Castle on the Edge Read Online Free PDF Page A

said our good-byes to Mister Lipton and moved on down the hall to Miss Gould’s room. Her door was half open…enough so I could peer in. She was fully dressed, reclining on top of her bed with her head propped up on three pillows reading a book.
    “Hello, Miss Gould. Can we come in for a minute?” I called to her from the door.
    She looked up, put the book to her side and replied, “Who is it?”
    “Doctor Ramsey,” I answered, “I have Doctor Franz Lederer with me. He would like to meet you. Can we come in for a minute?”
    “Oh, yes. Please, come in,” she said, motioning with her hand. “Please come in and sit down.”
    There were two chairs set up against the wall. Doctor Lederer and I each took one to sit across from her bed.
    Miss Gould sat up on the bed, put her feet on the floor and said, “I hope you gentlemen are comfortable.”
    I responded by replying, “Oh this is fine, Miss Gould. I’d like to introduce you to our visiting physician Doctor Franz Lederer. He has come all the way from Zurich, in Switzerland.”
    “Good morning and how do you do, Doctor Lederer. Welcome to the United States.” She said in a formal way,
    “How do you do, Miss Gould. I…eh…understand you are an instructor from a Boston finishing school,” Doctor Lederer said quizzically.
    “Oh yes, a very exclusive finishing school, Doctor Lederer. Our girls come from the cream of Boston society’s families. You see, the problem is…many, if not most of our girls, haven’t received proper guidance at home, because their parents are too busy to be with them most of the time. You know, off traveling or conducting lucrative business deals, having cocktail parties and what not. So they turn their dear ones over to our school and expect us to create another generation of icons for high society. Many of these girls are wild and incorrigible and the parents want us, of course, to make ‘ladies’ out of them. When they go home on their vacations and holidays, the parents blame us, the teachers, for not distilling grace and poise in their little darlings. As a result of the stress and pressure, I became overwhelmed and collapsed while giving an English lesson in class; therefore, I took a sabbatical and came out here for rest and therapy, you see. I don’t mean to prattle on, gentlemen, I’m sorry.”
    Doctor Lederer responded by saying with a smile, “That’s all right, Miss Gould, you’ll soon be fit as a fiddle and back in the saddle. Only this time, you will be pulling in the reins on the little beasts.”
    “You’re too kind, Doctor Lederer. I’m looking forward to meeting you again while you’re here,” she said with a feeling of ease.
    I thanked Miss Gould for giving us a moment of her time. We proceeded to get up and leave and Doctor Lederer then offered his hand to her.
    We arrived at the door of Mister Duncan and I knocked. When he opened the door, I introduced him to Doctor Lederer.
    “Please come in, gentlemen,” Mister Duncan said, and then he led Doctor Lederer and me to an oval-shaped table holding several containers of sculptor’s clay. He went on to say, “Do sit down. Let me push the table over to the side so we will have more room.”
    “I see you’re working on a project, Mister Duncan,” Doctor Lederer said as he looked over at the object by the window in the room.
    The form was on a pedestal and appeared to take the shape of a man.
    “Yes, Doctor Lederer, I am. I began this statue three days ago.”
    “I’m sure your figure will represent the higher order of Man’s progress and achievement in the world, Mister Duncan.”
    “Progress…achievement?” he said sharply with a raised voice as he looked at Doctor Lederer. Then he paused, turned to his work-in-progress and intoned with a low voice, and assertive fortitude, “Oh, no, quite the contrary, Doctor Lederer. This statue is going to represent darkness, the great darkness in the world today. Yes, it’s going to be one of Adolph Hitler,