The Ruby in the Smoke Read Online Free PDF Page A

into the teeth of it.
    The town of Swaleness was not very large. She decided not to take a cab from the station but to save her money and walk, having learned from the porter that Foreland

    House was an easy step away, not more than a mile; go along the sea front and then take the river path, he said. She set out at once. The town was cheerless and cold, and the river a muddy creek that wound its way among salt flats before entering that distant line of gray that was the sea. The tide was out; the scene was desolate, with only one human being to be seen.
    This was a photographer. He had set up his camera, together with the little portable darkroom that all photographers of the time had to use, right in the center of the narrow path beside the river. He looked like an amiable young man, and since she could see no sign of a foreland, far less a house on it, she decided to ask him the way.
    "You're the second person who's passed me already going that way," he said. "The house is over there—a long, low place." He pointed to a grove of stunted trees half a mile farther on.
    "Who was the other person.^" asked Sally.
    "An old woman who looked like one of the witches from Macbeth, " he said. This allusion was lost on Sally; seeing her puzzlement, he went on. "Wrinkled, don't you know, and hideous, and so forth."
    "Oh, I see," she said.
    "My card," said the young man. He produced the white slip of pasteboard deftly from nowhere, like a conjurer. It
    read FREDERICK GARLAND, PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST, and
    gave an address in Lx)ndon. She looked at him again, liking him; his face was humorous, his straw-colored hair stiff and tousled, his expression alert and intelligent.
    "Forgive my asking," she said, "but what are you photographing?"
    "The landscape," he said. "Not much of one, is it? I

    wanted something dismal, d'you see. I'm experimenting with a new combination of chemicals. I've got an idea that it'll be more sensitive in recording this kind of light than the usual stuff."
    "Collodion," she said.
    "That's right. Are you a photographer?"
    "No, but my father used to be interested. .. . Anyway, I must get on. Thank you, Mr. Garland."
    He smiled cheerfully and turned back to his camera.
    The path curved, following the muddy bank of the river, and finally brought her out behind the grove of trees. There, as the photographer had described it, was the house, covered in peeling stucco, with several tiles missing from the roof; the garden, too, was overgrown and untidy. A more unhappy-looking place she had never seen. She shivered slightly.
    She stepped onto the little porch, and was about to ring the bell, when the door opened and a man came out.
    He put his finger to his lips and shut the door, taking great care not to make a sound.
    "Please," he whispered. "Not a word. This way, quickly . . ."
    Sally followed, amazed, as he led her swiftly around the side of the house and into a little glass-paned veranda. He shut the door behind her, listened hard, and then held out his hand.
    "Miss Lockhart," he said, "I am Major Marchbanks."
    She shook his hand. He was aged; about sixty, she supposed. His complexion was sallow, and his clothes hung loosely on him. His eyes were dark and fine, though sunk in deep hollows. His voice was familiar in some odd way, and there was an intensity in his expression that

    frightened her, until she reahzed that he himself was frightened, too: much more than she was.
    '*Your letter came this morning," she said. "Did my father write and ask you to see me?"
    "No ..." He sounded surprised.
    "Then—does the phrase 'the Seven Blessings' mean anything to you?"
    It had no effect at all. Major Marchbanks looked blank.
    "I'm sorry," he said. "Did you come here to ask me that? I'm so sorry. Did he—your father—"
    She told him quickly about her father's last voyage, and about the letter from the East and the death of Mr. Higgs. He put his hand to his brow; he looked utterly crushed and bewildered.
    There was a small pine