear Miss Price, if you haven’t seen your brother for fifteen years, it will be quite useless—”
    â€œI shall be able to identify him,” said Blodwen placidly. To John’s eye she had the air of keeping well in check a certain impatience with the doctor’s well-meant dissuasions.
    She liked Dr. Browning, that was evident. But she did not feel in any need of his protection.
    â€œI shall know at once whether it is my brother or not,” she repeated calmly, “although I haven’t seen him for fifteen years. Don’t worry, Doctor. You can feel my pulse, if you like, before and after.” And she led the way out into the passage.
    â€œThis way,” said the Superintendent, indicating the back door, and they passed out into the soft, beneficent sunlight of the summer morning, down a narrow, flagged path to a large shed that stood at the end of the small strip of garden. A young constable stood on guard outside the door, and saluted as Superintendent Lovell approached.
    â€œHad any visitors, Davis?”
    â€œNo, sir. Only the young ’oman from the inn come down the garden to tell I her’ve had a matter of half a dozen eggs took from the hen-coops yesterday evening. Seemed to think as I’d ought to leave my post and go off looking for the thief, sir!” A broad grin overspread his good-humoured face. “Her’s a caution, her is! ‘I’ve got a theft to report,’ her says. Eggs! ‘A rat-trap’ll catch the thief better nor what I should,’ I says to she, and off her goes to the orchard to see whether there’s any apples been taken. Her counts they apples every day, I’ve heard tell.”
    The loquacious young man gave a guffaw and then, remembering the solemn business he was employed upon, broke it off in the middle and looked unnaturally serious, and then rueful as the Superintendent said with grave reproof:
    â€œThat’ll do, Davis. That’s not the way to make a report.”
    They passed into the cool, dusty shed, with its earthen floor piled with potatoes, firewood and gardening tools. A mangle stood in one corner, and a bin of chicken-meal in another, and against the farther wall something lay on a long trestle table, covered with a clean, faded bedspread. John Christmas noted that of his three new acquaintances Felix looked by far the most concerned and Blodwen Price the least. Felix’s hands were clenched and his lips tightly pressed together, and Dr. Browning’s kindly, humorous face wore a distressed, almost fearful look. But Blodwen looked merely pensive. Could a lengthy separation make one so indifferent to one’s closest kin? Or was it by some effort of self-control that the sister appeared so unconcerned at the brother’s fate?
    She did change colour slightly when Superintendent Lovell, with a warning to them to be prepared, drew the cloth gently from the trestle table. The dead man was not a pleasant sight. John, after a moment of quick recoil, thought that if Blodwen had not seen her brother for fifteen years she would be hard put to it to recognize him now, in spite of her confidence. Felix gave a loud gasp, and his long hands went fluttering up to his face as if to shut out the sight from his eyes. But he dropped them again, and schooled himself to stand still at the table side and look down at the still, mutilated figure.
    â€œYes,” he said in a low, forced voice. “It is Charles.”
    John saw the body of a tall, large-boned man, dressed in a rough tweed suit and cricket shirt, still wet with the heavy dew and streaked with dust and blood. The close-range bullet had terribly disfigured the face, but the round, smooth chin, thick hair and smooth eyebrows proclaimed him a man still on the youthful side of forty. The