Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

He stared at this bald announcement. This placid acceptance of wholesale murder. This simple acknowlegement of a process of family elimination.

Richard III had been credited with the elimination of two nephews, and his name was a synonym for evil. But Henry VII, whose ‘settled and considered policy’ was to eliminate a whole family was regarded as a shrewd and far-seeing monarch. Not very lovable perhaps, but constructive and painstaking, and very successful withal.

Grant gave up. History was something that he would never understand.

The values of historians differed so radically from any values with which he was acquainted that he could never hope to meet them on any common ground. He would go back to the Yard, where murderers were murderers and what went for Cox went equally for Box.

He put the two books tidily together and when The Amazon came in with his mince and stewed prunes he handed them over with a neat little speech of gratitude. He really was very grateful to The Amazon. If she had not kept her schoolbooks he might never have started on the road that led to his knowledge of Richard Plantagenet.

She looked confused by his kindness, and he wondered if he had been such a bear in his illness that she expected nothing but carping from him. It was a humiliating thought.

‘We’ll miss you, you know,’ she said, and her big eyes looked as if they might brim with tears. ‘We’ve grown used to having you here. We’ve even got used to that .’ And she moved an elbow in the direction of the portrait.

A thought stirred in him.

‘Will you do something for me?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Anything I can do.’

‘Will you take that photograph to the window and look at it in a good light as long as it takes to count a pulse?’

‘Yes, of course, if you want me to. But why?’

‘Never mind why. You just do it to please me. I’ll time you.’

She took up the portrait and moved into the light of the window.

He watched the second-hand of his watch.

He gave her forty-five seconds and then said: ‘Well?’ And as there was no immediate answer he said again: ‘Well?’

‘Funny,’ she said. ‘When you look at it for a little it’s really quite a nice face, isn’t it?’

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Version 3 2010-10-05

Alex Bell afjbell@bigpond.net.au

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