Free The Tiger in the Well by Philip Pullman Page B

Webster's return before it was framed. Sally had said she'd arrange it, but this wasn't the time. She took the little picture upstairs to his study, and then folded the easel and put it away.
    The stereoscope on its little mahogany stand on the sideboard, and the box of pictures . . .
    That had been the start of Garland and Lockhart. She had persuaded Frederick to take a series of comic pictures to view through stereoscopes, those parlor optical toys which gave a magical impression of three dimensions, and they'd sold so well that they were able to go on and produce many more series and start their business properly. And here they all were: the scenes from Shakespeare, the castles of Great Britain, the corners of Old London. . . . And the very first ones: Jim as the boy David, with a monstrous papier-mache head of Goliath; Sally herself as a kitchen maid discovering a swarm of goose-sized black beetles in the cupboard; the little girl Adelaide, whom they'd rescued from a dismal lodging house in Wapping, sitting on the knee of Frederick's assistant Trembler Molloy to illustrate a sentimental song. . . . Adelaide had vanished. She must be somewhere in London now, but they'd never found her. The city had swallowed her up in a moment.
    These stereographs brought back that time so sharply that she found herself blinking back tears. She returned the pictures to their box, shut the lid, and put them and the stereoscope away in the cupboard.
    Harriet's toys . . . There was bound to be something behind a cushion or under a chair. Sally cast about and found one of her blocks down the back of the sofa. She'd take it upstairs later on.

    And she'd take up Frederick's portrait, too. It stood in a silver frame on the piano: a full-length photograph showing him not dressed up stiffly as for a formal portrait, but in his everyday wear, as she remembered him, his hair disordered, his eyes laughing. It was the only picture of him she had. It had been taken by Charles Bertram, Webster's partner in his photographic experiments, who was now in South America with them. Charles was a good man; he was kindly and gentle, and the year before he'd asked her to marry him, and she'd been anxious not to hurt him as she said no.
    A thought came to her. Suppose she'd agreed to marry Charles: would Parrish have sprung the trap then.? He'd laid it long before, after all. And would he have challenged the wedding before it took place or waited till afterward, so that she'd seem to be committing bigamy.?
    It would have been hideous, but Charles would have trusted her. And Mr. Temple had still been alive then. Even if Parrish had claimed at that time that Harriet was his child, she'd have had a far better chance of fighting him off.
    Well, she'd refused Charles's offer, and she mustn't start wishing she hadn't. Things were as they were.
    She took the photograph, and Harriet's block, and one or two other bits and pieces, and put them in her bedroom. Then she took a leather case from her wardrobe and brought it downstairs, and looked into the kitchen, where Mrs. Perkins, the cook, was reading her newspaper, the cat in her lap.
    "Hello, miss," said the cook. "Ellie tells me you were asking about the knife man."
    "Yes. I don't think he's what he seems to be. I don't suppose he'll come again, but if he does I'd like to catch him— just come in without him expecting it. Mrs. Perkins, I just looked in to say I'm going to do some shooting, so don't be startled."
    "Very well, miss. Thanks for letting me know."
    In the breakfast room, now cleared and tidy and looking almost austere, she unfolded a large, heavy screen covered

    with a light green Morris-printed cloth and stood it against the far wall.
    She took off the cloth and laid it on the table. Underneath it, the screen was plain soft wood, pitted with holes. She pinned a paper target on it, adjusted the light to shine on it more clearly, and then opened the box she'd brought from her bedroom.
    It contained her target