Murder Abroad Read Online Free PDF

the people. Remember Voltaire. Wipe out the Infamy! How wise. How true. How necessary. Yet the task has not yet been accomplished. Why? Because,” said Eudes, still more firmly and without giving Bobby any chance to answer, “because we have been too high-minded, too scrupulous, too honest to fight the Church with her own weapon.”
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œMoney,” declared Eudes, and for once he forgot to hide those fierce and eager eyes of his and let them blaze with fanatic fervour from behind their heavy, slightly swollen lids, “and it is money we need—money wherewith to establish a journal of liberty and enlightenment. Oh, I know there are those published in Paris, but here in the Auvergne we do not think so much of the Paris gentlemen, we have our own ideas. Let me have money to establish here a journal of the Auvergne for the Auvergnats and very soon you will see the Church upon the run.” He paused and apparently recollected himself, looking at Bobby a little uneasily. He went on: “But I am taking it for granted that you do not believe? You are English. You are an artist. In England the Church has not such power as here. And artists—artists are at least free. We others—no.” He came to a standstill before the gate of a small and pleasant cottage in a well-kept little garden. It contained an arbour with a table and bench, shaded by a freely-growing vine. With a gesture towards it, Eudes said: “You will enter? You will drink a glass of wine with me?”
    The invitation was given with a touch of hesitation and Bobby guessed that Eudes was feeling a little nervous at having spoken so freely to a stranger. On the excuse that he would like to continue his walk before returning to the hotel for bed, Bobby declined the invitation. He bade his new friend good night and then asked, pointing in front and a little to the right:
    â€œIsn’t that an old mill over there? I suppose it isn’t used now?”
    â€œOh, the Pépin mill,” Eudes answered. “No, it is long since it was used as a mill. Now it is used for summer visitors. The Père Pépin to whom it belongs had it restored and fitted up, and every year he lets it in the holiday season. At present there are two of your compatriots there—a Monsieur and Madame Williams. Very often our little village has had the privilege of welcoming English visitors. Even up there—” Eudes pointed upwards to the bare, desolate expanse of hill and scrub that lay to the north towards Clermont, and, as he did so, a light shone out suddenly, high up on the slope of the hill. There, he said, “the beacon. When our good peasants see it, they cross themselves. Amusing?”
    â€œWhy? what is it?”
    â€œAnother of the black army, another of the flock of crows,” Eudes explained darkly. “But that one up there, he has perhaps some glimmering of enlightenment growing in him. Possibly it comes from his English blood.” Seeing that Bobby looked puzzled, Eudes went on: “It is a priest who lives there, the Abbé Taylour. For a year, nearly a year, he came late in the autumn, he has been there, by himself, in a hut he has rented. It is said that he is under excommunication. That, one does not know, but it is seldom he comes to the village and never to mass. It is true his hut is more than three miles from the church. One says, too, that he is an Englishman, but it seems he has his papers, for our good David went up to investigate.” Eudes smiled gently. “It is an experience he does not talk of. But since a boy of the village was lost on the hill—he was dying when they found him, he had been lost three days, and to be lost up there, it is as dangerous as to be lost in the desert or on a raft at sea—the Abbé Taylour hangs out always that lamp at night we see from here.” Eudes bade Bobby good night again and entered the cottage, and Bobby walked