Swing, Swing Together Read Online Free PDF

“Nothing like that, I’m afraid. Miss Plummer regards books you can buy on railway stations as unsuitable. Somebody came back after the Christmas vacation with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and there was the most frightful scene.”
    â€œPity,” said Cribb. “I was hoping to have a profitable discussion on the subject. Well-written book, too. I’m surprised not one of you has read it.” He turned his head to look out of the window, as if having taken the cultural pulse of his fellow travellers, he had decided he would be better employed looking at trees.
    Thackeray cleared his throat to speak and, unless Harriet were mistaken, winked at the same time. “Perhaps you could tell us what it’s about, Sarge. Just the outline of the story, like. We’d appreciate that.”
    Cribb returned a sharp look. “Three hundred pages, with illustrations? I haven’t time for that. You must read it for yourselves. I’ll tell you one thing, though. There’s a dog in it.”
    â€œSo there is!” confirmed Hardy. “I’ve seen the picture on the cover—a silhouette with two men rowin’ and the third takin’ his ease on the cushions smokin’ a pipe. The dog is sittin’ at the front.”
    â€œIn the prow,” said Cribb curtly. “The author is Mr. Jerome K. Jerome.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Hardy. “That’s on the cover, too.”
    Thackeray, who plainly knew the limit of Sergeant Cribb’s tolerance, quickly put in, “Is it a true story, Sarge?”
    Instead of attacking Hardy, Cribb rounded on his assistant, “That’s not a question you should put to me, Thackeray. Only Mr. Jerome himself can answer that. If I was so incautious as to say that it was true, it wouldn’t be admissible evidence, and you as an officer of the law shouldn’t place any reliance upon it. However”—the sergeant’s tone mellowed a little—“it’s a question which indicates that you’ve applied your mind to recent events, and that’s to be welcomed. No doubt you were pondering the significance of the three men in the boat seen by Miss Shaw on Tuesday night.”
    â€œTo say nothing of the dog,” added Thackeray.
    â€œThat’s part of the title!” exclaimed Hardy in some excitement.
    Cribb eyed him witheringly. “What do you suggest I do—arrest Mr. Jerome K. Jerome?”
    Harriet spoke: “How can you be sure that there is any connection at all between the three men I saw and the unfortunate man at Hurley Weir?”
    â€œCan’t be sure, miss,” said Cribb, “but there are certain indications. Circumstantial evidence, we’d say. The doctors tell me that the man at Hurley died from drowning. Now, that’s nothing unusual in a corpse taken from the Thames.”
    â€œIt nearly happened to me.”
    â€œSo I believe, miss. But, as I understand it, you were in the water because you chose to be. You weren’t wearing any—that is to say, many clothes. The man in the water was fully dressed right down to his boots. It’s a wonder the boots stayed on, because they had no proper laces. He was a vagrant, miss, a gentleman of the road, to coin a phrase. We haven’t identified him yet. Aged about forty-five, although he looks older—they always do. Good physique. Hands and feet a bit weathered. I’m not distressing you, am I? Not so different, as I say, from scores of other corpses we take from the river every month. Some of ’em get in by accident—drunks falling off the Embankment and the like—and some are suicides and I dare say there’s a few that are helped in. They’re mostly derelicts and one more wouldn’t have brought me here from Scotland Yard except for some uncommon circumstances. You see, he was taken from the water within six or seven hours of his death, and there were signs of violence on his