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40 - Beetle by Richard Marsh · Beetle

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  Speaker 1: The Beadle by Richard Marsh chapter forty. What miss Coleman
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  Speaker 1: saw through the window. As Miss Coleman had paused as
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  Speaker 1: if her narrative was approaching a conclusion, I judged it
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  Speaker 1: expedient to make an attempt to bring the record as
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  Speaker 1: quickly as possible up to date. I take it, miss Coleman,
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  Speaker 1: that you have observed what has occurred in the house
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  Speaker 1: to day. She tightened her nutcracker jaws and glared at
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  Speaker 1: me disdainfully. Her dignity was ruffled. I'm comin to it,
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  Speaker 1: aren't I If you'll let me. If you've got no manners,
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  Speaker 1: I'll learn you some one doesn't like to be hurried
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  Speaker 1: at my time of life, young man. I was meekly, silent, plainly.
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  Speaker 1: If she was to talk, everyone else must listen. During
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  Speaker 1: the last few days, there have been some queer goings
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  Speaker 1: on over the road out of the common quiar meine,
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  Speaker 1: for goodness knows that they always have been queer enough
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  Speaker 1: that hour party has been flitting about like a creature possessed.
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  Speaker 1: I've seen him going in and now twenty times a day.
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  Speaker 1: This morning, she paused to fix her eyes on Lessingham.
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  Speaker 1: She apparently observed his growing interest as she approached the
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  Speaker 1: subject which had brought us there, and resented it. Don't
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  Speaker 1: look at me like that, young man, because I won't
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  Speaker 1: have it. And as for questions, I may answer questions
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  Speaker 1: when I'm done, but don't you dare to ask me
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  Speaker 1: one before, because I won't be interrupted. Up to then,
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  Speaker 1: Lessingham had not spoken a word, but it seemed as
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  Speaker 1: if she was endowed with the faculty of perceiving the
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  Speaker 1: huge volume of the words which he had left unuttered
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  Speaker 1: this morning. As I've said already, she glanced at Lessingham
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  Speaker 1: as if she defied his contradiction. When that Arab party
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  Speaker 1: came home, it was just on the stroke of seven.
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  Speaker 1: I know what was the exact time, because when I
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  Speaker 1: went to the door to the milkman, my clock was
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  Speaker 1: striking the half hour, and I always keep it thirty
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  Speaker 1: minutes fast. As I was taking the milk, the man
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  Speaker 1: said to me, hello, miss Coleman, here's your friend coming. Long?
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  Speaker 1: What friend? I says for I ain't got no friends
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  Speaker 1: as I know round here, nor yet, I hope no
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  Speaker 1: enemies neither. And I looked round and there was the
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  Speaker 1: Arab party come and tearing down the road. His bed
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  Speaker 1: cover thing all flying in the wind, and his arms
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  Speaker 1: straight out in front of him. I never did see
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  Speaker 1: anyone go at such a pace. My goodness, I says.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder he don't do himself an injury. I wonder
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  Speaker 1: some one else don't do him an injury. Says the milkman.
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  Speaker 1: The very side of him is enough to make my
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  Speaker 1: milk go sour. And he picked up his pail and
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  Speaker 1: went away quite grumpy. Though what the hour Party's done
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  Speaker 1: to him is more than I can say. I have
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  Speaker 1: always noticed that Milkman's tempers short like his measure. I
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  Speaker 1: wasn't best pleased with him for speaking of that hour
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  Speaker 1: party as my friend, which he never has been, and
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  Speaker 1: never won't be, and never could be neither. Five persons
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  Speaker 1: went to the house after the milkman was gone, and
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  Speaker 1: that their Arab party was safe inside, three of them
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  Speaker 1: commercials that I know, because afterwards they came to me.
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  Speaker 1: But of course they none of them got no chance
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  Speaker 1: with that their error party, except of Hammeron at his
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  Speaker 1: front door, which ain't what you might call a paying game,
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  Speaker 1: nor nice for the temper, But for that I don't
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  Speaker 1: blame him. For if once those commercials do begin talking,
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  Speaker 1: they'll talk forever. Now, I'm coming to this afternoon. I
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  Speaker 1: thought it was about time, though for the life of me,
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  Speaker 1: I did not dare to hint as much. Well, it
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  Speaker 1: might have been three, or it might have been half past. Anyhow,
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  Speaker 1: it was thereabouts when up there comes two men and
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  Speaker 1: a woman, which one of the men was that young man.
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  Speaker 1: What's a friend of yours? Oh, I says to myself,
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  Speaker 1: here's something new in callers. I wonder what it is
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  Speaker 1: they're wanting that young man? What was a friend of yours?
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  Speaker 1: He starts hammering and hammering, as the custom was with
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  Speaker 1: everyone who came, and as usual, no more notice was
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  Speaker 1: taken of him than nothing. Though I knew at the
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  Speaker 1: time the Arab party was indoors, at this point I
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  Speaker 1: fel felt that at all hazards, I must interpose a question.
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  Speaker 1: You are sure he was indoors? She took it better
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  Speaker 1: than I feared she might. Of course, I'm sure. Hadn't
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  Speaker 1: I seen him come in at seven? And he never
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  Speaker 1: hadn't gone out since? For I don't believe that I'd
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  Speaker 1: taken my eyes off the place now for two minutes together,
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  Speaker 1: and I'd never had a sight of him. If he
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  Speaker 1: wasn't indoors. Where was he? Then? For the moment, so
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  Speaker 1: far as I was concerned, the query was unanswerable, she
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  Speaker 1: triumphantly continued. Instead of doing what most did when they'd
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  Speaker 1: had enough of hammering and going away, these three went
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  Speaker 1: round to the bag. And I'm blessed if they mustn't
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  Speaker 1: have got through the kitchen window woman, and all for
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden the blind in the front room
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  Speaker 1: was pulled, not up, but down, dragged down it was,
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  Speaker 1: and there was that young man. What's a friend of
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  Speaker 1: yours standing with it in his hand. Well, I says
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  Speaker 1: to myself, if that ain't cool, I should like to
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  Speaker 1: know what is if when you ain't let in, you
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  Speaker 1: can let yourself in, And that without so much as
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  Speaker 1: same by your leave or with your leave, things is
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  Speaker 1: coming to a pretty pass. Wherever can that hour party be?
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  Speaker 1: And whatever can he be thinking of to let them
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  Speaker 1: go on like that? Because that he's the sort to
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  Speaker 1: allow a liberty to be took with him and say nothing.
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe every moment I expect to hear a
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  Speaker 1: noise and see a row begin. But so far as
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  Speaker 1: I could make out, all was quiet, and there wasn't
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  Speaker 1: nothing of the kind so I says to myself, there's
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  Speaker 1: more in this than meets the eye. And then three
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  Speaker 1: parties must have right upon their side, or they wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be doing what they're doing in the way they are.
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  Speaker 1: There'd be a shindy. Presently, in about five minutes, the
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  Speaker 1: front door opens, and a young man, not the one
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  Speaker 1: what's your friend, but the other comes sailing out and
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  Speaker 1: through the gate and down the road as stiff and
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  Speaker 1: upright as a granadier, and never seeing anyone walk more
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  Speaker 1: upright and few as fast at his heels, comes the
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  Speaker 1: young man what is your friend? And it seems to
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  Speaker 1: me that he could make out what this other was
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  Speaker 1: a doin of I says to myself, there's been a
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  Speaker 1: quarrel between them two, and him as has gone has
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  Speaker 1: hooked it? This young man, what is your friend? He
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  Speaker 1: stood at the gate all of a fidget, staring after
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  Speaker 1: the other with all his eyes, as if he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: think what to make of him. And the young woman
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  Speaker 1: she stood on the doorstep, staring after him too. As
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  Speaker 1: the young man what had hooked it? Turned the corner
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  Speaker 1: and was out of sight all at once, your friend?
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  Speaker 1: He seemed to make up his mind, and he started off,
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  Speaker 1: running as hard as he could pelp, and the young
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  Speaker 1: woman was left alone. I expected every minute to see
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  Speaker 1: him come back with the other young man, and the
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  Speaker 1: young woman. By the way she hung about the gate,
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  Speaker 1: she seemed to expect it too, but no, nothing of
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  Speaker 1: the kind. So when, as I expect, she had enough
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  Speaker 1: of waiting, she went into the house again, and I
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  Speaker 1: see her pass the front room window. After a while back,
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  Speaker 1: she comes to the gate and stands looking and looking,
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  Speaker 1: but nothing was to be seen of either of them
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  Speaker 1: young men. When she had been at the gate, I
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  Speaker 1: dare say five minutes back. She goes into the house,
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  Speaker 1: and I never saw nothing of her again. You never
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  Speaker 1: saw anything of her again? Are you sure she went
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  Speaker 1: back into the house as sure as I am that
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  Speaker 1: I see you. I suppose that you didn't keep a
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  Speaker 1: constant watch upon the premises, But that's just what I do.
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  Speaker 1: I've felt something queer was going on, and I made
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  Speaker 1: up my mind to see it through. And when I
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  Speaker 1: make up my mind to do a thing like that,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not easy to turn aside. I never moved off
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  Speaker 1: the chair at my bedroom window, and I never took
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  Speaker 1: my eyes off the house, not till you come knocking
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  Speaker 1: at my front door. But since the young lady is
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  Speaker 1: certainly not in the house at present, she must have
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  Speaker 1: eluded your observation and in some manner have left it
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  Speaker 1: without you seeing her. I don't believe she did. I
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  Speaker 1: don't see how she could have done. There's something queer
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  Speaker 1: about that house since the error party's been inside it.
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  Speaker 1: But though I didn't see her, I did see someone else.
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  Speaker 1: Who was that? A young man? A young man, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: a young man. And that's what puzzled me, and what's
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  Speaker 1: been puzzling me ever since, for see him go in.
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  Speaker 1: I never did do. Can you describe him? Not as
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  Speaker 1: to the face, For he wore a dirty cloth cab
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  Speaker 1: pulled down right over it, and he walked so quickly
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  Speaker 1: that I never had a proper look. But I should
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  Speaker 1: know him anywhere if I saw him, if only because
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  Speaker 1: of his clothes and his walk. What was there peculiar
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  Speaker 1: about his clothes and his walk? Why his clothes were
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  Speaker 1: that old and torn and dirty that a ragman wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: have given a thank you for them? And as for fit,
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  Speaker 1: there wasn't none. They hung upon him like a scarecrow.
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  Speaker 1: He was a regular figure of fun. I should think
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  Speaker 1: the boys would call after him if they saw him
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  Speaker 1: in the street. As for his walk, he walked off
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  Speaker 1: just like the first young man had done. He strutted
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  Speaker 1: along with his shoulders back and his head in the air,
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  Speaker 1: and that stiff and straight that my kitchen poker would
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  Speaker 1: have looked crooked beside of him. Did nothing happen to
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  Speaker 1: attract your attention between the young ladies going back into
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  Speaker 1: the house and the coming of this young man, Miss
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  Speaker 1: Coleman cogitated, Now you mention it there did, though I
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  Speaker 1: should have forgotten all about it if you hadn't asked me.
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  Speaker 1: That comes if you're not letting me to tell you
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  Speaker 1: the tale my own way. About twenty minutes after the
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  Speaker 1: young woman had gone in, someone put up the blind
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  Speaker 1: in the front room, which that young man had dragged
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  Speaker 1: right down. I couldn't see who it was, for the
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  Speaker 1: blind was between us. And it was about ten minutes
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  Speaker 1: after that young man came marching out. And then what followed, Why,
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  Speaker 1: in about another ten minutes that Arab party himself comes
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  Speaker 1: scooting through the door. The Arab party, Yes, the Arab party.
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  Speaker 1: The sight of him took me cleaner back where he'd
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  Speaker 1: been and what he'd been doing with himself while them
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  Speaker 1: their people played high spy high about his premises. I'd
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  Speaker 1: have given a shilling out of my pocket to have known.
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  Speaker 1: But there he was, as large as and carrying a bundle,
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  Speaker 1: a bundle, a bundle on his head like a muffin
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  Speaker 1: man carries his tray. It was a great thing. You
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  Speaker 1: never would have thought he could have carried it, and
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  Speaker 1: it was easy to see that it was as much
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  Speaker 1: as he could manage. It bent him nearly double, and
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  Speaker 1: he went crawling along like a snail. It took him
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  Speaker 1: quite a time to get to the end of the road.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Lessingham leaped up from his seat, crying. Marjorie was
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  Speaker 1: in that bundle? I doubted, I said. He moved about
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  Speaker 1: the room distractedly, wringing his hands. She was, she must
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  Speaker 1: have been. God help us. All I repeat that I
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  Speaker 1: doubt it. If you will be advised by me, you
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  Speaker 1: will wait awhile before you arrive at any such conclusion.
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  Speaker 1: All at once there was a tapping at the windowpane.
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  Speaker 1: Atherton was staring at us from without. He shouted through
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  Speaker 1: the glass, come out of that, you fossils. I've news
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  Speaker 1: for you. End of chapter forty s