Summons to Murder by J. C. Briggs

Author:J. C. Briggs [Briggs, J. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

26: ARABIAN NIGHTS

Supper was in the kitchen, where Elizabeth Jones was doling out eggs and bread and butter. Sam Jones was eating soup which smelt very appetising. Scrap had obviously finished his bowl and was addressing his egg. Tom and Eleanor Brim, the Jones’s adopted children, were waiting for theirs. Dickens was offered the choice. ‘Soup, please,’ he said.

‘You look as though you need it. When did you last eat?’ Elizabeth asked. She liked to take care of him, knowing that his family would be in Broadstairs by the sea until Tavistock House was inhabitable.

‘Breakfast,’ he said, receiving his bowl and bread and finding that the smell of chicken and barley made him ravenous. He liked to be taken care of sometimes, too.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tom Brim, who seemed to be taking an unconscionable time over his egg. The spoon burrowed in and out. Surely there could be nothing left unless it was Pandora’s egg, an idea he was going to put to the little boy when he became aware that every spoonful of soup he ate was mirrored in the action of Tom’s spoon, and the child was looking at him very speculatively. Tom Brim was waiting for him to finish and would not finish until Dickens had.

His curiosity got the better of him. He put down his spoon after the last mouthful. Tom put down his and continued to gaze at him. Those innocent eyes concealed some scheme.

‘A question for me, Master Brim?’

A most engaging smile. ‘A story, please, Mr Dickens.’

‘Oh, Tom, Mr Dickens has hardly finished his soup,’ Elizabeth said. But she saw the light in his face which banished the tiredness she had seen at first — that light which she had never seen in any other man or woman.

‘No, no, it is quite all right.’

‘Giants and goblins.’

‘The Arabian Nights,’ Eleanor suggested.

‘Well, quite by accident, I do believe I have a story that might suit. There is a giant of a kind in it and it bears some likeness to The Arabian Nights. I have it about me somewhere —’ feeling in his pockets, Scrap giving him a sceptical look — he had seen this performance before — ‘ah, yes —’ taking out an imaginary paper, unfolding it, smoothing it down.

No one spoke. They just watched the mime. You thought you could see it. It was magic.

The magician put on a pair spectacles and cleared his throat. ‘This is a story about a palace not so far from here called The Great Temple — a palace made of sugar — which, rather inconveniently, has a way of melting in the rain, but it was there today. It may not be tomorrow. And in that palace lives an enormously fat prince called The Caliph Mustapha Quill —’ he glanced at Jones, who returned an amused look — ‘spherical like a globe. You could find out countries in him. He has a laugh that could move a mountain. He laughs a great deal and his hands are perfumed with ottar of roses — from the east, of course.

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