Case with 4 Clowns Read Online Free PDF Page A

hitting the peg vindictively with his hammer.
    â€œDo you mean that peg?” asked Beef.
    Ginger’s face wore a pained expression. “Gor lumme,” he said, leaning forward on his hammer and staring at us, “where was you brought up? Tober, I said. Tober. This’ere,” and he swept his arm round to indicate the field in which the circus was standing.
    Beef’s face seemed to shine suddenly with understanding. “Oh,” he said, “you mean the camping-place?”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Ginger. “Tober.” Whereupon he returned to his work with renewed vigor.
    â€œFunny,” said Beef as we walked on. “Never heard that word before.”
    â€œPerhaps,” I suggested, “it’s a circus word. I’ve heard it said that circus people have a whole vocabulary of their own.”
    Beef grunted. “I’d better make a note of it then,” he said, and he drew from his pocket that solid official-looking notebook which had played so dependable part in his previous cases. Beef did not desert old friends, and this reminder of his constable days gave me a peculiar feeling of confidence.
    The “big top” had been built up while we were eating our breakfast, and the dim interior was empty except for two men constructing the large cage for the lion act. The long boards and trestles looked bare and empty, and the central ring had not yet been prepared. Beef and I strolled towards the front entrance of the tent, on the left of which stood the proprietor’s wagon commanding the whole of the field. Farther up, nearer the gate, stood a small canvas construction rather like the beach-tents used for changing. The old woman whom I remembered beckoning to her daughter early that morning was now attempting, unsuccessfully, to drive one of the small pegs into the ground.
    â€œ ‘The mattock tottered in her hand,’ “ I said.
    â€œThat’s not a mattock,” said Beef, with perverted realism. “Let’s go and help the old girl.”
    But the “old girl” did not seem to appreciate Beef’s intention, for when he approached her she straightened herself up and stared uncompromisingly at him.
    â€œWhat do you want?” she asked in a toneless voice. “I canmanage by myself, young man. You mind your own business.”
    It was difficult to judge her age since her face had the leathery preservation of a person who has spent most of his life out of doors. She might have been anywhere between fifty and a hundred and fifty. She had a long, fleshless nose over which the brown skin was stretched tight and shining and reflected the light as if it had been polished with oil. Her eyes were large and dark, so that it was impossible to tell which was pupil and which iris. She stood staring at us both for a minute or more, her long, bony hands on her hips and her head thrust suspiciously forward so that two heavy gold earrings swung out from under her hair and rested against the withered skin of her cheeks.
    Then, with a quick turn which made her black skirt flare outwards, she walked into the little tent. There was a peculiar woodenness in her movements, like that of a man who has had to learn to walk a second time after an accident which has deprived him of the use of his legs for more than a year—something which is learned by reason rather than by imitation. She used long precise strides, her shoulders were level, and her arms swung with unbent elbows. In a moment she had emerged from the tent again, this time carrying a placard which she leaned against the front of it. It read:
    GYPSY MARGOT
    will tell, by the shadow of your future in the crystal, by the symbol of your death in the stars which were at your nativity, by your hand which is the instrument of your future; and by your eyes, which are the windows of your soul.
    YOUR FORTUNE
    â€œYou know,” I commented, “there’s style in that. I should