The Moving Finger Read Online Free PDF Page A

documents I had brought, it occurred to me that if Mrs. Symmington had encountered disaster in her first marriage, she had certainly played safe in her second. Richard Symmington was the acme of calm respectability, the sort of man who would never give his wife a moment’s anxiety. A long neck with a pronounced Adam’s apple, a slightly cadaverous face and a long thin nose. A kindly man, no doubt, a good husband and father, but not one to set the pulses madly racing.
    Presently Mr. Symmington began to speak. He spoke clearly and slowly, delivering himself of much good sense and shrewd acumen. We settled the matter in hand and I rose to go, remarking as I did so:
    â€œI walked down the hill with your stepdaughter.”
    For a moment Mr. Symmington looked as though he did not know who his stepdaughter was, then he smiled.
    â€œOh yes, of course, Megan. She—er—has been back from school some time. We’re thinking about finding her something to do—yes, to do. But of course she’s very young still. And backward for her age, so they say. Yes, so they tell me.”
    I went out. In the outer office was a very old man on a stool writing slowly and laboriously, a small cheeky-looking boy and a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair and pinze-nez who was typing with some speed and dash.
    If this was Miss Ginch I agreed with Owen Griffith that tender passages between her and her employer were exceedingly unlikely.
    I went into the baker’s and said my piece about the currantloaf. It was received with the exclamation and incredulity proper to the occasion, and a new currant loaf was thrust upon me in replacement—“fresh from the oven this minute”—as its indecent heat pressed against my chest proclaimed to be no less than truth.
    I came out of the shop and looked up and down the street hoping to see Joanna with the car. The walk had tired me a good deal and it was awkward getting along with my sticks and the currant loaf.
    But there was no sign of Joanna as yet.
    Suddenly my eyes were held in glad and incredulous surprise.
    Along the pavement towards me there came floating a goddess. There is really no other word for it.
    The perfect features, the crisply curling golden hair, the tall exquisitely-shaped body! And she walked like a goddess, without effort, seeming to swim nearer and nearer. A glorious, an incredible, a breathtaking girl!
    In my intense excitement something had to go. What went was the currant loaf. It slipped from my clutches. I made a dive after it and lost my stick, which clattered to the pavement, and I slipped and nearly fell myself.
    It was the strong arm of the goddess that caught and held me. I began to stammer:
    â€œTh-thanks awfully, I’m f-f-frightfully sorry.”
    She had retrieved the currant loaf and handed it to me together with the stick. And then she smiled kindly and said cheerfully:
    â€œDon’t mention it. No trouble, I assure you,” and the magic died completely before the flat, competent voice.
    A nice healthy-looking well set-up girl, no more.
    I fell to reflecting what would have happened if the Gods had given Helen of Troy exactly those flat accents. How strange that agirl could trouble your inmost soul so long as she kept her mouth shut, and that the moment she spoke the glamour could vanish as though it had never been.
    I had known the reverse happen, though. I had seen a little sad monkey-faced woman whom no one would turn to look at twice. Then she opened her mouth and suddenly enchantment had lived and bloomed and Cleopatra had cast her spell anew.
    Joanna had drawn up at the kerb beside me without my noticing her arrival. She asked if there was anything the matter.
    â€œNothing,” I said, pulling myself together. “I was reflecting on Helen of Troy and others.”
    â€œWhat a funny place to do it,” said Joanna. “You looked most odd, standing there clasping currant bread to your breast with your mouth