Death in the Castle Read Online Free PDF

breath.
    “Now,” he said. “Have you got everything off your chests? Yes, I’m crazy—but I get what I want in the end, remember that! Why don’t I put up the Japanese temple? Some day, at the right time in the right place, I will, and I’ll dare you chaps to tackle the job and you’ll take the dare. I don’t want a temple for a museum, the ghosts of Buddhist monks meditating among fat Rubens women and Roman gods and goddesses! A castle is exactly what I want and exactly what I’ll have. And I was right about the painting, wasn’t I? Under that hodgepodge of oils there was a Raphael. I could smell it. I shall hang it right there, above the chimney piece.”
    Grim silence fell. The eldest young man sighed and took a notebook and pencil from his pocket “All right, but it will cost a small fortune—every brick to be wrapped in tissue paper—”
    “Remind me to order a hundred tons of tissue paper.”
    “And ships to transport the bricks and stone—”
    “Remind me to order ten ships instead of the two we have.”
    The young man turned to his fellows and shrugged, his eyebrows arched in dismay.
    “All right, men, let’s take his dare and tear down the castle!”
    Kate could bear no more. She stood listening to the arguments in progressive horror. She looked now at the blueprints outspread upon the table and saw the castle standing not on this green English hill, but in a rugged landscape somewhere far away, and surrounded not by English meadows and by calm brooks, but by wooded mountains and a rocky seacoast. Comprehension flashed upon her mind.
    “You’re not—you’re not going to take the castle to America? But that’s insane, Mr. Blayne! It can’t be done, besides Sir Richard won’t allow it. I’m sure he thought the museum was to be here! Wait—I’ll fetch him and Lady Mary. No—no—they’ll never be able to bear the shock. Oh, how to tell them …”
    She hesitated and wrung her hands. The door behind her opened. Wells looked in and turned to announce what he saw.
    “The gentleman’s been found. Sir Richard, and my lady!”
    They were there before she could speak, the two of them coming in together, bravely smiling. Sir Richard put out his hand.
    “How do you do, Mr. Blayne? You gave us quite a start, not knowing who you were exactly nor where you’d gone. It’s shockingly easy to be lost in the grounds hereabout. I’m sorry—do forgive us!”
    John Blayne accepted the hearty handshake and controlled his instinctive wince. What a grip these old Englishmen had! “My fault entirely, Sir Richard. I shouldn’t have been so unceremonious in my arrival.”
    He turned to Lady Mary. “My apologies to you, too, Lady Mary.”
    She was pink with effort, Kate observed. Ah, the sweet darling, trying so hard not to mind! Kate glanced at Mr. Blayne, then looked quickly away. She would not help him one bit in his predicament. Let him struggle his way through the mess he’d made, not telling the truth to poor Sir Richard, who’d never have consented had he known—but Lady Mary was talking in her high fluting voice, her public voice, with which she opened bazaars and spoke at charity teas.
    “Mr. Blade—”
    “Blayne, my dear,” Sir Richard put in.
    “Ah yes—I’m sorry—American names are so difficult! I do assure you, now that we’re used to the idea, we’re almost quite reconciled, you know—it’s a rather lovely idea to think of treasures of art hanging on our old walls—I daresay from our little nook in the gatehouse we’ll come here often, as tourists, you know, and all that—Shan’t we, Kate?”
    She turned to Kate, but that stubborn young woman, her eyes brimming with tears, merely nodded. Lady Mary, seeing the tears, stared at her in amazement.
    “Kate, whatever’s wrong with you? Look, Richard, Kate’s crying!”
    “I’m not crying,” Kate said passionately. “It’s just that I’m trying not to—to—to—sneeze.”
    She turned her back and made a fine mock