"Is it you really? May I have it for myself?"
Caesar took the card and as he gave it up, Christopher knew he had made
a mistake, and got scarlet.
"Where did you find it?" demanded Aymer sharply.
"In the cupboard in the little red room. We were turning it out."
"Yes, it's I. Why shouldn't it be? I wasn't always a cripple, you
know."
He tossed the picture back on the rug. The scar stood out white and
distinct, and his face was strangely hard and set. A book slipped down
on the left side and he tried to catch it with the left hand and
failed, and it fell with a bang on the floor.
"May I have it?" asked Christopher meekly from the rug.
"What for? You don't know the horse and you don't know the man. Put it
in the fire."
"No, I won't," exclaimed Christopher indignantly. "Caesar, don't be so
horrid, it's--it's--exactly like you."
Caesar ignored his own command and asked another question instead.
"Where did you say you found it?"
"In a cupboard in the little red room. It's such a jolly little room.
It isn't used now and there's hardly anything in it, but the cupboards
are full of things--lovely things. Patricia and I just explored."
"It used to be my room and the things are all mine. Why haven't they
burnt them?" he muttered.
Christopher gathered up the unlucky photographs and put them back in
the box. He was dimly conscious he did not want Mr. Aston to come and
see them.
"I'm sorry, Caesar, I didn't know we shouldn't have done it."
"You haven't done any harm, I--I had no business to be cross, old
fellow. Come and show me the pictures again, I'll tell you about
them."
Christopher sat down on the sofa with the box in his hand. He really
did want to know about them if Caesar wasn't going to be angry. He took
out a photo at random.
"That was my first race-horse," said Caesar. "Her name was Loadstar.
She didn't win much, but I thought a lot of her. And that--oh, that's
a mastiff I had: he was magnificent, but such a brute I had to kill
him. He went for one of the stable boys and I hardly got him off in
time. I've got the marks now of his claws: he never bit me. We used to
wrestle together."
"Wrestle with a dog?"
"Yes, I used to be fairly strong, you know, Christopher. It was good
training throwing him--sometimes it was the other way. But he had to
die, poor old Brutus."
"How did you kill him?"
"I shot him," said Caesar shortly, "don't ask for morbid particulars.
Where is another picture?"
"This?"
This was a photo of a horse standing alone in a field and beneath was
written, "Jessica waiting to be tamed." Aymer offered no
explanation,--if Christopher had looked he would have seen the scar
show up again sharply over a frown.
The next was rather a wicked snap-shot of Aymer cover shooting, with
what looked suspiciously like a dead fox curled up at his feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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