Gently at a Gallop Read Online Free PDF Page B

line.’
    Gently shrugged. ‘So what was it, Mrs Berney?’
    ‘Why should I tell you what it was?’
    ‘You don’t have to,’ Gently said. ‘But if it is something innocent, you’ve no reason not to.’
    ‘Something innocent!’ She glared at him. ‘All right, then, I will tell you. It was a poem Lachlan had brought to show me. Now admit you were wrong.’
    ‘A poem . . . ?’
    ‘Yes – a poem. Lachlan gave it to me as he was leaving. And I didn’t want Charlie making fun of it, that’s why I wouldn’t let him have it.’
    Gently stared. ‘Do you have the poem?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Do you mind if I see it?’
    She hesitated. ‘I’d sooner you didn’t. And I’m quite certain Lachlan would sooner you didn’t.’
    ‘Why, Mrs Berney?’
    ‘Because, because.’ She gave the familiar flick of her hair. ‘It’s extremely personal. I always see Lachian’s poems, but this was written to be read by only one other person.’
    ‘In fact, a love poem?’
    ‘In fact, a love poem. And now you know all there is to know. I don’t think Lachlan would ever have forgiven me if I’d let Charlie read it.’
    Gently nodded. ‘All the same, I think you should let me take a look at it.’
    ‘And if I refuse?’
    He made a gesture with his glass. ‘You won’t do that, will you, Mrs Berney?’
    She glared a brief defiance at him, then rose sulkily and crossed to the Hepplewhite bureau. She returned with a folded sheet of notepaper which she dropped disdainfully into his hand. The poem was a sonnet. It was in typescript and bore no title and no signature. The type, unusually, was an italic, very clean and unworn. Gently read:
    This aching empty all of me is crying
    For absent You to fill it with your love,
    And I am lost and my best part a-dying
    To have you not this hollowness remove.
    O world, why must that She, that only She,
    Whose breast in my breast finds its proper mate,
    Be to the loveless and indifferent free,
    While I alone must stand aloof and wait?
    We were not made for parting, she and I,
    Though dragons guard the path our love must tread;
    Man, Woman, we: our fate was in the sky,
    And out of all the ages were we wed.
    One of a hundred makes another’s wife,
    But You are me, and, parting, take my life.
    Mrs Berney was watching him jealously.
    ‘Now perhaps you do understand,’ she said. ‘Lachlan didn’t mind me reading that, but it wasn’t intended for Charlie’s eyes.’
    Gently shook his head. ‘You say
your brother
wrote this?’
    Her eyes sharpened. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Just that I’ve seen another example of his work – and this doesn’t bear much resemblance to it.’
    ‘But that’s preposterous!’ Her eyes snapped at him. ‘Who else could possibly have written it?’
    ‘There is another candidate,’ Gently shrugged.
    ‘Charlie?’
    Gently said nothing.
    Mrs Berney laughed scornfully. ‘You’ll never know what a joke that is,’ she said. ‘Lachlan’s the only poet round here, the only one capable of writing like that. If Charlie had wanted to send someone a poem, he’d have got it from the
Golden Treasury.
’
    ‘Did your husband have a typewriter?’
    ‘Yes – and it doesn’t have type like Lachlan’s.’
    ‘I’d like to see it, Mrs Berney.’
    ‘Please do. Then you’ll know for a fact that I’m not a liar.’
    She jumped up. Gently followed her out of the room and along the hall. She threw open the door of a small, bleak study, furnished with a desk and a filing-cabinet. On the desk stood a typewriter. It was one of the smaller Olivettis. Mrs Berney took a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, threaded it into the typewriter, and hammered out a sentence with two fingers. She raised the sheet.
    ‘Now are you happy?’
    Gently stared at her, then pulled out the sheet. He laid it on the desk, side by side with the poem. The type was different – but the paper matched.
    ‘Of course . . . a coincidence.’
    ‘Not even that!’
    She snatched open the drawer