Part 10 (1/2)
”Caesar, dear Caesar, look what I've found.”
Aymer looked round, saw the scattered photographs, and held out his hand.
”Is it you really? May I have it for myself?”
Caesar took the card and as he gave it up, Christopher knew he had made a mistake, and got scarlet.
”Where did you find it?” demanded Aymer sharply.
”In the cupboard in the little red room. We were turning it out.”
”Yes, it's I. Why shouldn't it be? I wasn't always a cripple, you know.”
He tossed the picture back on the rug. The scar stood out white and distinct, and his face was strangely hard and set. A book slipped down on the left side and he tried to catch it with the left hand and failed, and it fell with a bang on the floor.
”May I have it?” asked Christopher meekly from the rug.
”What for? You don't know the horse and you don't know the man. Put it in the fire.”
”No, I won't,” exclaimed Christopher indignantly. ”Caesar, don't be so horrid, it's--it's--exactly like you.”
Caesar ignored his own command and asked another question instead.
”Where did you say you found it?”
”In a cupboard in the little red room. It's such a jolly little room.
It isn't used now and there's hardly anything in it, but the cupboards are full of things--lovely things. Patricia and I just explored.”
”It used to be my room and the things are all mine. Why haven't they burnt them?” he muttered.
Christopher gathered up the unlucky photographs and put them back in the box. He was dimly conscious he did not want Mr. Aston to come and see them.
”I'm sorry, Caesar, I didn't know we shouldn't have done it.”
”You haven't done any harm, I--I had no business to be cross, old fellow. Come and show me the pictures again, I'll tell you about them.”
Christopher sat down on the sofa with the box in his hand. He really did want to know about them if Caesar wasn't going to be angry. He took out a photo at random.
”That was my first race-horse,” said Caesar. ”Her name was Loadstar.
She didn't win much, but I thought a lot of her. And that--oh, that's a mastiff I had: he was magnificent, but such a brute I had to kill him. He went for one of the stable boys and I hardly got him off in time. I've got the marks now of his claws: he never bit me. We used to wrestle together.”
”Wrestle with a dog?”
”Yes, I used to be fairly strong, you know, Christopher. It was good training throwing him--sometimes it was the other way. But he had to die, poor old Brutus.”
”How did you kill him?”
”I shot him,” said Caesar shortly, ”don't ask for morbid particulars.
Where is another picture?”