Beyond this place by Cronin A. J. (Archibald Joseph) 1896-1981

Author:Cronin, A. J. (Archibald Joseph), 1896-1981
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boston, Little, Brown
Published: 1953-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

BEYOND THIS PLACE

glass in his robes while Burr, his middle-aged, snuff-coloured clerk, obsequiously handed him his wig, he would smile complacently at his own reflection, and remark: "Burr! I'm the most hated man in the city of Wortley."

This evening, however, his attitude was strangely chastened, and as he viewed the sprinkling of members in the lounge, he wished that one of them might come and speak to him. Beyond a few distant nods he had received no acknowledgement of his entry. In the opposite corner four men were playing bridge, amongst them a member of his own profession whom he knew slightly, Nigel Grahame, a King's Counsel. Once or twice they glanced in his direction and, instinctively, he had a strange suspicion that they might be speaking of the Mathry case. No, no, that was impossible — he must really take a grip of himself. Yet why didn't Grahame recognize him? As he slowly drank his tea, he bent his gaze upon the other man.

' Grahame, in his opinion, was a queer individual, an exponent of odd and unaccountable beliefs. Son of a country rector, he had, as a boy, achieved the distinction of winning an exhibition to Winchester College. From this famous school, which had stamped him with its own particular mark of scholarship and manners, he had proceeded to Oxford University. A year after he had been called to the bar, his father died, leaving him a small income of two hundred pounds a year. After the funeral he had immediately gone abroad and for the next five years had lived an unsettled existence. Part of the time he spent as tutor to an Austrian boy suffering from tuberculosis and compelled to spend his days in the high altitudes of the Tyrol. For the rest, Grahame wandered about Europe, mainly on foot, with a knapsack on his back, wintering in the Juras, spending his summers on the Dolomites. He loved to walk among the mountains — in one day he had tramped from Oberwald to Innsbruck, a distance of fifty-two miles.

Naturally this apparently aimless life had caused his friends anxiety, but in the following year Grahame returned to Wortley, apparently sound in mind and body, and with complete unconcern, as though he had left only yesterday, addressed himself to his own profession. Gradually, he acquired a practice which,

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