The Kingdom of the BlindOppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
General
The Kingdom of the Blind
Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips)
Fiction; Spy stories
“A bullet did come my way and just graze my cheek,” he admitted. “Most
extraordinary thing. I wonder whether one of those fellows in the Park
had an accident with his rifle.”
He glanced thoughtfully across towards where a number of khaki-clad
figures were dimly visible behind the railings. Geraldine looked at him
severely.
“Of course,” she began, “if you really think that I don’t know the
difference between the report of a pistol and a rifle shot--”
He interrupted her.
“I was wrong,” he confessed. “Forgive me. You see, my head was a little
turned. Some one did deliberately fire at me, and I believe it was from
a grey racing-car. I couldn’t see who was driving it and it was out of
sight almost at once.”
“But I never heard of such a thing!” she exclaimed. “Why on earth should
they fire at you? You haven’t any enemies, have you?”
“Not that I know of,” he assured her.
She stepped from the car and came lightly over to his side.
“Take your handkerchief away,” she ordered. “Don’t be foolish. You
forget that I am a certificated nurse.”
He raised his handkerchief and she looked for a moment at the long scar.
Her face grew serious.
“Another half-inch,” she murmured,--“Hugh, what an abominable thing! A
deliberate attempt at murder here, at nine o’clock in the morning, in
the Park! I can’t understand it.”
“Well, I’ve been under fire before,” he remarked, smiling.
“Get into my car at once,” she directed. “I’ll drive you to a chemist’s
and put something on that. You can’t go about as you are, and it will
have healed up then in a day or two.”
He obeyed at once and she drove off.
“Of course, I’m a little bewildered about it still,” she went on.
“I suppose you ought to go to the police-station. It was really a
deliberate attempt at assassination, wasn’t it? If you had been--”
She paused and he completed her sentence with a humorous twinkle in his
eyes.
“If I had been a person of importance, eh? Well, you see, even I must
have been in somebody’s way.”
She drove in silence for some little distance.
“Hugh,” she asked abruptly, “why did the War Office send you down to
Market Burnham after that Zeppelin raid?”
His face was suddenly immovable. He turned his head very slightly.
“Did Granet tell you that?”
She nodded.
“Captain Granet came to see me yesterday afternoon. He seemed as much
surprised as I was. You were a little hard on him, weren’t you?”
“I think not!”
“But why were you sent down?” she persisted. “I can’t imagine what you
have to do with a Zeppelin raid.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I really don’t think it is worth while your bothering about the
bandage,” he said.
“Hugh, you make me so angry!” she exclaimed. “Of course, you may say
that I haven’t the right to ask, but still I can’t see why you should
be so mysterious.... Here’s the chemist’s. Now come inside with me,
please.”
He followed her obediently into the shop at the top of Trafalgar Square.
She dressed his wound deftly and adjusted a bandage around his head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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