The Fiend in Human Read Online Free PDF Page B

ceased communication over another matter), they had settled in California, having joined a railroad syndicate. Next came a curt announcement from Father that his mother had died ‘of natural causes’.
    And, as mad Hamlet put it so well, the rest is silence.
    At the far side of Ingester Square sits a queer, dumpy, blank old building, like a warehouse that has been sat upon; which inconspicuousness confers an immense advantage, for the challenge of finding it allows irate readers plenty of time to cool down. The Falcon ’s headquarters is further diminuated by the two churches adjacent, as well as by the proclaimed headquarters of two fine-sounding companies which have never been heard of except by their directors.
    He stops at a nondescript door in the corner of the squat building, marked with a single word: FALCON. Before entering he turns once more to scan the square, for he has an uneasy impression of being watched.
    In the churchyard, the man in the crooked hat deftly slips out of sight behind a monument, and remains motionless until Whitty has disappeared inside the building.

3
    Sewell’s rooms, off Bruton Street
    Nestled in a suite of mahogany-panelled, second-floor rooms opposite Berkeley Square, following an English breakfast of kipper, kidney, toast and jam (it is well past noon), two young gentlemen settle into their coffee, cigarets and a bit of a read.
    Reginald Harewood, in ill humour, groans at something in the latest Dodd’s : ‘Oh dear. There’s another fellow gone.’
    Immersed in a volume of Browning, Walter Sewell absently stirs an unwholesome amount of sugar into his cup.
    Harewood lowers his newspaper with an expression of reproach. ‘You might at least muster sufficient interest to ask the poor chap’s name.’
    ‘Sorry. Who was it?’
    ‘It was Swan-Thackeray.’
    ‘Charlie? Oh dear. How did he die?’
    ‘Not dead, married.’
    ‘Married? Oh.’ Sewell shrugs. ‘Well, as St Paul put it, Better married than burn .’
    ‘No scripture, please, old boy. As I have said on numerous occasions, we received a lifetime’s worth at Chapel.’
    ‘Quite.’
    The two young men – one handsome, one not, one tall, one not, one whiskered, one not – have taken their meal courtesy of the less attractive but better financed of the two, born Walter Sewell, patronized by fellow Oxonians as ‘Roo’.
    Reginald Harewood – ‘Reggie’, as he is known by friends, teammates, competitors and a succession of willing young women – spoons a dollop of gooseberry jam onto an end of buttered toast. ‘Deuce of a thing, marriage. Don’t disagree with it in a general way, of course …’
    ‘Such arrangements seem to be the rule,’ comments Sewell, who decides to risk another biblical reference. ’Adam’s rib and all that. Even Noah’s animals went two by two.’
    ‘Poor examples. You’re leaving out of account the thrill of the chase. What would become of fox-hunting if it were always the same fox?’
    Sewell puts one hand to his cheek, where there should be whiskers
were he able to grow them. ‘I’m afraid I don’t get you.’
    ‘The pursuit of the opposite gender. The unmentionable act. The fur of the fox. I say, old trout, how many euphemisms do you require?’
    ‘Oh. That. Oh, I see.’
    ‘Love is a drab business once it has lost its mystique.’
    ‘True.’ Sewell turns his teacup pensively in its saucer, as though the saucer is the dial of a clock and time is running out.
    Harewood lights a fresh cigaret and smiles at his unlovely, inexperienced friend: ‘There, there, my good fellow. We’ll make a clubman of you yet.’
    ‘Do you really think so?’
    ‘No doubt about it. I vote we begin with a spot of brandy – though it’s rather early, I admit.’
    ‘A restorative, you mean. To steady the system.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘An excellent suggestion. Woke up rather liverish myself.’
    In fact, the previous evening was a disaster. Having come up empty-handed at the hanging, lacking a