• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5718 0

the stony set of the jaw would have been too harsh if they had not been countered by those winsomely folded ears. But Edward turned at this moment and glanced back at the Major, who saw in his eyes a mildness and intelligence, even a hint of mockery, that did not go at all with his leonine features. For a moment he even suspected that Edward had divined his thoughts...but now they had reached Edward’s study, a room smelling strongly of dogs, leather and tobacco. It turned out to contain a staggering amount of sporting equipment piled haphazardly on an ancient chaise-longue scarred with bulging horsehair wounds. Shotguns and cricket stumps were stacked indiscriminately with fishing-rods, squash and tennis rackets (excellent ones made by Gray, Russell’s of Portarlington), odd tennis shoes and mildewed cricket bats.

“Take your pick. More in the gun room if those won’t do. You’ll find the ammo over there.” Edward pointed at a drawer which had been removed from a sideboard and was lying on the floor beside the empty, blackened grate. A huge and shaggy Persian cat was asleep on the pile of scarlet cartridges it contained, scarcely bothering to open its yellow eyes as it was lifted away and deposited on a brass-mounted elephant’s foot.

By now they had been joined by two or three other men in white flannels who were also rummaging for ammunition to suit their respective firearms; evidently a tennis match had been in progress. The Major, who had no intention of shooting anyone on his first day in Ireland if he could possibly avoid it, tugged dubiously at a .22 rifle which had become entangled with a waterproof wader, a warped tennis racket and hopelessly tangled coils of fishing-line. Ripon, meanwhile, had discovered a plumed cocked hat on the mantelpiece and having shaken a cloud of dust from it was adjusting it in front of a mirror. He then removed one of a pair of crossed rapiers from the wall and stuck it through the buttoned arch of his braces. This done, he picked up a javelin he found standing in the corner behind the door and began to tease the cat with it.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Ripon!” muttered Edward testily. And then: “If everyone’s ready we’ll sally forth.”

“How incredibly Irish it all is!” thought the Major wonderingly. “The family seems to be completely mad.”

A tall, stout man in a dark-green uniform with a shiny black leather belt was standing in the foyer, picking his nose and looking abstractedly at the white marble bottom of the Venus figure. He stared in surprise at Edward, who was still holding the tennis racket in one hand but now brandished a service revolver in the other, as if about to take part in some complicated gladiatorial combat. He shifted his gaze from Edward to the men in white flannels with shotguns broken over their arms. Nor did he seem reassured by the appearance of Ripon with his javelin and plumed hat.

“All right, Sergeant. Just show us where you think the blighters may be lurking.” The sergeant indicated respectfully that all he wanted to do was use the telephone; the men might be dangerous.

“All the better. We’re more than a match for them. Now, tell me what makes you think they’re hanging around here...” And Edward put a paternal hand on the sergeant’s shoulder and steered him out on to the sunlit drive.

As the makeshift white-flannelled army straggled chuckling towards the trees someone drawled: “I suppose we should be asking if the womenfolk are safe.”

“They’re safe when you aren’t around, anyway,” came the reply and everyone laughed cheerfully. Ripon had attached himself to the Major and had begun to tell him about a curious incident that had occurred at a tennis party not far away at Valebridge a few days earlier. A heavily armed bicycle patrol had surprised two suspicious individuals (no doubt Sinn Feiners) tampering with the canal bridge. One of them had fled across the fields and made good his escape. The other, who had a bicycle and was disinclined to leave it, had been confident that he could outpedal the Royal Irish Constabulary. Although for the first fifty yards the fugitive,