The Devil's PawOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Devil's Paw
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Detective and mystery stories
“Then tell me all about yourself,” she suggested. “Really, when I come
to think of it, considering the length of our conversations, you have
been remarkably reticent. You are the youngest of the family, are you
not? How many brothers are there?”
“There were four,” he told her. “Henry was killed at Ypres last year.
Guy is out there still. Richard is a Brigadier.”
“And you?”
“I am a barrister by profession, but I went out with the first Inns of
Court lot for a little amateur soldiering and lost part of my foot at
Mons. Since then I have been indulging in the unremunerative and highly
monotonous occupation of censoring.”
“Monotonous indeed, I should imagine,” she agreed. “You spend your time
reading other people’s letters, do you not, just to be sure that there
are no communications from the enemy?”
“Precisely,” he assented. “We discover ciphers and all sorts of things.”
“What brainy people you must be!”
“We are, most of us.”
“Do you do anything else?”
“Well, I’ve given up censoring for the present,” he confided. “I am
going back to my profession.”
“As a barrister?”
“Just so. I might add that I do a little hack journalism.”
“How modest!” she murmured. “I suppose you write the leading articles
for the Times!”
“For a very young lady,” Julian observed impressively, “you have
marvellous insight. How did you guess my secret?”
“I am better at guessing secrets than you are,” she retorted a little
insolently.
He was silent for some moments. The faint curve of her lips had again
given him almost a shock.
“Have you a brother?” he asked abruptly.
“No. Why?”
“Because I met some one quite lately--within the last few hours, as a
matter of fact--with a mouth exactly like yours.”
“But what a horrible thing!” she exclaimed, drawing out a little mirror
from the bag by her side and gazing into it. “How unpleasant to have any
one else going about with a mouth exactly like one’s own! No, I never
had a brother, Mr. Orden, or a sister, and, as you may have heard, I am
an enfant mechante. I live in London, I model very well, and I talk
very bad sociology. As I think I told you, I know your anarchist friend,
Miles Furley.”
“I shouldn’t call Furley an anarchist,” protested Julian.
“Well, he is a Socialist. I admit that we are rather lax in our
definitions. You see, there is just one subject, of late years, which
has brought together the Socialists and the Labour men, the Syndicalists
and the Communists, the Nationalists and the Internationalists. All
those who work for freedom are learning breadth. If they ever find a
leader, I think that this dear, smug country of yours may have to face
the greatest surprise of its existence.”
Julian looked at her curiously.
“You have ideas, Miss Abbeway.”
“So unusual in a woman!” she mocked. “Do you notice how every one is
trying to avoid the subject of the war? I give them another half-course,
don’t you? I am sure they cannot keep it up.”
“They won’t go the distance,” Julian whispered. “Listen.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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