Silhouette in Scarlett by Elizabeth Peters

Author:Elizabeth Peters [Peters, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-04-09T13:21:16+00:00

Much as I hate having the narrative interrupted by long paragraphs of description, I guess I had better give you some idea of the terrain, since it figures prominently in succeeding events. As I said, the shape of the island was roughly triangular, the sides longer than the base, and the end blunted. The house was located on this blunt end. Behind the house the land rose, culminating in a plateau of rough pasture that formed the central portion of the island. The western side of the triangle was heavily wooded, in a belt that curved northward and expanded to fill the base of the triangle. On the east the land sloped down to the water, ending in a boggy section of swampland.

Searching for Gus, and for any other useful piece of information we might encounter, Leif and I followed a graveled path that encircled the house. Behind the main building lay a group of sheds and stables, a big beautiful stone barn, and, in their own hedged enclosure, several small cottages that had probably housed servants in the days when the main house was fully staffed. Though their tiny yards were free of weeds, and their windows shone cleanly, they appeared to be unoccupied—even by a prisoner.

As we approached the barn, a man stepped out from behind the wall. He had the swarthy, brachycephalic look of a southern Italian or Sicilian, but I was unable to confirm this identification by his speech, since he said not a word. He simply showed us his rifle. We took the hint.

“Could Gus be in one of those sheds?” I asked, when we were out of earshot.

“More likely the man is guarding tools that we might use as weapons.”

Our path led through a gate in a high stone wall, into a grove of trees. Unlike the natural woodland that fringed much of the island, these giant firs appeared to have been planted as a windbreak. They were well tended, and the ground was free of underbrush. The breeze murmured in the high branches; the sound of our footsteps was deadened by a thick layer of fallen needles.

Coming out of the trees, we climbed a steep slope and found ourselves on the plateau. In the middle of the pasture I saw a group of men—or, to put it more accurately, the torsos of a group of men. The high grass hid the lower parts of their bodies.

At one time the pasture had been cultivated. Nobody had plowed it recently, though. It had been allowed to revert to grass, weeds, and wild flowers. The growth seemed unusually luxuriant for the climate and the season. Perhaps Gus’s grandpa’s experiments had involved a lavish use of fertilizer.

Leif pushed gallantly ahead, trampling down the grass and muttering about snakes. I doubted there were any, but I stored the idea away for the purposes of harassment. City slickers, who take muggers, traffic, and pollution for granted, tend to panic when faced with rural perils.

Never had I seen so obvious a collection of urbanites.

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