The Great Game Read Online Free PDF

seemed to freeze and hang in the air.
    Â Â But Smith shook his head. "The word for a manual harvester is different, in German," he said. "What did he mean, a machine?"
    Â Â M. said, gently, "Drink your tea, dear."
    Â Â Smith sipped at it. "It's good," he said, by way of thanks. Truth was, he could barely taste it. He felt raw, hurt. The room swam. The colonel caught hold of him. "Easy, there, old boy," he murmured.
    Â Â They used to call him the Harvester.
    Â Â So now someone else was laying claim to the title. Someone else was harvesting people, the way a farmer harvested corn, or wheat.
    Â Â "I'm going to London," he said, at last. "Help me dispose of the bodies?"
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    It was hard, backbreaking work. The village rallied round, even those who hadn't been to the fight. By dawn there had been nothing left of the airship or its crew, but a new mound of earth, like an ancient tor, stood by the ruined house.
    Â Â "Too bad about your cabbages," the baroness said. She had been wounded in hand-to-hand combat inside the house, and now wore her arm in a sling. Her eyes shone. "I miss the old days, sometimes," she said. "Then something like this happens and I think maybe retirement's not so bad."
    Â Â Smith nodded. He had tried to rescue some of the books, but most were beyond help. Torn, burned pages floated like dark butterflies in the air. "We never truly retire, though," he said. "Do we?"
    Â Â "No," she said. "I guess we don't." Then, coming closer, putting her hand on his shoulder, gently: "I'm sorry about Alice."
    Â Â He shrugged. "It's the life," he said, "each of us chose."
    Â Â "Not all of us had the choice," the baroness said.
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    The worst part had been seeing the bee keeper again. He showed up just as Smith was preparing to leave. Day had come and the sky was clear and bright. Smith wore a suit that had seen better days. He needed to go into the town, to catch the train.
    Â Â "I am so sorry," Smith said. The old man gazed at him. Once he had been the greatest of them all. Even now he was formidable. He was not that old, but he had suffered much, and had retired shortly after the Bookman affair. Rumours spoke of a lost love, a brotherly conflict, of captivity and strange experiments that had made his mind different, alien to the everyday. They were just that, rumours. No one but the bee keeper knew what the truth was, or what kept him in the village.
    Â Â The bee keeper merely nodded. "It is the life we choose," he said. "Mycroft always knew what he was doing."
    Â Â "Will you… pursue an investigation?" Smith asked. The bee keeper shook his head. "There is no art to it," he said, with a slight smile. "I already know."
    Â Â "Then tell me."
    Â Â The bee keeper shook his head again. "It will not help," he said. "Yet you are suited to this task, in a way I am not. It requires not a singularly great deductive mind, such as mine, but a tenacious sort of controlled violence. What you are after is not a mystery, but the conclusion of one. A great game we had all been playing, and which is now coming to an end… or to a new beginning."
    Â Â "I don't understand."
    Â Â "Look at the stars," the bee keeper said, "for answers." And with that last cryptic, unhelpful comment, he was gone.
    Â Â Smith shook his head. This was Mycroft all over again. Then he decided to leave it, and climbed into the hansom cab.
    Â Â "Market Blandings, please, Hume," he told the driver, who nodded without speaking and hurried the horses into action.
    Â Â Smith settled back inside the cab. He closed his eyes. The horses moved sedately, the motion soothing. In moments he was asleep.

 
 
SIX
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    Hume dropped him off outside the Blue Lizard on Market Blandings' sleepy high street. The hansom cab rode off and Smith, still tired and aching, decided to go into the pub to refresh himself before catching the train.
    Â Â Whereas the Emsworth Arms , down