[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Holmes snorted. "Her brain wouldn't dare. No, the only time Russell becomes
upset is when those near and dear to her are threatened. "
"Is this eh!" Long grunted.
"Sorry, " Holmes muttered, and pulled more gently at the shirt.
"Is this common among the English?"
"Russell is not common among anyone. Good, it's merely winged you in
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
passing no permanent damage, I shouldn't think. Do you suppose there are any
bandages in the house, Russell?"
"They would be either in the cabinet in my parents' bath-room, or in the
nursery. Do you want me to go?"
"You sit. "
So I sat, as his stride went up the stairs, and a few minutes later came down
again. His search was successful, even to the presence of a bottle of
Merthiolate. He sniffed it, then painted away at the bookseller's seeping
upper arm, wrapping a length of gauze around the whole and tying it off in a
neat bow. He handed Mr Long back his shirt, but carried the coat over to the
sink, turning on the taps with an air of experiment. Nothing.
"I can't even offer to salvage your coat from the bloodstains, " he
apologised.
"That is of no importance, " the bookseller said, gingerly inserting his arm
into the ruined sleeve. Holmes moved to assist him, and between the two of
them they got the man clothed without too much discomfort. The small man moved
his shoulder experimentally, testing the limits of comfort, then turned to me.
"I am pleased that I could, as you say, rescue you from your assassins, but I
cannot claim I came here with any such intention. No, I came to speak with you
about your photograph, and as I paced the sidewalks in indecision, you came
around the corner and the man with the gun showed himself. Pure felicitous
accident. May I ask, are assassins a commonplace in your life?"
I might have returned his earlier question aimed at me, for his own
demonstration of phlegmatic behaviour made me wonder if it was his own nature,
Orientals in general, or a result of living in San Francisco, which after all
was not so very far removed from its Wild West roots. But it was difficult to
know how to answer his question, so I decided to consider it rhetorical rather
than requiring an answer. Instead, I asked, "Why were you coming to speak with
me?"
"The photograph you showed me. It is of my parents. "
"Ah, " Holmes said, and reached for his pipe.
"Mah and Micah were your mother and father?" I asked, with a dubious glance at
the length of the man's legs.
" 'Mah and Micah, '" Mr Long repeated with a faraway look on his face. "I had
forgotten that. They adopted me when I was seven years old, and my mother
died. As it happened, I was their only child. Their actual names were Mai Long
Kwo and Mah Long Wan. They worked for your parents as gardener and cook,
beginning in 1902. I did not know your mother had a photograph of them on her
bureau. I suppose I should not have been surprised, for this was one of the
few things my mother saved from the Fire, and it resided near the place she
had her house gods." He drew from his inner coat pocket a portrait in a simple
black wooden mounting, handing it to me. Smaller and set in a different frame,
it was otherwise the same family portrait that lay buried in a drawer in
Sussex: tall, blond American father, a secret smile under his trim moustaches;
smaller, darker English mother, her eyes dancing as if she was about to burst
into laughter; lanky blonde twelve-year-old with smudged spectacles, every
inch of her shouting her impatience with the entire exercise; intense,
dark-haired boy of perhaps seven, looking at the camera as if he intended to
pull it apart to see how it worked.
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I handed it back to him. "Where are your parents now?"
"They are dead. " He put the photograph into his pocket, seeming to spend
considerable attention getting it settled, then raised his face to mine.
"Murdered. "
A tingle of shock ran down my legs, and I was aware of Holmes coming to point,
the pipe frozen in his hand.
"Tell us," I said.
"It was during the New Year celebrations of 1915 our New Year, not that of the
West, which is some weeks earlier. I was not here. I was at medical school in
Chicago, and Western universities do not recognise the celebrations of other
calendars. They were both in the store-but I should explain first.
"The previous spring, your parents had made them a loan of money to start a
business. My father had begun to find the physical demands of gardening
increasingly difficult, and when he admitted as much to your mother, instead
of merely dismissing him as most people in her situation would have done, she
asked him what he intended to do. He trusted her enough to tell her his dream
of running a bookstore, although their savings would mean they would begin
with little more than a cart on the street. Medical school is expensive. But
your mother would not hear of it, and insisted that they find a space large
enough for a proper store, and that they could repay her over time."
He smiled in reminiscence. "Your mother was a most strong-willed woman. She
would, as the saying goes, not take no for an answer, and even refused to sign
formal loan papers, saying that if she were to drop dead suddenly, my father
should consider it her thanks for the years of pleasure she had received from
his work in the garden. And as it happened, my parents had recently seen a
sign go up for a new shop-space, and eyed it wistfully.
"In the end, they accepted your mother's offer, and put up the money for the
space that week. My father retired his aching knees from your garden to his
shop, and began to order books and build shelves. He worked slowly, because he
wanted the place to be perfectly balanced in itself. He wanted it beautiful.
"And then in early October came your family's tragic accident. " He did not
say he was sorry, did not mouth any platitudes, he merely made the statement.
I thought, however, that he was in fact sorry, that he grieved for my parents
alongside his own. I found myself liking him for his reticence.
"There was, as you may imagine, considerable discussion between my parents as
to the status of the money. Your mother had been definite, but neither of my
parents felt comfortable with the situation.
And you, the sole survivor and heir, were not only a child but in the hospital
as well, and clearly in no condition to make any decisions. In the end, my
father went to the old lawyer who was handling your parents' affairs, and
explained as best he could. The lawyer seemed more confused than anything
else. There are men who require pieces of paper to give their world order, and
cannot deal with the lack. In fairness, I believe the man had spent so much of
the previous eight years wrestling with the lack of documentation in legal
affairs following the Fire, that he simply could not face one more such
problem, particularly when it involved such a to him paltry sum. In the end,
he actually shouted at my father, saying that if Mrs Russell wanted to throw
her money away on a pair of... Chinese people and not even make mention of the
fact in the will, there wasn't anything he could do about it. And he invited
my father to leave, rather rudely."
Page 52
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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Holmes snorted. "Her brain wouldn't dare. No, the only time Russell becomes
upset is when those near and dear to her are threatened. "
"Is this eh!" Long grunted.
"Sorry, " Holmes muttered, and pulled more gently at the shirt.
"Is this common among the English?"
"Russell is not common among anyone. Good, it's merely winged you in
Page 50
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
passing no permanent damage, I shouldn't think. Do you suppose there are any
bandages in the house, Russell?"
"They would be either in the cabinet in my parents' bath-room, or in the
nursery. Do you want me to go?"
"You sit. "
So I sat, as his stride went up the stairs, and a few minutes later came down
again. His search was successful, even to the presence of a bottle of
Merthiolate. He sniffed it, then painted away at the bookseller's seeping
upper arm, wrapping a length of gauze around the whole and tying it off in a
neat bow. He handed Mr Long back his shirt, but carried the coat over to the
sink, turning on the taps with an air of experiment. Nothing.
"I can't even offer to salvage your coat from the bloodstains, " he
apologised.
"That is of no importance, " the bookseller said, gingerly inserting his arm
into the ruined sleeve. Holmes moved to assist him, and between the two of
them they got the man clothed without too much discomfort. The small man moved
his shoulder experimentally, testing the limits of comfort, then turned to me.
"I am pleased that I could, as you say, rescue you from your assassins, but I
cannot claim I came here with any such intention. No, I came to speak with you
about your photograph, and as I paced the sidewalks in indecision, you came
around the corner and the man with the gun showed himself. Pure felicitous
accident. May I ask, are assassins a commonplace in your life?"
I might have returned his earlier question aimed at me, for his own
demonstration of phlegmatic behaviour made me wonder if it was his own nature,
Orientals in general, or a result of living in San Francisco, which after all
was not so very far removed from its Wild West roots. But it was difficult to
know how to answer his question, so I decided to consider it rhetorical rather
than requiring an answer. Instead, I asked, "Why were you coming to speak with
me?"
"The photograph you showed me. It is of my parents. "
"Ah, " Holmes said, and reached for his pipe.
"Mah and Micah were your mother and father?" I asked, with a dubious glance at
the length of the man's legs.
" 'Mah and Micah, '" Mr Long repeated with a faraway look on his face. "I had
forgotten that. They adopted me when I was seven years old, and my mother
died. As it happened, I was their only child. Their actual names were Mai Long
Kwo and Mah Long Wan. They worked for your parents as gardener and cook,
beginning in 1902. I did not know your mother had a photograph of them on her
bureau. I suppose I should not have been surprised, for this was one of the
few things my mother saved from the Fire, and it resided near the place she
had her house gods." He drew from his inner coat pocket a portrait in a simple
black wooden mounting, handing it to me. Smaller and set in a different frame,
it was otherwise the same family portrait that lay buried in a drawer in
Sussex: tall, blond American father, a secret smile under his trim moustaches;
smaller, darker English mother, her eyes dancing as if she was about to burst
into laughter; lanky blonde twelve-year-old with smudged spectacles, every
inch of her shouting her impatience with the entire exercise; intense,
dark-haired boy of perhaps seven, looking at the camera as if he intended to
pull it apart to see how it worked.
Page 51
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
I handed it back to him. "Where are your parents now?"
"They are dead. " He put the photograph into his pocket, seeming to spend
considerable attention getting it settled, then raised his face to mine.
"Murdered. "
A tingle of shock ran down my legs, and I was aware of Holmes coming to point,
the pipe frozen in his hand.
"Tell us," I said.
"It was during the New Year celebrations of 1915 our New Year, not that of the
West, which is some weeks earlier. I was not here. I was at medical school in
Chicago, and Western universities do not recognise the celebrations of other
calendars. They were both in the store-but I should explain first.
"The previous spring, your parents had made them a loan of money to start a
business. My father had begun to find the physical demands of gardening
increasingly difficult, and when he admitted as much to your mother, instead
of merely dismissing him as most people in her situation would have done, she
asked him what he intended to do. He trusted her enough to tell her his dream
of running a bookstore, although their savings would mean they would begin
with little more than a cart on the street. Medical school is expensive. But
your mother would not hear of it, and insisted that they find a space large
enough for a proper store, and that they could repay her over time."
He smiled in reminiscence. "Your mother was a most strong-willed woman. She
would, as the saying goes, not take no for an answer, and even refused to sign
formal loan papers, saying that if she were to drop dead suddenly, my father
should consider it her thanks for the years of pleasure she had received from
his work in the garden. And as it happened, my parents had recently seen a
sign go up for a new shop-space, and eyed it wistfully.
"In the end, they accepted your mother's offer, and put up the money for the
space that week. My father retired his aching knees from your garden to his
shop, and began to order books and build shelves. He worked slowly, because he
wanted the place to be perfectly balanced in itself. He wanted it beautiful.
"And then in early October came your family's tragic accident. " He did not
say he was sorry, did not mouth any platitudes, he merely made the statement.
I thought, however, that he was in fact sorry, that he grieved for my parents
alongside his own. I found myself liking him for his reticence.
"There was, as you may imagine, considerable discussion between my parents as
to the status of the money. Your mother had been definite, but neither of my
parents felt comfortable with the situation.
And you, the sole survivor and heir, were not only a child but in the hospital
as well, and clearly in no condition to make any decisions. In the end, my
father went to the old lawyer who was handling your parents' affairs, and
explained as best he could. The lawyer seemed more confused than anything
else. There are men who require pieces of paper to give their world order, and
cannot deal with the lack. In fairness, I believe the man had spent so much of
the previous eight years wrestling with the lack of documentation in legal
affairs following the Fire, that he simply could not face one more such
problem, particularly when it involved such a to him paltry sum. In the end,
he actually shouted at my father, saying that if Mrs Russell wanted to throw
her money away on a pair of... Chinese people and not even make mention of the
fact in the will, there wasn't anything he could do about it. And he invited
my father to leave, rather rudely."
Page 52
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]