The Street Philosopher Read Online Free PDF Page A

exertion as he refastened his sword to his belt. ‘Get to your horse, Davy, we must be off.’
    Kitson, however, would not release him so easily. ‘And what is that you have there, Captain?’ he inquired. ‘Forgive me, but it looks rather interesting–valuable, even. Can I ask why you have removed it from this fine house?’
    Styles peered again at the object Wray now had balanced before him on his saddle. Some of the sackcloth had slipped away, revealing that it was a statuette of some kind, cast interracotta, about a foot high. Wray and Davy had stolen it from the farmhouse; the elderly Tartar, its custodian, had been trying to stop them. The soldiers were looting.
    Wray stared at the horizon, refusing to answer. His horse paced impatiently beneath him, tossing its head.
    ‘Only,’ Kitson continued with fearless breeziness, ‘the readership of the Courier –for whom you evidently hold such an immense regard–would be quite fascinated to hear of any antiquities discovered in the Crimea by Her Majesty’s Army–of how they were saved for posterity by the forces of enlightenment, so selflessly snatching them from the darkness of barbarism.’
    A grin crept across Styles’ bloody face.
    Wray sighed irritably, seeing that he had been out-manoeuvred. ‘Oh, very well, you damned grubber. Here is your blasted antiquity.’
    The Captain unwrapped the statuette fully and held it out at arm’s length. It was of Saint Catherine, rendered in the flamboyant style of the Italian Baroque. The saint was posed dramatically atop her broken cartwheel, her russet limbs arranged as if she was about to launch herself heavenward. Even from the ground, Styles could see that it was a piece of some quality.
    And then Wray let it drop.
    The brittle sound of the Saint Catherine shattering on the cobbles echoed around the yard. It was followed by a string of hoarse exclamations from the elderly Tartar, who was trying unsuccessfully to rise from the ground; whether these strained noises were curses or lamentations Styles could not tell. With a self-satisfied smirk, Wray wheeled his horse around and commanded that the company be taken back out to the road. The sergeant-major snarled an order, turning the soldiers smartly towards the gate.
    Kitson put his pocketbook under his arm and clapped a round of slow, derisive applause. ‘Oh bravo, Captain Wray, bravo!’ he shouted. ‘Oh, well done, sir! You have surely triumphed! You bested me there, and no mistake!’
    Wray did not even look around. Moving ahead of the company, he spurred his horse and was gone. Davy leantover to spit at the correspondent’s feet, hissing a few vicious obscenities before riding after his Captain.
    As soon as the soldiers had left, the Tartars rushed to help the old man, sitting him on the side of the trough and mopping at a long cut on his brow. A stout woman, her hair bound under a black headscarf, rushed from the farmhouse and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing loudly. Davy’s victim would not be comforted, though; shaking off the woman and rising to his feet, he hobbled over to the remains of the Saint Catherine. Seeing that there was no hope of repair, he gave the shards a despairing kick, scattering them across the yard.
    ‘You see now what I was referring to earlier, Mr Styles.’ Kitson was standing over him, writing materials stuffed in one pocket, chicken legs poking out of the other. His precise state of mind, once again, was hard to divine; but he did not seem unamused by their encounter with the officers of the 99th. ‘Items like that statuette should rightfully be protected, stored well away from rapacious brutes like our Captain Wray.’ He offered the illustrator his hand and pulled him upright. ‘How is your lip?’
    ‘Sore enough. But I shall live.’ Styles regarded his comrade with intense admiration. ‘You–you did a fine thing there, Mr Kitson. You bore witness, sir–you stood in the path of wrongdoing.’
    Kitson shook his head.