The outsiders by Neil Jackson

Author:Neil Jackson [Neil Jackson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SF
ISBN: 2940011061844
Published: 2010-09-16T07:00:00+00:00

2

We did indeed meet the following week, although my friend seemed distracted during our afternoon tea and it was clear that he could raise little enthusiasm for our normal discourse. Mindful of his intense interest in the supernatural inhabitant of the stairwell I had thought that perhaps this would be the sole topic of conversation but for the first twenty minutes or so he made no mention of his researches and much of the time seemed more interested in the contents of his teacup than in his companion sat across the small table.

Eventually I decided that the only way to salvage something of the afternoon was to raise the subject myself. I hoped this might provoke a more forthright response but, even on this most topical of subjects his responses were at best half hearted and it was left to me to carry the conversation as best I could while he limited himself to single word replies and long, thoughtful silences. Under the circumstances it was almost a relief when he declared, upon the hour, that he must return to his office and continue his work.

Over the next month or so our contact was slight. Deacon seemed completely engrossed in his research, the subject of which was by now clear to everyone in the museum. I decided against inviting him out for tea again and instead limited myself to visits to his laboratory where I could attempt to engage in conversation whilst he continued his enquiries amongst the books and papers he had secured from the archives and the local library. My initial concern that he might be neglecting his other work and so put his position at risk with regard to the directors of the museum and the town corporation, proved ill founded as it seemed he was quite capable of undertaking both his paid employ and his own private researches at the same time to the detriment of neither. But it was also clear from his comments and general demeanor, his short-tempered replies and spontaneous declarations of disgust that he was having no success in his quest to identify the mysterious girl.

Try as he might, Deacon could find no record of events or persons that might account for the apparition. No stories of Georgian feuds ending, as they invariably did, in the murder of those most innocent. No tales of unrequited Victorian love whose final act was the tragic demise by terminal self harm of the rejected maiden, cast aside and ruined by a callous ‘gentleman’. No Edwardian crimes of passion whose epilogue was a short walk to the gallows on a frosty autumn morn for a man who had already consigned his wife to her eternal rest. Not even a wartime melodrama, played out against a backdrop of blackout curtains and rousing Churchillian speeches, making liberal use of arsenic or cyanide to bring matters to an abrupt and fatal conclusion. No crimes, no accidents, no history of any kind. For all his many hours of research in

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