Richard Marsh

“ She wondered if they were attracted by the smell of the champagne which had been spilt upon the floor when the stranger broke the bottle. Suddenly there were sounds quite close to her feet; she felt as if something ran over one of them; as if a fresh detachment were coming out of some crevice in the wood panelling of the recess in which she was standing. Was she to be shut up all night--alone with the dead, while the mice held festival? Was she to remain there, upright? Or should she seek rest on the floor? On the floor the mice might run to and fro across her body. ”

“ Dorothy felt as if each one of them had been aimed at her; with each her choler rose; just, as she was sure, the stranger's rose also. An uncanny desire came to the tips of her fingers to grip the speaker by the throat and choke an apology out of him. She would have liked to see the stranger do it; with all her might she longed to inspire him with her feeling. Presently she realised that he had it on his own account, without any urging from her. When Emmett had finished he remained still, motionless; never once removing his eyes from the other's inflamed features. ”

“ You can't remember what the stranger said to Emmett?--what they were disputing about?"
"I can't; I may do later, but I can't now. My brain was so stupefied, I was in such a state of cowardice, that I heard--without hearing; certainly without understanding."
"You can't recall even a single phrase?"
"No, I can't; I tell you I can't! Why will you persist in asking?"
"Please don't suppose, Miss Gilbert, that I wish to worry you; to cause you pain; nothing can be farther from my wish; but I do want you to appreciate the situation; to put you on your guard. ”

“ As Mr Emmett did nothing to raise himself, since he was such a heavy man, the stranger had not an easy task. When he had regained his own feet he was holding his burden closer to him than could have been quite convenient. It was with curious sensations that the unseen witness observed how limp her guardian was; his head waggled with the stranger's every movement, as if the muscles of the neck refused to hold it up. Staggering forward, the stranger deposited Mr Emmett on the chair on which he had been seated at dinner. ”

“ Under the circumstances it seemed a curious question--so it seemed to strike him.
"Adela, what on earth do you mean?"
"It occurs to me that we are about to act as pawns in a game of chess without even knowing who are the players."
Her husband stared at her, as if with a total lack of comprehension. When he spoke his tone was irascible.
"Adela, there seem to be puzzles enough in the air without your making them worse. Perhaps you'll be so good as to tell me what you may happen to mean."
"I am not so sure that I know myself; only, as I looked at that girl's face, I had the queerest feeling." ”

“ With beating pulses she sat and watched him drawing closer and closer. "Newcaster," he explained, speaking with what seemed to her to be hideous deliberation, "is a town not far from here; an old town; a racing town; it is to horse racing that, in all human probability, it owes its continued flourishing condition--for it continues to flourish. One of its numerous meetings is taking place now; there is to be racing on this heath to-day. You hear that humming and buzzing sound which comes and goes, so that now it fills all the air, and now seems completely to die away." ”

“ The strangeness would have been if he had come when they had not been speaking of him; for, of late, they had spoken of little else. Elsie Farquhar, who had brought the message, pressed it home.
"You had better be quick, Dorothy. Sister Celestine said you were to hurry."
So Dorothy hurried, her tall slender figure held very straight, her pretty head a little in the air, in her eyes a gleaming light. She believed herself to be passing from a world she knew into one of which she had dreamed. But she was mistaken; she was going into a world of which she had not dreamed. ”

“ Suddenly the chauffeur spoke in a half whisper. "What did I tell you?" They had come along a narrow, winding street, where discreet driving was certainly a matter of necessity; it had suddenly widened out into a broad, open space, from which streets branched off in all directions. In the centre a constable was standing with a superior officer. At sight of the car the latter raised an authorative hand. "Now, what's he want?" growled the mechanic, under his breath. "Drat them fellers!"
The officer approached.
"You leave him to me," said Mr Frazer. "I'll talk to him. What is it, officer?" ”

“ I've heard mother say that Strathmoira is a connoisseur where a woman's concerned. If you'd had freckles and a red nose he'd never have bought you a hat to shade them. My dear Dorothy, it's not the slightest use your being annoyed with me because you're going to be lovely. It's not my fault. For all I've had to do with it you might have been a quite ordinary-looking girl. Still, one is bound to admit that, from the merely ornamental point of view, a lovely girl is more interesting than the other sort; and I've a vague suspicion that some men are of that opinion to quite an appreciable extent. ”

“ His mouth was large, but his lips were thin, and shut so closely that when, in silence, he looked at Mr Emmett, only a slender red line was visible to show that a mouth was there. His black hair, parted on one side, was a little in disorder, some of it straggled over his forehead. Disorder, indeed, was the dominant note of the man. As she watched him the girl had a feeling that he was too much moved by some inward excitement to be over-particular about the small niceties of his attire. ”

“ Do you know that all the people have gone? If Dorothy has been keeping you, you ought not to have let her; you ought to have been there to say good-bye." She perceived that there was something unusual in her daughter's attitude. "Frances! What is the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that? What is that you have in your hand? The Times! Do you mean to say that you have been reading the newspaper and forgetting what you owe to your friends? What will your father say? Frances, speak to me! What is the matter with the girl?" ”

“ As she was leading him to the servants' entrance she saw what she jumped to the conclusion was the dim outline of Dorothy's figure at the end of the lawn. On the instant she started him on the chase. Doing as Dorothy had done, keeping under the shadow of the hedge, taking advantage of their preoccupation, he was on them before either of the pair had suspected his propinquity; and, with a grin, was holding out a pair of handcuffs.
"Now, my lad, your right hand, and, Miss Dorothy Gilbert, your left--sorry to inconvenience you, but business is business." ”

“ But he's not the only one who had a grudge against George Emmett. Who, who had anything to do with him, hadn't? Why, if it comes to that, we'd no cause to love him."
"Now, Mrs Elsey, none of that sort of talk, if you please; that's a sort of talk I won't have. It doesn't follow that because a man has a grudge against another man he wants to kill him."
"Doesn't it? It depends on the man. But whatever did he do it with? I never saw such a sight as he has made of him!"
"Seems as if he did it with a bottle--a champagne bottle." ”

“ George Emmett was not a person whom one would care to offer as a fair example of humanity. It's easy to say that we should speak no ill of the dead; but it's not easy to speak well of George Emmett; and I have to speak of him. His lines ran more or less parallel with mine for a good many years; and I never knew him forget himself sufficiently to do anything of which he had any cause to be proud. Miss Gilbert, he was not a nice man. ”

“ When they began to move she fell in, as of course, at Arnecliffe's side; presently, when they came to a bypath, they turned into it together; while Miss Vernon and Strathmoira went straight on. When they had gone a little way his lordship smiled, as if in the enjoyment of some private jest, and he said: "I congratulate you, Frances, on the taste you have shown in choosing your friend; she is one of whose friendship anyone, under any circumstances, might be proud." ”

“ I once heard mother say to an aunt of mine--she didn't know I heard, but I did--'Frances is the sort of girl to make a good man happy'--and that's exactly what I am: prettiness of my kind runs in the family; Jim's a pretty boy. But you--yours is going to be the kind of beauty men rave about; and I don't call it fair."
"I never imagined you could be so ridiculous. What don't you call fair?"
"That a girl should have both beauty and gold. One or the other, but not both. Think of the quantities of quite respectable girls who have neither. ”

“ She divined, on the instant, that Sister Celestine was disappointed with Mr Emmett. As she went with the Sister from the garden to the guest-room she wondered why. Would she be disappointed also?--after all her talks with Frances?--her communings with herself? She had fashioned the unknown Mr Emmett in so many shapes that she could not have told which of them she expected to see; certainly it was not the person she actually saw. Her knowledge of men had practically been restricted to the personages in the storybooks which found their way into the convent precincts. ”

“ She could not remain standing through the night; she dare not lie upon the floor; she dare not take refuge on the couch; she was unwilling to venture out from the sheltering curtains into the room; for all she could tell he might have got off the table, and be waiting for her just on the other side of them.
As she realised, more and more clearly, the disagreeable nature of her position, her thoughts recurred to the window, to the handles which hung on either side of the lower sash. ”

“ God seems to have intended them to strut through life as unconscious comedians; and the unconscious comedian's the finest of all. Elsey's such a one. Have you, by any chance ever seen the man?" She was silent; he went on. "Although I daresay that the possession on which he most prides himself is his dignity, in reality he's the most undignified of men. Surely there's no tragedy where there's no dignity. Tragedy's austere; Elsey never could be that. Yet, last night, there was a tragedy at 'The Bolton Arms'; and it seems that Elsey played a leading part in it. ”

“ In the winter it is different; winter is itself a tragedy. But, when nature's radiant, and the sun's in a cloudless heaven, surely all's right with the world, and comedy's the only fare. When I reached 'The Bolton Arms Hotel,' in Newcaster, the world was even more--riant--it's a word which the French use, for which I can't hit on an exact translation. ”

“ Jim asked:
"Why Newcaster?"
"Why, old chap, haven't you seen the papers? I expect Miss Gilbert has--there's a lot in them about the doings of Dorothy Gilbert at Newcaster--is there a Dorothy in your family, Miss Gilbert?"
It seemed that Mr Denman was a humorist of Mrs Purchas' type--only more so; with the bump of obtuseness unduly developed. Had he fired a revolver at the girl he could hardly have produced a greater effect; coming after the question which she had just had aimed at her every word he uttered seemed to hit her on a tender spot. Frances could feel her trembling. ”

“ Fancy your being a millionairess after all!"
"I'm not a millionairess."
"You've got heaps and heaps of money--because Mr Arnecliffe as good as told me so; and as he really and truly is your guardian he ought to know."
"I suppose your cousin's very rich."
"Lord Strathmoira, my dear, is my mother's cousin; not mine. He's not poor; but then earls, my dear, are not like common people. You need such a deal of money if you want to play the part properly, if you are an earl; and I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he could do with more. Is Mr Arnecliffe rich?"
"I haven't a notion." ”

“ One was Sir Derwent Dewsnap, whose surgical fame, one hardly need remark, was world-wide. Few men have performed more operations than Derwent Dewsnap; few have done more cutting and carving on the outside and inside of the human frame--and, as a cynic once observed, he looked it. But, while his knowledge and experience of general surgery was great, his skill in dealing with the human cranium, and especially that part we call the brain, it has been stated, was almost superhuman. Nowadays every great surgeon is a specialist, and Dewsnap's speciality was brain. ”

“ If your lordship came by the river they may have passed you; you may have noticed them."
"My good sir, do you suppose that, on a night like this, when a big storm is evidently very close at hand, and one's sole aim is to reach shelter before it comes, that one has nothing better to do than notice strangers who may happen to pass you on the river? There's a flash for you! Why, if it's not my cousin, Miss Vernon. My dear Frances, I was wondering who you were when that flash of lightning kindly showed me; it has grown so dark that I doubt if I ever should have known you without its aid. ”

“ There was scarcely a man or woman who had anything to do with horses who did not sometimes find himself, or herself, in a tight corner about settling day. Those were the times they came to him. The number of services he had rendered of that kind--well, they'd fill a book. Everybody knew Georgie Emmett was a friend in need when a bad settlement had to be faced. He winked, and Dorothy shuddered.
Knocking off the ash from his cigar he filled himself another glass of champagne. If she had only had the courage she would have sprung from her chair and rushed from the room ”

“ Dorothy, it's tragic for a girl to be like that; you mayn't know it, but it is. Fortune ought to share out her gifts with a more equal hand: she shouldn't give one person so much more than her proper share."
"I'm not in a mood for jesting. Your brother said I was a simple girl."
"He did! How dare he! That Jim!"
"But I assure you I'm not quite simple enough to credit the kind of stuff you're talking. I didn't know you thought I was a positive imbecile."
"Very well. Would you like me to ask Strathmoira what he thinks of your appearance?"
"Frances! How dare you! ”