Read Online Tom All-Alone's by Lynn Shepherd - Free Book Online

African continent.’
    â€˜I have not. And therefore I can offer no actual proof – scientific or otherwise – that this creature does not, in fact, exist.’
    â€˜There you are – what did I say! The man is an ignorant fool—’
    â€˜But what I can do is prove beyond all doubt that the horn you are holding is not what you claim it to be. That it is, in short, a fake, and that if there is indeed a fool among us, it isfar more likely to be you than me . Though in your defence, you are not the first to be taken in by cunning and opportunistic natives, and I dare say you won’t be the last.’
    Uproar now. The room is in chaos. The chairman raps his gavel again, and motions Charles to the front.
    â€˜You had better be able to make good your claims, sir, or be prepared to make a full and unreserved apology to our esteemed guest.’
    Charles looks unperturbed by either the words or the portentous tones in which they have been uttered. He makes his way briskly up the centre aisle to the mutterings and – in some cases – the downright disapproval of several of the audience. He does not, after all, look the part of a serious scientific mind, being every bit as untidy as when we saw him last and a good twenty years too young to have any sort of legitimate opinion. He leaps the steps to the dais two at a time and takes the horn from the Baron’s hands. He turns it, weighing it lightly, and running his fingers from tip to root. Silence descends. You could, in fact, hear a pin drop.
    A moment later, he looks up at the chairman and grins (something else these walls rarely get to see). ‘As I thought. This horn was taken from an adult bull of the Taurotragus oryx, or Common Eland. An antelope common in precisely those parts of Africa that the Baron has been describing to us in such exhaustive detail.’
    He tosses the horn back to the Baron. ‘It is, I grant you, a fine and unusually large example, and will make an admirable addition to the wall of your ancestral Schloss . Appropriately labelled, of course. I am sure that a man who has “studied natural science under some of the most distinguished professors in several universities” would not wish to leave his visitors in any doubt as to what this actually is.’
    The Baron is only halfway through his prepared paper, but Charles does not stay to hear it – he has better things to do with his time. How long it takes for the rest of the room to return to anything like its previous attentiveness, he neither knows nor cares.  
    Outside on Regent Street the night is clear but frosty, and though he is not far from home, the sight of a green Bayswater heading his way tempts him, for once, to take the omnibus. It’s very full – no surprise at this time of night – and Charles struggles to find a seat between a little testy man with a powdered head, and a sturdy brown-faced woman in a grey cloth cloak who’s gripping an umbrella with a wooden crook and has a market-basket full of greens wedged between her knees. The ’bus grinds its slow way past brilliantly lit shops and strolling crowds, and Charles eventually swings down the step at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road.  
    It is, perhaps, some five minutes later that he first gets the sense that someone is following him. It’s happened many times before, especially on fast-darkening evenings like this, but it’s no less alarming for that. He stops, and turns as if nonchalantly, but sees no one. A minute later he steps quickly down his own small side street and slips into the shadow of a doorway. And now he knows he’s not imagining it: he can hear heavy boots, and even heavier breathing. One man only; that at least is something. He waits, his heart pounding, but when he springs out, grasps his pursuer by the throat and throws him against the wall, he starts back in disbelief.
    â€˜Abel Stornaway – what in God’s name