An Apostle of Gloom Read Free Page A

and he thought that he heard a bump upstairs.
    Then he pushed open the lounge door.
    Janet was by the mantelpiece, doubled-up with laughter – and that was hardly surprising, for Mark was playing with idiotic abandon. As he crashed his hands on the keys he shook his head and his dark hair fell over his forehead; after each note he raised his hand high into the air, flexing his wrist. His pale face was flushed and his eyes were aglow with the ‘inspiration’ of his playing. He was no longer singing.
    â€œWhat the devil do you think you’re doing?” Roger demanded, striding across the room and putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Stop it, you ass!” He pulled, but Mark continued, turning his head and shaking it vigorously. Boom! went the C sharp and then Mark played a run superbly. Boom! went the A, then G sharp, then C again.
    â€œWest, I insist that you stop this nonsense!” cried Abbott.
    Boom! went Mark, and then he took his hands from the keys and swung round on the piano stool, flinging his hair out of his eyes and glaring into Abbott’s face. Roger had never seen him look so toweringly angry; his earlier fear of Mark’s sobriety strengthened.
    â€œNonsense?” Mark barked at Abbott. “Who are you, sir? What do you mean by calling my playing nonsense ? If you have no appreciation of good music, if your ignorance is so abysmal, I advise you, most emphatically, not to declare it to the world. Nonsense indeed! Is this what you would term a thing which has no meaning?” He swung round to the piano again, raised his hands and then began to play Liszt’s “Liebestraume”.
    Abbott stared at him, tight-lipped. Roger, at first irritated by Janet’s laughter – she was still struggling with it – looked at her with a frown and then saw an expression in her eyes which gave him his first inkling that she knew why Mark was playing the fool and told him that it was not a question of inebriation. She began to laugh again as if she were unable to stop, and Abbott looked about him desperately; Roger thought he formed the word ‘madhouse.’ He did shout loudly enough to be heard above the playing: “Stop him, West!”
    Roger tried, but only half-heartedly. There was a question in his mind, caused first by Janet’s expression, then by the realisation that if Mark were making this din deliberately, it could only be as a distraction. But from what did he want to distract attention? He remembered, suddenly, imagining that he had heard a bump upstairs. His confusion grew worse but he began to make a good show of losing his temper, until Mark desisted at last and rose, disdainfully, from the piano. He brushed his hair back from his forehead and straightened his tie – and then he jumped, as if horrified.
    By no means handsome, he was a distinguished-looking man with a high forehead, an indubitably Roman nose and a pointed chin; his lips were shapely and his complexion so good that it was almost feminine. About him there was an air, normally, of arrogance.
    Just then his whole expression was of horror.
    â€œMy sainted Cousin Lot!” he exclaimed. “Abbott! Why the dickens didn’t someone tell me? I say, Abbott, I am sorry, I’d no idea it was you.” He continued to stare into the Superintendent’s eyes while uttering abject apologies. Since he was not a policeman they were rather excessive; on the other hand, he was known at the Yard as a friend of Handsome West’s who dabbled in crime and, when not fully occupied by the Ministry of Information, where he worked, wrote crime case-books and treatises; he was not widely known but was respected for his analytical precision and his inventiveness. “You know, Abbott,” he went on in the same shocked tones, “I was absolutely carried away, I’ve been working rather hard and I just felt like getting on that piano and letting myself go. Something powerful