Read Online Desperate Acts by Don Gutteridge - Free Book Online

not more than a year or so younger than he,
did not enter into his calculations.
    “Does anybody know the name of the fellow who
accosted her?” Fullarton said, ever solicitous of those in
distress.
    “Not really, though I’m pretty sure the
villain had been drinking in there on other occasions.”
    Fullarton asked the cabbie to drive them
farther up Sherbourne Street to Harlem Place, where Brodie lived.
He himself lived downtown on George Street. The night-air was
chilly – after all, it was past mid-October – and doubly so after
the simmering brightness of an Indian summer afternoon and a
spectacular sunset. They drew their lapels up over their scarves
and spoke without turning their heads.
    “I’ve been meaning to ask you, sir, how a
recent arrival like Peregrine Shuttleworth managed to revive the
Shakespeare Club?” Brodie said as they bumped along the rutted
roadway in the moon-washed dark. “I’d heard it was pretty well
dead.”
    “Please, Brodie. Outside the bank, I insist
you call me Horace.”
    “As you wish, sir.”
    Fullarton laughed, something he rarely did,
though the lines around his mouth and eyes suggested he had done so
often in his younger and happier days – before Bernice’s illness
and the realization that they would have a childless marriage.
“Well, Mister Langford, I must accept some of the blame
myself.”
    “I am not surprised.”
    “Thank you for that, but my role was really
more of a prompter than a director or leading man. You see, when
the Shuttleworths arrived in the summer, Sir Peregrine came to our
bank to do business.”
    “Yes, I do remember seeing him there.”
    “In the course of our conversation he
mentioned that he was setting out to complete the construction of
Oakwood Manor, and he invited me for dinner that evening. I almost
never go out, as you know – I don’t like to leave Bernice alone too
much – but her sister was staying with us for a few weeks, so I
said yes. After the meal, he toured me about the half-finished wing
and outlined the changes he was contemplating for the main section.
I made a few comments here and there, and suddenly Sir Peregrine
decided that I had an eye for architectural design. He insisted I
return and continue our discussion of his plans. Well, the upshot
was that I must have gone out there nine or ten times over the
course of a month.”
    “So you met Lady Madeleine and her
family?”
    “Yes. Mrs. Wade and all six of her children,
though the baronet rationed their appearances.”
    “During which time the subject of Shakespeare
arose?”
    “Indeed it did. Both the baronet and his lady
are mad about plays and play-acting. As he hinted tonight, his
ballroom was designed to be converted into an amateur playhouse at
an instant’s notice. So, naturally, I told him about the on-again,
off-again Shakespeare Club here in town.”
    “And the rest is history.”
    “Something like that.”
    “Have you been out to Oakwood Manor since, to
see the finished product?”
    At that moment the cab struck a rock in the
road, the horse lurched, and the vehicle came close to tipping
over. When the ride had smoothed out (relatively), Fullarton said,
“Bernice took a bad turn in September and I – ”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know – ”
    “She’s much better now, Brodie. Much
better.”
    The cab pulled up in front of the gates
before Harlem Place. The two men, so much like father and son, said
their goodnights – reluctantly.
    Brodie was let in by Petrie, who had been
Richard Dougherty’s valet and butler, but was now an all-purpose
man-servant who lived in, along with his sister, Mrs. Crockett, the
cook and self-appointed “nanny” to young Celia. Stan Petrie and the
Widow Crockett arranged for occasional help to come in and do the
chores that needed doing about the house and garden. Petrie,
however, insisted on looking after the newly purchased horses and
anything remotely connected with them.
    “You needn’t have taken a