Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
"I was the Flail of the Lord" Lord John Roxton and I turned down Vigo Street together and through the dingy portals of the famous aristocratic rookery. At the end of a long drab passage my new acquaintance pushed open a door and turned on an electric switch. A number of lamps shining through tinted shades bathed the whole great room before us in a ruddy radiance.
It was a man who walked inside a framework made of bent canes so that he was enclosed on all sides in a bell-shaped cage. As I drew nearer I was more amazed still to see that it was Lord John Roxton. When he saw me he slipped from under his curious protection and came towards me laughing, and yet, as I thought, with some confusion in his manner.
I had to settle some urgent business, but that's all ended now. The pater's death has steadied me. No more gallivanting off to London for me. Settle down in Roxton, Board of Guardians on Saturdays, church on Sunday, tea and tennis at the vicarage, and 'you-come-to-our-place-tomorrow. You know the sort of thing old-fashioned, respectable and comfy. I'll sell my motor bike and start a car.
Trenholme was about to thrust her behind him, when some familiar attribute about the outline of the approaching figure caused her to cry "Why, it's Hilton!" "Yes, Sylvia," came the breathless answer. "You heard the firing, of course? The police have found some fellow in the wood. You and Bob make for the avenue. I'm going this way in case he breaks cover for the Roxton gate. Hurry!
How many men were there in Roxton and Easton this morning was there even one woman? capable of sighting a rifle with such calm confidence of success? Mind you, Fenley had to be killed dead. No bungling. A severe wound from which he might recover would not meet the case at all. Again, how many rifles are there in the united parishes of Roxton and Easton of the type which fires expanding bullets?"
The doctor had not arrived. There had been only a superficial examination by Tomlinson of the orifice of the wound. What other mind in Roxton would picture to itself the havoc caused by an expanding bullet? The man who uttered those words knew what sort of bullet had been used. He knew it would tear his father's body to pieces.
"Name! Name!" cried the audience. "My name is Edward Dunn Malone. I am the reporter of the Daily Gazette. I claim to be an absolutely unprejudiced witness." "What is YOUR name, sir?" the chairman asked of my tall rival. "I am Lord John Roxton. I have already been up the Amazon, I know all the ground, and have special qualifications for this investigation."
Even our own little hill may presently prove to be a temporary island amid a sea of disaster. But at the present rate of advance a few short hours will submerge us all." Lord John Roxton wiped his brow. "What beats me," said he, "is how you could sit there laughin' with that stack of telegrams under your hand. I've seen death as often as most folk, but universal death it's awful!"
But the British climate, a slave to no such ordered sequence, scatters or withholds these magic hours almost impartially throughout the seasons, so that June may demand overcoats and umbrellas, and October invite Summer raiment. Hence this superb Summer's night found certain folk in Roxton disinclined to forego its enchantments.
"That gave us a chance of salvage, anyhow," said Winter. "I 'phoned the Roxton Inspector, and he will block the roads. When he has communicated with St. Albans and some other centers we should have a fairly wide net spread. Bates is coming from the lodge to take charge of a search party to scour the woods. We want that rifle. He must have dropped it somewhere.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking