Free The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris by Leon Garfield Page A

dressed man; he was quite ordinary, even pleasant looking, but for his left foot which was encased in a gigantic black boot. Ralph shuddered. There was something horrible about that boot and the way it seemed to crouch beside the commonplace right one like some silent, evil hound.
    â€œWhat’s up?” asked Frederick. Ralph shook his head, then went on talking, but in a much subdued voice. The stranger half closed his eyes and leaned forward imperceptibly. From time to time Ralph glanced at him with a kind of fearful disgust—on which the stranger would ease himself back and seem to transfer his attention elsewhere, where it would be equally unwelcome.
    â€œSo that’s how it stands,” muttered Ralph, having explained the whole wretched story as he saw it, and confided his fears for the immediate future. “If I don’t do in her cursed pa, sure as anything the brute will do me in. But come what may, I won’t be blackmailed into marrying his tatty little slut.”
    Ralph was very violent against Tizzy, who he blamed for everything. He swallowed down the remainder of his claret and the landlord, unasked, sent his boy to replenish it. Ralph, feeling rather warm, removed his coat and Frederick gazed with gloomy admiration at the splendid waistcoat. Even the clubfooted stranger seemed impressed by it and Ralph lounged back carelessly. The stranger peered, and smiled . . .
    The parlor door opened and a newcomer entered. He was slim, no more than twenty-eight, with a thin, worried looking face. Though not fashionably dressed, his linen was clean and neatly mended. He glanced about the parlor uneasily.
    This, thought Mr. Selwyn Raven, is a man who is haunted by a secret. Mr. Raven, to the landlord’s disapproval, had been in the back parlor for some hours over a single glass of brandy and water. During that time, a little world of mean sins and cheap corruption had passed in review before him. Silently he’d sat and listened as they’d come and gone—faithless husbands, dishonored wives and false friends, all winding in and out of their tapestries of lies. But what he sought still eluded him. Then the haunted newcomer had come in and Mr. Raven hadshifted his murderous boot. This man carries a load of guilt such as Judas Iscariot must have carried, thought Mr. Raven idly. His eyes widened as he saw the newcomer make for the two young men who’d mentioned pistols and blackmail.
    â€œWhy if it isn’t Mister Brett,” said Ralph Bunnion sourly, and introduced Frederick to his other second.
    Mr. Brett sat down with a furtive glance around the parlor as if expecting Major Alexander to appear and confront him with his wretched duplicity. He’d had an abominable morning in which he’d flitted from room to room in the school to avoid the Major and the Bunnions. Luncheon had been worse, with the headmaster saying grace as if it was a graveside prayer over the invisible body of his son or his arithmetic master. Then had followed a silent meal laced with such looks as might have cut the beef far better than the knives. Next, Major Alexander had caught him in the privy and earnestly reminded him of his obligations as his second, claimed his loyalty, his honor, his soul, and it seemed to the unhappy Mr. Brett, his eternal life, and told him that the duel, unless anything happened to prevent it, would take place upon the following Saturday. He didn’t see how he could postpone it for any longer.
    Shortly after that the Bunnions, father and son, had trapped him in the passage outside his classroom, and looming threateningly over him, had claimed much the same degree of loyalty as had the Major before them. The one had followed so closely upon the other that it seemed extraordinary to Mr.Brett that the Bunnions couldn’t still hear the Major’s words. At last, by desperate nods and reckless promises he’d escaped them—only to see the fiery little Major