The Club of Queer TradesChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
General
The Club of Queer Trades
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- England -- London -- Fiction
Basil and I walked rapidly to the window which looked out on the garden.
It was a small and somewhat smug suburban garden; the flower beds a
little too neat and like the pattern of a coloured carpet; but on this
shining and opulent summer day even they had the exuberance of something
natural, I had almost said tropical. In the middle of a bright and
verdant but painfully circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a
small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat (I
presume Dr Colman), who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with
a nervous twitch, as it were, in his face. The other was our old friend,
listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes, the strong
sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the
night before, when the boisterous Basil had rallied him on his studious
decorum. But for one thing the figure of this morning might have been
the identical figure of last night. That one thing was that while the
face listened reposefully the legs were industriously dancing like the
legs of a marionette. The neat flowers and the sunny glitter of
the garden lent an indescribable sharpness and incredibility to
the prodigy--the prodigy of the head of a hermit and the legs of a
harlequin. For miracles should always happen in broad daylight. The
night makes them credible and therefore commonplace.
The second sister had by this time entered the room and came somewhat
drearily to the window.
“You know, Adelaide,” she said, “that Mr Bingham from the Museum is
coming again at three.”
“I know,” said Adelaide Chadd bitterly. “I suppose we shall have to tell
him about this. I thought that no good fortune would ever come easily to
us.”
Grant suddenly turned round. “What do you mean?” he said. “What will you
have to tell Mr Bingham?”
“You know what I shall have to tell him,” said the professor's sister,
almost fiercely. “I don't know that we need give it its wretched name.
Do you think that the keeper of Asiatic manuscripts will be allowed to
go on like that?” And she pointed for an instant at the figure in the
garden, the shining, listening face and the unresting feet.
Basil Grant took out his watch with an abrupt movement. “When did you
say the British Museum man was coming?” he said.
“Three o'clock,” said Miss Chadd briefly.
“Then I have an hour before me,” said Grant, and without another word
threw up the window and jumped out into the garden. He did not walk
straight up to the doctor and lunatic, but strolling round the garden
path drew near them cautiously and yet apparently carelessly. He stood
a couple of feet off them, seemingly counting halfpence out of his
trousers pocket, but, as I could see, looking up steadily under the
broad brim of his hat.
Suddenly he stepped up to Professor Chadd's elbow, and said, in a
loud familiar voice, “Well, my boy, do you still think the Zulus our
inferiors?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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