The Angel of Highgate Read Online Free Page B

handkerchief from his pocket and agitatedly blotted the front of his jacket. “You did that on purpose, you swine!”
    Thraxton was anything but perturbed. “Either I am an oaf, or I am a swine. I can hardly be both.”
    “A gentleman would at least have the decency to apologize.”
    “A gentleman would not be staggering about like a drunken ape, crashing into people.”
    Skinner’s face flushed crimson. He visibly bristled. “Of all the outrageous impudence! You shall apologize!”
    “I apologize? You have caused me to spill my punch! It is you who should apologize.”
    “Evidently you are a drunkard, as well as a shoddy poet!” Skinner shouted the last line at the top of his lungs.
    Conversation stopped. The cellos groaned themselves into silence. All eyes in the room fastened upon Lord Thraxton and Augustus Skinner.
    A wistful smile appeared on Thraxton’s lips. Algernon knew that smile. It meant Thraxton was about to do something very rash. Algernon took his friend by the arm and attempted to lead him away. “Geoffrey, perhaps we should—”
    Thraxton pushed his friend’s hand away, quite violently, while never taking his gaze from Skinner’s face.
    “Good God,” Thraxton said. “Just when I had begun to embrace Mister Darwin’s theories, here is proof positive that evolution works in both directions. How is it that someone found a suit to fit this monkey?”
    “Geoffrey, please—” Algernon started to say.
    “How dare you!”
    “I’m sorry,” Thraxton said. “I should not insult a monkey so, for I have seen monkeys in the London Zoo and they appear to be creatures capable of at least some level of reasoning. No, what we have here is much further down the tree of life, something more akin to a slug or a leech.”
    “You scoundrel!”
    Resignedly, Algernon went over to the refreshment table and poured himself a glass of punch. Now Thraxton had started, there was no stopping him.
    “Yes, a leech, for that’s what all critics are—leeches sucking on the body of art. And only after they’re fat and bloated with the blood of artists do they drop off and slither away.”
    Skinner shook with fury. “You will take that back, sir. Take it back or I will see you in the law courts!”
    “I take nothing back from you! You… you leech!”
    “Then… then… then… I must demand satisfaction!”
    Skinner tore off one of his white cotton gloves and slapped Thraxton smartly across the face. In truth, the slap was barely perceptible, but in the tense silence of the room, it resounded like a gunshot.
    Something dangerous came into Thraxton’s face. His eyes shone lambent with anger. For a terrifying moment, it seemed likely that he would leap upon his antagonizer and box him senseless, but instead, a cruel smile formed on his lips. “Very well,” he said, mildly. “I accept your challenge. Wimbledon Common. Dawn tomorrow. I shall bring my dueling pistols. Be sure to bring your seconds.” Thraxton turned his back on Skinner and walked over to Algernon, throwing an arm around his shoulders. “Do you know, Algy,” he said, good-naturedly, “I’ve just tossed off a full glass of punch and I’m still thirsty. Let’s see if there’s any of that wonderful champagne left.”

3

P ISTOLS AT D AWN
    W imbledon Common slumbered beneath shifting panes of mist burnished silver by the rising sun. In the near distance, the windmill loomed, a four-armed giant poised to stride over the land, smashing all within reach. The trees were stark, skeletal beings the wind had twisted into tortured shapes. A flight of pigeons whirred overhead like a premonition, circling once, twice, three times before vanishing. In the fog-muffled air, fragments of human speech carried indistinctly, mixed incongruously with the clatter of silverware on china and, stranger still, the spit and hiss of meat sizzling in a pan.
    Lord Geoffrey Thraxton, draped in a heavy wool blanket, lounged at a small folding table while Harold, his