The Sleuth of St. James's Square by Melville Davisson Post
page 72 of 350 (20%)
page 72 of 350 (20%)
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shout to Madame Barras I struck at him with the heavy
walking-stick. But the creature was not to be taken unaware; he darted to one side, wrenched the stick out of my hand, and dashed its heavy-weighted head into my face. I went down in the bracken, but I carried with me into unconsciousness a vision of Madame Barras that no shadow of the lengthening years can blur. She had swung round sharply at the attack behind her, and she stood bare-haired and bare-shouldered, knee-deep in the golden bracken, with the glory of the moon on her; her arms hanging, her lips parted, her great eyes wide with terror - as lovely in her desperate extremity as a dream, as, a painted picture. I don't know how long I was down there, but when I finally got up, and, following along the path behind the spur of rock, came out onto the open sea, I found Sir Henry Marquis. He was standing with his hands in the pockets of his loose tweed coat, and he was cursing softly: "The ferry and the mainland are patroled . . . I didn't think of their having an ocean-going yacht . . . ." A gleam of light was disappearing into the open sea. He put his hand into his pocket and took out the scraps of torn paper. "These notes," he said, "like the ones which you hold in your bank-vault, were never issued by the Bank of England." I stammered some incoherent sentence; and the great chief of the |
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