Veronica Lockhart, known as Sally Lockhart:"She was a person of sixteen or so-alone, and uncommonly pretty. She was slender and pale, and dressed in mourning, with a black bonnet under which she tucked back a strayong twist of blond hair that the wind had teased loose. She had unusually dark brown eyes for one so fair. Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man."
"My name is Lockhart. My father...Mr.Lockhart."
"Her father had taught her this as a remedy for panic. He had taught her well; it worked."
"Her mind was in turmoil, but her hands-she noticed-were perfectly steady. Good, she thought. When i am frightened, I can rely on my hands."
So it was not Sally´s intention to kill- despite the gun she carried in her gun she carried in her bag. The real cause of Mr. Higgs´s death, the letter, had arrived only that mourning, forwarded by her father´s lawyer to the house in Peveril Square, Islington, where Sally was living."
"As a result, her knowledge of English literature, French, history, art, and music was nonexistent, but she had a thorough grounding in the principles of military tactics and bookkeeping, a close acquaintance with the affairs of the stock market, and a working knowledge of Hindustani. Furthermore, she could ride well ( though her pony would not agree to the Cossack procedure); and for her fourteenth birthday her father had bought her a little Belgian pistol, the one she carried everywhere, and taught her to shoot. She was now nearly as good a shot as her mother had been. She was solitary, but perfectly happy; the only blight on her childhood was the Nightmare.
This came to her once or twice a year. She would feel herself suffocating in intolerable heat--the darkness was intense--and somewhere nearby, a man´s voice was screaming in terrible agony. Then out of the darkness a flickering light would appear, like a candle held by someone hurrying toward her, and another voice would cry, ¨Look! Look at him! Dear God--look--" But she did not want to look. It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, and that was the point at which she woke up, drenched in perspiration, suffocating, and sobbing with fear. Her father would come running and calm her down, and presently she would sleep again; but it took a day or so for her to feel free of it."
"Sally had to ring the bell every time she wanted to come in (the house she lived in), and the maid who admitted her did so, always, with the air of having been interrupted during some more important task."
"Veronica was Sally´s given name. She hated it, but her aunt refused to call her Sally: that was a servants name´, she said. Unabel to think of a polite answer, Sally stood mute and found her hands beggining to shake."
"Sally sat down heavyheartedly, with the prospect of another evening of sarcasm and malice ahead of her, and the knowledge of mystery and danger outside."
Mr. Temple:Captain Matthew Lockhart´s Lawyer.
"At oncce her father´s lawyer Mr. Temple, had taken charge. The house in Norwood was shut up, the servants paid off, the pony sold. It seemed that there was some irregularity in her father´s will, or in the trust he had set up, and that Sally was consequentely going to be much poorer than anyone had thought."
Matthew Lockhart, known as Mr.Lockhart:"He was a real gentelmen, miss."
"He was a good bloke."
"A fine man, a generous employer, a Christian gentleman, a gallant soldier, a...umm,a great loss,a sad and tragic loss."
"Her father had died three months before, when the scooneer Lavinia had sunk in the South China Sea. He had gone out there to look into some odd discrepancies in the reports from the company´s agents in the Far East-something that had to be investigated on the spot and could not be checked from London. He had warned her before he went that it might be dangerous."
Mr.Higgs:"...Mr. Higgs is here- the company secretary,miss."
"The room was full of a pompous masculine atmosphere of cigar smoke, leather, dark mahogany, silver inkwells, drawers with braass handles, and a glass paperweights."
"A portly man..."
"His bald pate gleamed, his boots gleamed, the Masonic seal on the heavy gold watch-chain over his paunch gleamed, and his face was shiny with heat and red with years of wine and food."
"His expression became solemn and pious."
"Mr.Higgs was a large, well-fed man, as we have remarked; so perhaps it was not Sally´s words so much as the yeasr of port, and Cuban cigars, and rich dinners that preceded them which made him crumple at the heart and gasp for air."
"...then daarkenss flooded his face, his hands clutched at his waistcoat, and he fell with a crash to the Turkish carpet."
"...from where it brushed the siny dome of his skull and to breathe deeply, several times, with her eyes shut."
"Oh, go on the. Damn fool. Not you, him. Why cant he have the decency to die on his own floor?"
"Dead as mutton."
"He died of fright, old Higgsy. Struck dead with terror."
Jim Taylor:"The porter rang a bell, and a young boy appeared, like a sudden solidification of all the grime in the city air. His jacket was torn in three places, his collar had come adrift from the shirt, and his hair looked as if it had been used for an experiment with the powers of electricity."
"The boys sharp eyes..."
"I felt tired all of a sudden, so I lenaed against the door, and somehow the words seemed to come through."
"He said with a grin."
"She looked at his bright eyes and determined face and decided to trust him."
Marchbanks:"There is a ship´s chandler in Rotherhithe called that-spelled Marjo-ri-banks..."
Mr. Selby:"He was short, stout man with ginger whiskers that clashed unpleasently with the high color of his cheeks."
"...his fierce little eyes."
Jim Taylor´s Brother:"My brother was took the same way last Christmas. He ate a big dinner and lit a cigar, and then fell faacec down in the bowl o´nuts."
Mrs. Rees:"The house belonged to a distant relative of her father´s, a grim widow called Mrs. Rees."
"Mrs. Rees was her on ly living relative."
"She was placed in the care oh her father´s second cousin Mrs. Rees, and there she had lived until this morning when the letter came."
"Sally found the lady seated by the thin fire, reading a volume of her late husbands sermons. She did not look up when Saklly entered, and Sally looked down at her fadded gingery hair and loose, dead-white skin, loathing her. Mrs. rees was not yet out of her forties, but had found early in life the role of an aged tyrant suiteed her well, and played it for all it was worth."
"SHe acted as if she were a frail seventy; she had never in her life lifted a finger for herself or had a single kind thought for others, and she welcomed Sally´s presence only for the chance it gave her to bully."
"It is Aunt Caroline, Aunt Caroline"
Van Eeden:"I want to speak to our man in Singapore (Van Eeden)."
"Hes a dutchman called Van Eeden."
"I know hes trust worthy."
European buissness man.
Sally´s Mother:"Sally´s mother had died during the Indian Mutiny, fifteen years before-shot through the heart by a sepoy´s rifle, at the same instant that a bullet from her pistol killed him. Sally was a few months old, their only child. Her mother had been a wild, stormy, romantic young woman, who rode like a Cossack, sot like a champion, and smoked (to the scandal of the fascinated regiment) tiny black cheroots in an ivory holder. She was left handed, which was why she was holding the pistol in her left hand, which was why she was clasping Sally with the right, which was why the bullet that struck her heart missed the baby; but it grazed her little arm and left a scar."
"Sally could not remember her mother, but she loved her. Annd since then she had been brought up by her father--oddly, in the view of various busybodies--but then, Captain Mathew Lockhart´s leaving the army to take up the unlikely career of shipping agent was odd enough in itself. Mr Lockhart taught his daughter himself in the evenings and let her do as she pleased during the day. "
Ellen, Mrs. Rees maid:"...to the maid , who was standin piously inside the door, hands folded and eyes wide with innocence."
"The maid bobbed and left."
Miss Tullett, Mrs. Ringwood:Mrs. Rees friends.
"Possibly one of my friends (said Mrs. Rees)-Miss Tullett, perhaps, or Mrs. ringwood- could in charity find room for a lady´s companion."
WRITTEN AND POSTED BY: TOBIAS OBIGLIO
