Campion 18 The Mind Readers by Margery Allingham

Author:Margery Allingham [Allingham, Margery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

“Go away!” Mr. Deeds flounced his robes at the animal as if it were the Great Beast of his prophecy and threw himself out of the room with reckless clumsiness. Mrs. Talisman squeaked, and from the hall came the rattle and clatter of his board as he fought and banged himself out of the house with it.

The cat, undismayed and graceful as a swallow, wreathed and circled about him as he strode across the square.

The old canon was dismayed. “Poor fellow!” he murmured. “Did you know how much that would upset him, Charles?”

“Not quite.” Luke was a little taken aback himself. “He’s shocked to find that some little asininity of his which he thought was absolutely secret is perfectly obvious to everybody. He’s discovered in a bus without his pants on—that’s all.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Amanda. “What was happening to the cat?”

“Oh, he’d made himself interesting to it to get it to follow him as if it loved him.” Luke was a little embarrassed. “There are various… er… unguents which will do that—some more salubrious than others. I shouldn’t think he was fur trapping or anything venal. If I know Deeds and his kind, he’s trying to prove either to himself or some other poor nit that Pussy loves him better than Pussy’s own master or missis! That’s life—less tragic than ruddy silly half the time!” He glanced at a shabby knapsack lying in the corner. “He’s left his folders. Never mind; I’ll get them dropped back at his room. I’m glad you saw him, Canon. The idea of getting cursed by accident in some way or another is the kind of bogey which seems to ride that sort of bloke. He catches at the idea, colors it, trys it on this way and that to make himself interesting to himself, but it’s utterly terrible to him just the same. Nobody knows what those people suffer. If ever this blasted invention of ours gets going, we shall all have a few shocks.”

Old Avril shook his head; he was very certain of his ground. “He will find a way to escape it. That is pride, the tourniquet round the soul. No little machine is going to cure that, I’m afraid —even the latest.”

“ ‘The paranoiac sin of pride!’ ” said Luke, unexpectedly in the picture.

“ ’Struth! What an alternative! Did Campin spot that? Is that why he sent him here?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so.” Avril appeared surprised. “It was the reference he noticed, I should say; wouldn’t you?”

“Which reference?”

“Why, the second one, Charles. The one Mr. Deeds’ friends only see him carry sometimes. ‘Revelation, chapter six, verses one to seven.’ He told us; don’t you remember? He will have told Albert. I looked it up for him, but he didn’t want to listen. It’s that passage with the dramatic repetitions. All the four Great Beasts at the four corners of the world sit up and cry the same thing one after the other: ‘Come and see! Come and see! Come and see! Come and see!’ It’s a great favorite with the young, or used to be.

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