The Slanted Worlds Read Online Free PDF Page A

Stiff Victorian portraits, a family group on the grass outside a prosperous-looking rectory. A little girl with a parasol and a tiny dog. Was this Alicia as a child?
    He put the album down and rummaged further. Long white evening gloves. A box of chess pieces. A fan, a tiny container with scissors and nail-things. Then jewelry, plenty of it, wrapped in twists of white tissue paper. He opened one; saw a gold ring, obviously expensive. The sad detritus of a dead woman’s whole life. He twisted the paper back around the ring and put it away. None of it was any use to him.
    As he went to shut the case, something in the bottom slid slightly. He pulled it out.
    A black velvet bag tied with cords. At the end of each cord was a tassel of gold threads. He tugged the cords open. Inside was a metal container, circular, a dull gray. He tugged the lid off and saw to his surprise a roll of ancient film, its edges perforated, its frames small and dark. He pulled out a section and held it up but could make out nothing in the dull smoky light. He rolled it back, closed the container, slipped it in, and turned the bag over.
    A few letters were embroidered elegantly on the back.
    J.H.S
.
    He stared at them for a second of frozen disbelief, then dived back to the suitcase and scrabbled through the papers, finding the birth certificate and unfolding it with shaky fingers.
    It was worn thin, the folds broken through.
    He read her name ALICIA MARY. And her father’s name.
    JOHN HARCOURT SYMMES.
    â€œ
Symmes had a daughter!”
He said it aloud in his astonishment; Symmes, who had stolen the obsidian mirror and got it to work, the man he and Venn had confronted in the smogs of Victorian London. That woman had been his daughter?
    Then the mirror would have been in her house.
    He hissed with frustration; some papers fell to the floor. He leaned after them but a hand in a brown leather glove got to them first.
    Jake looked up.
    The man was thin, average height, his face refined, his eyes dark with intelligence. He wore a long, loose brown coat and a hat Jake thought might be a fedora.
    He was obviously, and without question, the police.
    â€œThese are yours?” he said.
    â€œEr . . . Yes.” Jake flicked a glance sideways. Two uniformed constables waited a few feet down the platform. With them was the keen man from the left luggage office, who said “That’s him” with irritating smugness.
    The police officer nodded. “What’s your name?”
    â€œJake Wilde.” He didn’t know what else to say.
    â€œIdentity card? Ration book?”
    â€œI . . . don’t have them with me.”
    â€œDon’t you now. Address?”
    â€œWintercombe Abbey. It’s not in London, it’s in the West Country. I’m staying there with my godfather.” It seemed the time to make an impression. Jake stood and drew himself up. “Look here, I simply don’t see—”
    â€œDon’t pull the public schoolboy cant with me, son.” The man’s voice was soft and calmly authoritative. “Don’t tell me Daddy is a magistrate. Don’t tell me Ma Symmes really was your aged auntie. Just step away from the bench.”
    Jake didn’t move. “And you are?”
    â€œI’m Scotland Yard, son. Like I said, away from the bench. Now.”
    Jake nodded. He shut the lid of the suitcase and with one quick, fluid action, flung it in the policeman’s face.
    Papers flew out in a cloud; the jewelry clattered like rain, but Jake was already running; fleeing down the platform at top speed, leaping baggage, ducking a trolley piled with milk churns.
    Yells rang out behind him; he sensed the policemen after him, but he was fast; he could outpace them.
    Steam gushed, a fog of hot air. The locomotive beyond was preparing to move, carriage doors already being closed. He flung himself forward, grabbed one, hauled it open.
    Leaping in, he slammed it behind him,