The Secret of Chimneys

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Book: Read The Secret of Chimneys for Free Online
Authors: Agatha Christie
altogether too pessimistic a view of the thing. I know all about publishers - they sit on manuscripts and hatch 'em like eggs. It will be at least a year before the thing is published.'
    'Either a very deceitful or a very simple young man you are. All is arranged for the memoirs in a Sunday newspaper to come out immediately.'
    'Oh!' Anthony was somewhat taken aback. 'But you can always deny everything,' he said hopefully.
    The Baron shook his head sadly.
    'No, no, through the hat you talk. Let us to business, come. One thousand pounds you are to have, is it not so? You see, I have the good information got.'
    'I certainly congratulate the Intelligence Department of the Loyalists.'
    'Then I to you offer fifteen hundred.'
    Anthony stared at him in amazement, then shook his head ruefully.
    'I'm afraid it can't be done,' he said, with regret.
    'Good. I to you offer two thousand.'
    'You tempt me, Baron, you tempt me. But I still say it can't be done.'
    'Your own price name, then.'
    'I'm afraid you don't understand the position. I'm perfectly willing to believe that you are on the side of the angels, and that these memoirs may damage your cause. Nevertheless, I've undertaken the job, and I've got to carry it through. See? I can't allow myself to be bought off by the other side. That kind of thing isn't done.'
    The Baron listened very attentively. At the end of Anthony's speech he nodded his head several times.
    'I see. Your honour as an Englishman it is?'
    'Well, we don't put it that way ourselves,' said Anthony. 'But I dare say, allowing for a difference in vocabulary, that we both mean much the same thing.'
    The Baron rose to his feet.
    'For the English honour I much respect have,' he announced. 'We must another way try. I wish you good morning.'
    He drew his heels together, clicked, bowed and marched out of the room, holding himself stiffly erect.
    'Now I wonder what he meant by that,' mused Anthony. 'Was it a threat? Not that I'm in the least afraid of old Lollipop. Rather a good name for him, that, by the way. I shall call him Baron Lollipop.'
    He took a turn or two up and down the room, undecided on his next course of action. The date stipulated upon for delivering the manuscript was a little over a week ahead. Today was the 5th of October. Anthony had no intention of handing it over before the last moment. Truth to tell, he was by now feverishly anxious to read these memoirs. He had meant to do so on the boat coming over, but had been laid low with a touch of fever, and not at all in the mood for deciphering crabbed and illegible handwriting, for none of the manuscript was typed. He was now more than ever determined to see what all the fuss was about.
    There was the other job too.
    On an impulse, he picked up the telephone book and looked up the name of Revel. There were six Revels in the book: Edward Henry Revel, surgeon, of Harley Street; and James Revel and Co, saddlers; Lennox Revel of Abbotbury Mansions, Hampstead; Miss Mary Revel with an address in Ealhag; Hon Mrs Timothy Revel of 487 Pont Street; and Mrs Willis Revel of 42 Cadogan Square. Eliminating the saddlers and Miss Mary Revel, that gave him four names to investigate and there was no reason to suppose that the lady lived in London at all! He shut up the book with a short shake of the head.
    'For the moment I'll leave it to chance,' he said. 'Something usually turns up.'
    The luck of the Anthony Cades of this world is perhaps in some measure due to their own belief in it. Anthony found what he was after not half an hour later, when he was turning over the pages of an illustrated paper. It was a representation of some tableaux organized by the Duchess of Perth. Below the central figure. a woman in Eastern dress, was the inscription:
    The Hon Mrs Timothy Revel as Cleopatra. Before her marriage, Mrs Revel was the Hon Virginia Cawthron, a daughter of Lord Edgbaston.
    Anthony looked at the picture some time, slowly pursing up his lips as though to whistle. Then he tore

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