The Lightning Cage by Alan Wall Page B

before him, and finally said to himself out loud, ‘Now how on earth did you do that?’ Then he called to Jacob to bring him some of Pelham’s manuscript papers for The Instruments of the Passion. He studied a number of these carefully and held them against the sheet upon which he had just written. He was no graphologist, but he could not help but notice an unmistakable similarity. For several hours, Lord Chilford wrote out his notes. When he was finished he walked to the window and stared down at the river. Only then did he at last start to smile.
    The next day he spoke separately to Jacob and Josephine. He wanted to make absolutely sure that there had been no connivance between them, though he could not imagine why there should have been. At the end of his interview with Josephine, she faltered before leaving.
    â€˜What is it?’ he had asked, alerted suddenly by her discomfort, for she was obviously distressed. ‘Come along Josephine, I need to be apprised of all that occurred.’
    â€˜When I was alone in the house with him, after Jacob had gone to fetch your lordship, his voice suddenly changed. I was standing outside the room and I heard something different. I went inside.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜He spoke to me private words, words that only Jacob and I share. In the privacy of our bed.’ Lord Chilford thought for a moment.
    â€˜He could have overheard them. He has been here in the house alone with you both.’
    â€˜But it was Jacob’s voice doing the talking, not his. That’s the only reason I stepped back inside. Whatever could have made that room so cold?’
    â€˜A window had probably been left open,’ Chilford said impatiently. He was staring distractedly down towards the Thames, his smile now gone entirely.
    â€˜Everything was closed, my Lord. Jacob made sure before he left that everything was locked up tight.’
    Later, Chilford summoned Jacob back to his study.
    â€˜Is there anything else Pelham said that you didn’t tell me?’ Jacob looked uncomfortable.
    â€˜There were many things he said. He was shouting all sorts of things, most of which are best forgotten.’ Chilford walked round the table and laid his hand on Jacob’s shoulder.
    â€˜What did he say that you are so anxious to spare me?’ Jacob looked up finally, always the obedient servant; it was too late now for him to change that.
    â€˜He said my Lady would die, though it didn’t seem to be him speaking. He said she would die in childbirth, my Lord.’

Chimera #2
    The great post-natal myth: that we get born all at once.
    HERMANN SIEGFRIED , Chimera
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    I had decided to surprise Alice, though in one sense perhaps I surprised her all the time. That’s to say that, since she never made any decisions herself, I took them all for her. Almost all: let’s not forget her weekly trip to the Siegfried Group in North Kensington, where I presumed she also collected her dope, which I’d developed a taste for, so I wasn’t complaining. I planned the holiday in secret. I had booked two weeks in Tenby, in a house at the very edge of the harbour. I could imagine her sitting there drawing. I didn’t tell her until the night before that we were going, and even then I only said ‘A trip to Tenby’ – I didn’t say for how long. I had already packed spare clothes for her, not that she’d have noticed. She looked at me in silence for a moment.
    â€˜Where’s Tenby?’ she said finally. She was cutting her hair with a pair of nail scissors. There was no mirror in front of her during this operation, and that presumably explained why every strand was always a different length. I hurriedly dropped some sheets of paper on the floor about her chair.
    â€˜In Pembrokeshire. You can take your sketchbook and do some drawing.’
    â€˜I don’t have a sketchbook,’ she said, ‘and I don’t draw.’
    The next day I