Read Online Play to the End by Robert Goddard - Free Book Online Page A

how hard I'd have found it to say what the previous subject really was.

    "Yes. That's it."

    The manuscript didn't look as bulky as I'd feared it might. No thousand-page epic, then, for which I was grateful, if only on Moira's behalf. But handwritten, to judge by the top sheet, which bore the words, THE PLASTIC MEN, a History of Colbonite Ltd and its Workforce, by Derek Oswin. There were traces of line markings in a rectangle in the centre of the page. As I leafed through the sheets, I saw each one was the same. Derek had written his book on feint-line A5, so that photocopying it onto A4 had isolated the words within wide, white margins. Not exactly conventional presentation.

    "Will you read it yourself, Mr. Flood, or just send it straight off to your agent?"

    "I imagine you'd like a swift response."

    "Well, I would, yes."

    "Best send it straight off, then." Neatly handled, I reckoned. Let Moira get somebody to flog through it. She's paid to do that sort of thing. "This way, you'll probably hear something before Christmas."

    "Oh, good. That would be nice."

    "I can only ask her to give you an honest opinion, Derek. You know what that means, don't you?"

    "She may turn it down. Oh yes. That's clear enough. And fair enough.
    It's all I'm asking for."

    "If she says no, I don't want to hear that you've reappeared at the Rendezvous."

    "You won't."

    "I'd better not, Derek. Believe me."

    "I do, Mr. Flood. I do." He looked so contrite that my heart went out to him, sentimental fool that I am.

    "I know you thought you were acting for the best this afternoon and I'm grateful for your concern. It was still a stupid thing to do, though.
    Nothing of the kind must happen again."

    "It won't." He smiled, presumably in an attempt to reassure me. "I guarantee."

    "Good."

    "Although ..."

    "What?"

    "I just wondered ..."

    "Yes?"

    "Well, when do you next intend ... to speak to your wife?"

    "That's none of your business."

    "No. Of course not. But if I can help .. ." His wobbly smile reshaped itself. "Mr. Colborn's away at the moment, you know."

    "I do know. But how do you know?" Stupid question, really. How does he come by any of his copious store of information?

    "I, er, keep my ear to the ground. Anyway, it occurred to me .. . you might want to ... visit Wickhurst Manor. While Mr. Colborn's not in residence."

    "That doesn't sound like a very good idea."

    "No? Well, it's up to you, Mr. Flood, entirely up to you."

    "So it is."

    "Marlinspike Hall, I call it." There came a snatch of his whinnying laugh. "Of course, if you're not a Tintin fan .. ."

    "It's where Tintin lives in the books. I know that much, Derek."

    "Yes. Well done. Actually, Captain Haddock owns the house and Tintin and Professor Calculus also live there. But they didn't always. It originally belonged to Max Bird, the corrupt antiques dealer. In The Secret of the Unicorn He broke off and blushed. "Sorry. You're not interested in all that. Though there's an odd coincidence. Mr.
    Colborn runs his business from Wickhurst Manor. Just as Max Bird ran his from Marlinspike Hall. And they both have a habit of overlooking what's right under their noses."

    This struck me as no coincidence at all, even if it was all true, but I nobly refrained from saying so. I made to rise. "Well, I think I'd better be '

    "Do you want to see a photograph of the house?"

    "Of Wickhurst Manor?"

    "Yes."

    I should have declined the offer. Instead, I heard myself saying, "All right."

    "I won't be a tick." He was off again, out through the door and up the stairs.

    I gazed at Derek's treasured manuscript. A history of a defunct plastics company. Ye gods! I turned the title page over. Derek, to my surprise, had contrived an epigraph of sorts for his magnum opus, a skit on the start of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men'.

    We are the plastic men We are the moulded men Leaning together Headpiece filled with polymer.

    Yes, I reckoned, Moira was really going to love this.

    Then Derek was