Provender Gleed Read Online Free PDF

doors swung inward, affording access to a chamber that was as much atrium as entrance hall - cylindrical, capped with a conical ceiling made up of arcs of iridescent glass. Gold-patinaed sconces held candle-shaped bulbs which shed a buttery light over the marble floor and the cuboid table-and-chair set that occupied a space next to the passageway into the drawing room. A rising concrete staircase hugged the inmost half of the wall, complete with wrought-iron handrail. But the hall's dominant feature was the twenty-foot chryselephantine statue which stood dead centre.
    She was called Triumph and she held a pose that was part exaltation, part ecstasy, her legs together, her hips and breasts thrust forward, her head thrown back, one arm stretched in front of her, the other upraised with its fingers knifing to the heavens, like a gymnast about to begin floor exercises. Her face was incongruously inexpressive, with blank eyes and placid mouth, but then it did not need to convey much when her body was talking so eloquently. She was, it seemed, on the verge of something, some vast and longed-for release. Solid and gleaming and chunky, she had lines like a locomotive, and she waited, she only ever waited, poised, ready to commence. Triumph.
    Depending on her mood, Cynthia could find the statue daunting, inspiring, oppressive, and, occasionally, vulgar. This evening, with certain matters weighing heavily on her mind, she thought Triumph looked silly and vain, an old tart in a posture too young for her, hoping for admiration. She passed around the statue and ascended the stairs, noting halfway up that Triumph's left shoulder bore a thick coating of dust. She would have a word with Carver about that.
    Nowhere on all the acres of land it occupied was Dashlands House more than three storeys tall. It spread, it sprawled, but even its highest roof apex was a mere thirty feet from ground-level. Contained within it, however, was any number of midways and mezzanines. Rare was the room that shared the exact same horizontal plane as another room, and rare the corridor that did not terminate in a short flight of steps. Some of the larger rooms were in themselves multi-tiered, with platforms and pits denoting various separate sections. Sometimes, to Cynthia, the place felt like an indoor obstacle course. It was impossible to walk through it at any speed because every dozen or so paces you were obliged to break stride and turn a corner or go up or down. Frank Lloyd Wright had had a hand in its design, but you could be forgiven for thinking Maurits Cornelis Escher hadn't also been somehow involved.
    Eventually she came to its northernmost wing. As she neared the door to Provender's suite of rooms, she heard the rattle of brass keyboard keys. Provender was at his videotyper, probably hammering out another entry in that journal of his. Cynthia tapped softly on the door with the rim of her mask, expecting that he would not hear this above the furious clatter he was making. He didn't, and so she opened the door uninvited, knowing that if Provender complained about the intrusion she would be able to tell him in all honesty that she had tried knocking.
    The blinds were drawn. All the lamps were switched off. The only illumination in the suite's main room came from the videotyper's screen, in front of which Provender sat hunched, staring fixedly into its small glowing oval. His brow was ploughed in concentration. His shaven head nodded as he typed. On the desktop beside him, the videotyper's operating unit whistled and droned in its brass housing. It was a Japanese make. In spite of the fact that the Gleeds owned several patents on British circuit-board technology, Provender insisted that the Japanese produced better machines and so purchased with money what everyone else in the Family could get for free. If medals were handed out for perversity, Provender would have a lapel-full.
    Cynthia did not step into the room yet. She stood in the doorway and studied