The Dark Labyrinth Read Online Free Page A

laughing immoderately as he struggled into a shirt. She confided this adventure to the steward, asking him very seriously whether old people like that still made love: it seemed faintly indecent. They were old enough to have children. The steward stifled a smile and said he didn’t know—they were probably eccentric. She was thoroughly satisfied with this proposition. Eccentric, that’s what they were. But they were good-humoured and undemanding, and she had a little wave of pity in her heart as she packed the ill-fitting cheap dresses, the old wire-hair-brush, and the copies of Tit-Bits in the trunk which, according to the metal stamp, had been made by a Mr. Stevens in Peckham Rye.
    It was not till some days later, when Graecen’s escape was announced in the Press, that the purser discovered that he was a poet. “ England’s Foremost Poet-Peer ” said one paper and gave a brief outline of his history, his Scottish title, his M.C. and Mention, and his brilliant batting for the Gentlemen versus Players at Lord’s in 1936. Everyone felt that they wished they had known at the time; he had been so quiet and unobtrusive—so like a middle-aged stockbroker. It is true that he had once been seen sketching in a book, and that he read to Miss Dale once or twice on A deck—but whether it was poetry or not they could not tell. It seemed, however, no less than poetic justice that he should be saved. Later still the purser was to see in The Times the poem of Graecen’s, beginning: “When death like the sundial casts his shadow.” The lines were, he noticed, dated April, 1947, several weeks before the incident of the labyrinth, but they read to him like a premonition—as many, that is to say, as he could understand. He read them over several times, cut them out with a penknife and transferred the cutting from his grubby fingers to his pocket-book for future consideration. And here the circle of speculation closed.

Ariadne’s Thread
    I t was in the middle of May that Graecen for the last time closed the little makeshift office which had been built around the Cefalû statue while it was being cleaned, and started to walk, with his deliberate soft pace, across the Graeco-Roman section. Twilight had come—that strange marine twilight which only seems to come to Museums—and the long cases reflected his sober figure in subaqueous tones as he passed them. Today was the end of a ten-year term in a life devoted entirely to them, he was reflecting, as he descended the long staircase step by step, and ten years was a long time. He was trying to invest the episode with some sentimental significance, but in truth he felt a little empty and negative. He tasted the damp air from the gloomy corridors of stone and glass around him. It must be seven. The light was fading fast outside; neutral, grey London had seen no signs of spring as yet. He breasted the tide of scholars emerging from the great library, flowing through the central doors and dissolving into the grey hinterland outside, and handed over his key with a sigh of resignation, a little surprised that it did not hurt more. As he was collecting his hat and coat, Swan, the attendant, hurried up to him.
    â€œIs it true that you’re leaving us, sir?” he said. It was true, of course; but the eager self-indulgent emotion in the old man’s voice struck no echoing spark in Graecen’s heart. He stood on one leg, flushed. In his neat black clothes and preternaturally shined shoes he looked very much a gentleman covered by a gentleman’s confusion. “For a time, Swan,” he said, “I hope to be back soon.” The blush lit up first his face and then the little bald spot on his crown which always made him look like a saint in a halo. Blushing was a habit he tried to cure without success. He saw that Swan’s rheumy eye was marking the blush as it travelled steadily upwards and round towards the nape of