Horatio Lyle Read Free

said how I was lovely really and, please, miss . . . ’
    In the gloom of the window, Lyle’s mouth dropped open. In the street the woman with the meat cleaver hesitated. She looked far too slim and pale to be holding such a large weapon, and indeed now that the excitement was cooling a little, its presence in her hand made her uncomfortable, and she tried to hide it behind her voluminous white nightrobe. Ladies of more decorum might have worn a shawl, and indeed she had considered one when exiting the house. But then, she ’d realized who the incident involved, and changed her mind. The shawl, she believed, wasn’t her most flattering colour.
    Turning a pair of severe almond eyes on Lyle, a useful inheritance from her father and a match for her freckles, she said in a voice like glaciers rolling over a particularly difficult hillside, ‘Horatio, is this true?’
    For a second, his indignation almost overwhelmed all power of speech. ‘Do you really believe that . . . ’
    ‘Please, miss,’ sobbed the girl, ‘please, miss, don’t let him hurt me. I’m so hungry and cold and scared and he’s such a brutish man, he hasn’t heard of Christian charity, miss, please . . . ’
    ‘Horatio!’ The woman flushed. ‘I demand that you come down here at once and assist me with this unfortunate waif!’
    ‘ Waif? ’ exclaimed Lyle. ‘Miss Chaste . . . ’
    ‘Horatio, I shall summon the police!’
    Pigeons were startled out of their roosts at the indignant squeak in her voice. Lyle flinched, sighed and said humbly, ‘Yes, Miss Chaste.’
    Mercy Chaste knew her duty. As the local vicar’s daughter, she took an immense pride in her Christian heritage, and had an evangelistic streak in her which had led to a new and interesting reinterpretation of the verb ‘chastened’.
    A minute later the front door opened and Lyle appeared, dragging a large metal box as if it was very heavy, and after it a tube connected to a large pile of what looked like leather sacking. This he spread out under Miss Chaste ’s furious eye to a rough square beneath the pipe and kicked the box moodily. There was a hissing sound and the leather square expanded slowly into a small inflated mattress. The girl craned her neck to see the mattress and squeaked, ‘I’m not falling on to that!’
    Lyle’s eyes flashed. ‘It ’s that,’ he snapped, ‘or the pavement.’
    She thought about it, even as Miss Chaste barked, ‘Horatio!’ Lyle’s expression was unshakable.
    Sullenly the girl muttered, twisting to see her destination more clearly, ‘I think I’ll let go now.’
    ‘Why not?’ he sighed.
    The girl closed her eyes and let go. She fell, and bounced up from the mattress several times. It was almost fun, she thought, and wondered if she could bounce some more. Then she saw the two adults’ faces peering down and hastily she crawled off the mattress and picked herself up, putting on her most endearing expression of innocence. Lyle scowled. Seeing this, the girl launched into emergency procedure. She threw herself at Miss Chaste, wrapping her arms around the woman’s waist and bursting into tears. ‘Please, miss, don’t let him hurt me. Miss, please, I’ll do anything . . . ’
    ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Lyle pulled a plug in the mattress, which slowly started to deflate. As the girl sobbed into Miss Chaste’s nightgown, Lyle stalked up to his half-open door, disappeared inside, reappearing a second later. With a whirring sound, the section of dangling pipe started to wind back against the wall, locking itself in place, as if it had never moved.
    ‘Horatio.’ Miss Chaste’s voice had a tone of determined finality.
    He wished he could simper as well as the girl was doing. ‘Yes, Miss Chaste?’ he sighed.
    ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Horatio?’
    He thought about it.
    ‘Erm . . . ’
    The girl chose this hesitation as a chance for prolonged sobbing.
    ‘You realize I can’t possibly permit the child to go home in a