Norton, Andre - Novel 39 Read Online Free Page A

Hazel
nodded. 'The vicar spoke Sunday about how treasure came from feeding the poor
and hungry people with bread and fishes. Only I did not have any fish.'
                   Riggs was indeed shaken and only muttered
something inaudible as she went out the door. Hazel turned to me, and there was
a faint flush in her cheeks and her eyes were wide and sparkling. 'Hester, you
will do it for me, won't you?' She shoved her shilling piece in my direction.
                   I was already reaching for my waterproof cape
and the bonnet that was supposed to possess the same properties. It was in this
manner I met Freddy, a very dirty urchin in a patched coat that Hazel had
described to me. He was chewing on one of the hunks of bread as if he feared it
would be snatched away from him, and a lump just above the length of rope that
held his coat together made me surmise that he was saving more than half the
bounty. He looked at me with red-rimmed eyes that held the impression of sly
wariness.
                   'Whot yuh wants, missie?' He jerked his head to indicate the envelope into which I had inserted
and sealed Hazel's charity. 'Message run? Fred's yur
boy, he is.'
                   He held out his hand, having crushed all the
rest of the bread into his mouth, which gave him a very stuffed look. I
released the envelope to the pull he gave as soon as he got his filthy fingers
on it.
                   'No message, Fred—just a
gift from a little girl who wishes you well.'
                   He clutched the envelope tightly and looked as
if he had no belief that anything good might really happen to him. Then he
turned and ran out into the fog, lost from sight in seconds.
                   Again Miss Cantry did not appear and I was
given respite for another seven days.
                   My time was up yesterday—
                   And now here she was, on her own.
                   Hester leaned back a little. Those fingers of
fog that she had earlier imagined reaching for her from the corners of the room
were growing longer and more menacing. It was one thing to be prepared to earn
one's living and then always being assured in some fashion of the future, and
another to possess four shillings and sixpence in an otherwise empty purse.
What did those noble, familyless heroines do in books? Did they have jewels to
pawn or something of that sort? Her rent was paid until a week from tomorrow
and bread and tea could fill a stomach. What had Freddy done with all that
wealth Hazel showered upon him? He'd never come back to that corner as a sweeper
again.
                   Hester drew her shawl more tightly about her.
Dragged along with its fringe across the bed were her two letters. This
afternoon—yes, this very afternoon—she could send both of her answers out into
the world.
                   But would the world reply?
     

Chapter 2
     
                   It was a case of hate at first sight.
                   That, at least, was what Inspector Newcomen
told himself as he perched uneasily on the edge of his chair, in Mr. Utterson's
outer office.
                   First sight, but not first
meeting. His previous dealings with Utterson had produced a somewhat
disagreeable impression of the lean, unsmiling, elderly solicitor, but at the
time he had seen him as an ally in a common cause.
                   Utterson was the friend as well as the legal
counselor for Henry Jekyll, M.D., and Inspector Newcomen, the officer assigned
to investigate certain events surrounding Dr. Jekyll's mysterious
disappearance.
                   It was last March that Utterson had come
forward with the story of how he and Dr. Jekyll's butler, Poole , found the body in Dr. Jekyll's cabinet—the
office maintained at his home. As a matter of fact, Newcomen himself was
involved from the very start. He