Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
Leaning heavily on one of the chairs, he stared with a passionate intentness. "Grimshaw?" he said at last. "Why, yes," Grimshaw answered. "Didn't you know?" Waram licked his lips. In a whisper he said: "I killed you in Switzerland six years ago. Killed you, you understand." Grimshaw touched his breast with both hands. "You lie. "Here I am." "You are dead." "Dead?" "Before God, I swear it."
And this is the end of the curious story.... Waram went to Biskra and from there to the village where Grimshaw lived. Grimshaw saw him in the street one evening and followed him to the hotel. He lingered outside until Waram had registered at the bureau and had gone to his room. Then he went in and sent word that "Pierre Pilleux was below and ready to see Doctor Waram."
He drove away from the jail in a cab with Doctor Waram, and when the crowd saw that he was wearing the old symbol a yellow chrysanthemum a hiss went up that was like a geyser of contempt and ridicule. Grimshaw's pallid face flushed. But he lifted his hat and smiled into the host of faces as the cab jerked forward. He went at once to Broadenham.
And I'll go on, with that clanking hardware store around my neck. It can be done, can't it? Better for you and for Dagmar. I'm not being philanthropic. I'm looking, not for a reprieve, but for release. No one knows this fellow in Salvan he probably came up from the Rhone and was on his way to Chamonix. What d'you think was the matter with him?" "Heart," Doctor Waram answered.
The guide who had said "The tall monsieur will not arrive" now greeted him with a fraternal: "How is trade?" "Very good, thanks," Grimshaw said. Beyond the village he quickened his pace, and easing the load on his back by putting his hands under the leather straps, he swung toward Finhaut. Behind him he heard the faint ringing of the church bells in Salvan. Waram had reported the "tragedy."
Of course I went, with a very clear vision of the future of Dagmar, Lady Cooper, to occupy my thoughts during that lurching drive through the slippery streets. I knew that she was at Broadenham, holding up her head in seclusion. Grimshaw's house was one of a row of red brick buildings not far from the river. Doctor Waram himself opened the door to me.
They brought the poet wine but he did not drink it sat staring at the smoky ceiling, assailed by a sudden sharp vision of Dagmar and Waram at Broadenham, alone together for the first time, perhaps on the terrace in the starlight, perhaps in Dagmar's bright room which had always been scented, warm, remote He had been reciting, of course, in French. Now he broke abruptly into English.
I am no longer a living poet. I am already an immortal halfway up the flowery slopes of Olympus, impatient to go the rest of the way. "Shall we be off?" "By all means," Waram said.
They found the body where they had hidden it the night before, and in the shelter of a little grove of larches Grimshaw stripped and then reclothed himself in the pedlar's coarse and soiled under-linen, the worn corduroy trousers, the flannel shirt, short coat, and old black velvet hat. Waram was astounded by the beauty and strength of Grimshaw's body.
His spirits fell when he entered the room. He put his pedlar's pack on the floor and sat down on the narrow bed, suddenly conscious of an enormous fatigue. His feet burned, his legs ached, his back was raw where the heavy pack had rested. He thought: "What am I doing here? I have nothing but the few hundred pounds Waram gave me. I'm alone. Dead and alive."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking