Some Danger Involved Read Online Free PDF Page A

life can change completely in one day.
    In the middle of the night I was awakened by something binding my lower limbs, and there was a strange sound in the room. I sat up and looked about, attempting to straighten my bedclothes. Something was there by my feet. It was my assailant of the previous evening, Harm. He’d stolen into my bedroom and curled up at the foot of the bed. The sound, I realized, was his snoring. I shrugged philosophically. I supposed if I had a nose so mashed against my face that my eyes protruded, I’d snore as well. I pulled the covers higher, the black bundle of fur coming with them, and went back to sleep.
     
    I woke up stiff and sore the next morning, with the beginnings of a cold. I cursed the open window and reflected on the irony that I had escaped a frigid garret room only to catch my death because of an employer’s whim. The sun was up, but low in the sky. I judged it to be about eight o’clock.
    Somehow, through all the bustle of the first day, my battered old pasteboard suitcase had found its way to my room. I shaved and combed my hair with the aid of a pitcher and bowl on the nightstand. The suit I picked out of the wardrobe wasn’t an exact fit, but it was better than my own. I made my bed, wondering what had happened to my predecessor that he didn’t need his entire wardrobe anymore, and straightened the room before going out into the hall. I hesitated, not certain what to do next.
    “Llewelyn? That you, lad?” Barker’s voice came from overhead. He must have ears like a cat.
    “Aye, sir!”
    “Come up here, then. There’s a good fellow.”
    I climbed a narrow and steep staircase to the upper story. The entire top floor was one single long room going up to the roof peak, with a pair of gables on each side. The walls were a deep cardinal red. The room was dominated by a large canopied bed at the far end, with heavy curtains of the style made popular at the turn of the last century. Low bookshelves lined the walls, and every foot of the slanting wall space was hung with weapons: swords, scimitars, blowguns, harquebuses, spears. It was a fantastic collection, if a bit bloodthirsty.
    A blaze was burning in the attic grate, and two chairs were set before it. Cyrus Barker was in one of the chairs. Though he wore a dressing gown of gray silk, his wing-tipped collar was crisp and his tie securely knotted and pinned. With one hand he was scratching Harm behind the ears, and in the other, he held a dainty cup and saucer containing a pallid liquid which could only be green tea. Of course, he wore those strange spectacles. I wondered if he slept in them.
    “Have you settled in?”
    “Yes, sir,” I responded. “But, about that window…”
    “A house rule you must humor, I’m afraid. Most of the deaths in this country are due to shutting up the patient in a room full of his own noxious fumes and microbes. Fresh air was meant to flow freely about our bodies at night. To shut oneself up in overheated rooms stultifies the brain and lowers one’s natural ability to fight infection. I never catch cold, Mr. Llewelyn.”
    “I believe I’ve caught one.”
    “Your body is not accustomed to fresh south London air. Give it time. Soon you’ll be as a steam boiler glowing red in the chilly night. Now come, have some of this delicious tea.”
    I watched my employer’s large hands pour tea from a tiny pot into a cup and saucer. We were grown men playing “tea party.” The tea was passable, I suppose. I wondered what he’d say if he knew there was a coffee drinker under his roof.
    “How were your errands? Did you find everything?”
    “Fine, yes, sir. No problems at all.”
    “And did you study the books I placed on your table?”
    “I spent the evening reading the Japanese tales. Fascinating they were, too.”
    “Excellent,” he pronounced, standing and exchanging his dressing gown for a frock coat. “I’m going to the office. I want you to spend the day studying the rest of the