Gabriel Hounds by Mary Stewart

Author:Mary Stewart [Stewart, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi

"Aha, indeed," said my cousin. "And a beautiful web right across it, too, just in case we thought it might have been opened the other way. But how corny, no cliches spared . . .

but then things only become cliches because they're the slickest way of saying something. No, this door hasn't been opened since the last time the old Emir tottered along to the harem in 1875. Videlicet--if that's the word I want, which seems doubtful--the spiders. So he didn't come in this way, our John Lethman. Well, I hardly thought so. Come back, come back, Horatius."

I said blankly: "But there can't be a way in from the island!"

"We can but look," said Charles reasonably. "Hullo!" The beam of the torch, narrow and bright and concentrated, speared down through the weeds at the foot of the wall, to light a tombstone, a small flat slab let into the masonry, and carrying a name deeply tooled: jazid.

"A graveyard, no less," said Charles, and sent the torchlight skidding along a couple of feet. Another stone, another legend: omar.

"For goodness' sake, turn it up!" I exclaimed. "D'you mean it really is a graveyard? In here? But why on earth. . . ? And anyway, they're men's names. They can't be--"I stopped. The light had caught another one:ernie.

"Charles--"

"So that's it. I remember Ernie quite well."

I said, exasperated: "Be serious, for goodness' sake! You know perfectly well that Great-Uncle Ernest--"

"No, no, the dog. He was one of the King Charles spaniels she had when she first came out here. Don't you remember Ernie? She always said he was called after Great-Uncle Ernest because he was absent over everything but meals." He sounded pretty absent himself, as if he was thinking hard, but not about what he was saying. The torchlight moved on. "It's the pets' graveyard, hadn't you guessed? nell, minette, jamie, still the spaniels . . . haydee, lalouk, those sound more Eastern . . . Ah, here she is. delilah . . . Alas, poor Delilah. That's the lot."

"They can't have got round to him yet."

"Who?"

"Samson. John Lethman says he died last month. Look, must we spend the whole night in a dogs' graveyard? What are you looking for?"

The torchlight drifted along the wall, met nothing but a tangle of creepers and the ghostly pale faces of flowers.

"Nothing," said Charles.

"Then let's get out of here."

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