Read Online The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 by Daniel A. Rabuzzi - Free Book Online

in a lifetime.”
    Barnabas sat with Sanford in the partners’ room in the house on Mincing Lane, taking tea on the afternoon after the party at the Sedgewicks. Everyone had slept late. No one had seen Sally yet, though the Cook had been up to the attic room and left a tray of tea and buttered buns.
    “Is Sally going to be alright, do you think?” said Barnabas.
    “She will withstand the initial shock,” said Sanford. “More lasting effects, of that we cannot yet say.”
    “Hmmm, I fear you are correct, old friend,” said Barnabas, helping himself to another cone of sugar for his tea.
    The two sat for a while in the wonted silence of partners, punctuated by the clinks of spoons on teacups and the impartial ticking of the clock on the mantlepiece. Barnabas savoured the smell of the sandalwood box, and let his sight roam over the prints of Rodney defeating the French and of Diana pursuing Actaeon. Sanford looked at the prints of the East Indiamen submerging, reassuring himself that no such shipwreck was imminent for McDoon & Co. Yikes—ageless hound, who seemingly had not moved in all the days and months of their absence—slept by the fireplace, snoring slightly. (Chock the parrot had died while the McDoons had been in Yount). All was as it should be in the house with the blue door and dolphin-knocker on Mincing Lane.
    The clock chimed four, echoed at various distances by church bells around the City.
    “I say, Sanford, that is four o’clock just gone, and no Sedgewick,” said Barnabas. “You said he was coming at four, I distinctly heard you say that, though I won’t hold it against him, not after that splendid tarra-ma-do last night, and particularly the bottle of Cahors.”
    At that moment, the maid opened the door and announced Mr. Sedgewick.
    “Gentlemen, as scheduled, as promised,” said the lawyer. “Speaking of Cahors, dear Barnabas, I have brought you a second bottle—a little something to accompany your supper this evening!”
    “Most esteemed of colleagues and most capital of men,” said Barnabas. “All forgiven, or rather, nothing to forgive you for! Now, sit, and let us talk more about the Project. For one thing, we have finally named it, the ship that is. We shall call her
The Indigo Pheasant
. Was Sally who hit upon it, clever girl. So, anyway, you can insert the name into the Articles of Association and all the other legal papers. What, is there something wrong with that name?”
    Sedgewick had begun to shake his head about halfway through Barnabas’s statement.
    “No, no, that’s not it,” said Sedgewick. “
Indigo Pheasant
is a perfectly good name. I rather like it in fact, has a cavalier ring. Certainly unusual, without lacking respectability. Strong yet unassuming. I will duly record the name wherever it needs recording. No, nothing to do with the name of the ship.”
    “Well, what then? I know that shake of the head and those pursed lips, you have something difficult to divulge. Come on then, after the eye-opener with Kidlington yesterday, I do not believe there is much you could tell us that could surprise us further.”
    Sedgewick coughed, the polite sort of cough lawyers use just before they deliver portentous and usually unpleasant news. Sanford made a burring noise in his throat at the same time.
    “Ah, figs and feathers, I knew it, you are unmasked the both of you,” said Barnabas. “I saw you two up to some sort of commercial conversation at the rout yesterday, I did—‘a conspiracy,’ that’s what I called it, and now I am proven right. Come on then, out with it.”
    “Kidlington’s news—that is, the news that
is
Kidlington, his resurrection and return and perambulations amongst us—is most definitely an eye-opener,” said Sedgewick. “But you must brace yourself for an even greater revelation than that, friend Barnabas.”
    Sedgewick pushed aside his tea cup, opened the satchel sitting between his feet, and brought forth a pile of tawny, flecked and