Twelfth Night Read Online Free PDF

down his back. Grim bobbed again, this time in approval, and Perdita smiled broadly.
    “I like him.”
    I took another plum and placed it carefully onto her palm. “Keep your fingers straight and don’t lose your nerve,” I instructed.
    Grim eyed her thoughtfully, but Perdita stood her ground. After a long moment, he hopped to her knee, dipping his head daintily to take the plum from her palm. He threw back his head and swallowed it down in one go then emitted a satisfied quork.
    “He likes you, too,” I told her. “He does not consent to take food from anyone.”
    “Someday I’ll have a raven,” she said decisively. “They’re better than silly old dogs or cats.”
    She continued to feed Grim his sweets, and within a few minutes William IV returned with a tray laden with cups of chocolate, steaming great fragrant clouds into the room, and piles of sliced bread with toasting forks and butter.
    We settled down to toasting the bread in front of the fire and ate masses of it, burning our fingers and streaking our hands with sweet butter.
    “That was perfect,” Perdita said, giving a happy sigh. “I sometimes help myself to food in the larder when I go out at night, but it’s always cold pie or a bit of cheese. Never anything hot. ”
    “The hazards of detective work,” Brisbane murmured.
    Perdita agreed fervently then her expression grew pensive. “I might like to be a detective, a proper detective like you, Uncle Brisbane.”
    Brisbane looked surprised, but I smiled. “That seems to be a popular opinion amongst the younger set in the family,” I told him. “Tarquin has a school friend staying, Quentin. He is particularly enthusiastic on the subject of your talents.”
    “Well, I do have many,” he said with a rakish grin. I smiled, but Perdita’s expression was serious.
    “Quentin certainly thinks so. He’s written a book about you.”
    Brisbane’s mouth twitched, but he did not laugh. “A book? You don’t say.”
    “It’s revolting,” she told him. “Not you, Uncle Brisbane, but his attitude. It’s worshipful . He’s pasted clippings from newspaper articles about your cases into a scrapbook. And he has a squashed bit of tobacco he says came from one of your cigars.”
    “Preposterous,” I said briskly. “Brisbane would never discard his cigar in the street.”
    Perdita shrugged. “He’s a boy, Aunt Julia. You cannot believe everything he says.” Her posture was world-weary, and I began to wonder exactly how my favourite brother, a farmer and countryman, had managed to produce this unique child.
    “You aren’t like other children, Perdita. I find that refreshing,” I told her.
    “You aren’t like other aunts,” she returned. “It’s nice. The others all speak to me as though I had the wit of a sofa cushion. Particularly Aunt Olivia. She’s the worst . But Aunt Portia’s rather all right. You know she used to live with a woman?”
    I could feel Brisbane’s smothered mirth as he waited to see how I would respond to the question. “Yes, I did. Her name was Jane, and she was a lovely person.”
    “I know that, Aunt Julia. I met her many times. I mean, she and Aunt Portia used to live together as husband and wife. Only I suppose it would be wife and wife, would it not?”
    Brisbane choked a little and hid his face behind his cup.
    “I suppose the best person to ask would be Aunt Portia herself,” I replied. “There is nothing shameful or wrong about Aunt Portia, although many people would think so. She will always speak frankly with you if you want to talk.”
    She nodded. “I thought so. But she’s very busy with that awful baby.”
    “Jane the Younger is having a difficult time with her teeth,” I said hurriedly. At least we all hoped so. She shrieked, regularly and loudly and most often when she did not get her way. I had delicately tried to suggest as much to Portia with the result that she had not spoken to me for a fortnight.
    “You say it’s teeth,” Perdita said