The Singular Miss Terry by Frank Howell Evans

Author:Frank Howell Evans
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-06-05T22:00:00+00:00

By the dusk of that day his investigation had led him down the dingy streets and steps that straggled and tumbled towards the River Irwell in the oldest and most dangerous part of Manchester. Immediately under the red lantern that marked the entrance to a small Chinese restaurant he encountered a man he had seen before, though by no means looking the same.

Captain Rayner still confronted the world anonymously behind his colored glasses. But except for the glasses, his appearance had undergone a transformation in the days that had elapsed since the murder. He had then been dressed up to the nines, but now all those clothes were mysteriously altered for the worse. The dandy had been turned into a scarecrow. His silk hat still existed, but it was battered and shabby. His coat and trousers were mere rags. His gold watch-chain was gone.

Poiret, nevertheless, made no mention of his appearance and sat down with him at a table in the cheap restaurant. It was the other man, who began the conversation.

“Well?” growled Captain Rayner. “Have you succeeded in avenging your cherished millionaire? We all know that millionaires are beloved and sainted. You only have to read the newspapers about how he lived by the light of the family bible. If he’d only read out some of the things there are in the bible, he might have been startled some, I reckon. The book’s full of a lot of grand old notions they don’t grow nowadays. Suppose someone had flung him from his window, and let him be eaten by the dogs at the bottom. Would it be worse than what happened to Jezebel? Coops was cautious all his life, until he got too cautious to leave his house at all. But the arrow of the Lord found him, like it did in the old book, and made him be a spectacle to the people.”

“You believe in the divine intervention, Monsieur?” asked the little man, wincing at the menu.

“Why not?” grinned the man in the glasses. “The pyramids are mighty, and they hold down the dead kings all right. I think there’s a lot to be said for these old religions. Those old carvings that have lasted for thousands of years, showing the gods with bended bows, with eyes and hands that look as if they could really bend bows of stone. Don’t you sometimes find yourself standing in the dark, smoking a cigarette, staring at the stars and thinking that God is still riding in his chariot, and shooting black rays of death?”

“Le bon Dieu,” replied Poiret, “he is just. Monsieur Coops he was murdered.”

“How do you know he didn’t deserve it?” sneered Captain Rayner. “You don’t know much about your millionaire, I fancy. Well, let me tell you he deserved it a hundred times over.”

“Then, perhaps,” said Poiret gently, “you had the motive to murder him.”

The other man stared at him curiously. “You want to know what reason I had to justify murder?” he said at last.

Poiret waved the menu in the air, then threw it on the table.

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