The Case of the Black Twenty-Two
Brian Flynn
9781465581280
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The fact that it was an unusually sunny morning for an English summer day had not put Peter Daventry in the mood that it undoubtedly should have done. A riotous evening—during which he had dined not wisely but too well with a number of men who had been at Oxford with him—is not perhaps the best preparation for work on the following day, and Peter heartily cursed the relentless and inexorable fate that had made him junior partner of “Merryweather, Linnell and Daventry—Solicitors.” He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked to the window of his room, gazing disconsolately at the street below. “Cornhill!” he muttered. “And it might be anywhere else for all it means to me, or for all I care. It’s a dull old world nowadays and devilish difficult to get thrills out of a business like this. After a night with the lads it gets me ‘on the raw’ more than ever.” He looked down at London scurrying and hurrying. Men, women, young and old, treading their way quickly, decisively and imperturbably on the various errands and ventures that Life had chosen for them. “Poor devils!” he thought. “Day in and day out the same old grind! I sometimes wonder how they stand it. I certainly don’t know how I do.” He walked back to the chair by his desk, carefully selected a cigarette and pressed the bell. A middle-aged, black-coated clerk appeared in the doorway. “You rang, Mr. Daventry? You want me?” “Oh, no, Plunkett! Not for a moment! What on earth gave you that extraordinary idea?” “The bell——” He indicated the table with a sort of hopeless resignation. “Merely a matter of ‘physical jerks’ on my part, Plunkett. I’ve been standing on my head on the desk, and in the process I inadvertently butted the bell and caused you——” Plunkett smiled feebly. He was the kind of man that always did—thirty-five years’ service for the firm had made him afraid to do anything too vigorously—even to a smile. But he knew Peter Daventry and knew his little whims and ways—“he will have his little joke,” he would inform his friends and acquaintances, “and till he’s had it, it’s best to lie low and keep quiet.” It will be observed, therefore, that he had not encountered “Brer Rabbit.”
