The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler by Reggie Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

prohibitive. Did she have the right simply to evict the Strellbriggs? Possibly, but then again. . . . He would have to do some research into that.
    Jane came away from her meeting unsatisfied, but oddly soothed. She felt that Mr Blundell, however ineffectually, had been wholly on her side. She returned to Westwood rather late and found her guests the Strellbriggs waiting expectantly for lunch. For some minutes she was so preoccupied that she failed to notice that her mother was not with them.
    ‘Where’s mother?’ she asked eventually.
    ‘Oh,’ said Daphne. ‘Has she gone?’
    ‘Of course she’s gone. She was here in the sitting room with you. Did you put her back to bed or something?’
    ‘Why would we want to do that?’ said Daphne.
    Jane looked all over the house. Everything that belonged to her mother was there but not her mother. When Jane returned to the sitting room she asked the Strellbriggs again where her mother was.
    ‘Haven’t an earthly,’ said the Major from behind his Telegraph .
    ‘Neither have I,’ said Daphne. ‘Awfully sorry.’
    Jane stared at them. It was extraordinary how well and placid they looked. Their flesh had filled out; it was pink and unwrinkled.
    ‘Look. She was here with you when I left this morning. She can’t have just gone out without you noticing. Dammit, she can barely walk.’
    ‘Aha!’ said the Major. ‘The great disappearing mother mystery!’
    ‘It is not funny!’ replied Jane, stamping her foot, the tears starting from her eyes.
    She went out into the street and looked up and down. Her mother could not have gone far. She searched the street, knocked on doors and asked neighbours. No-one had seen her, and Jane was getting suspicious looks. Someone asked: ‘Are those friends still with you, then?’
    ‘They are NOT friends!’ said Jane with a violence which startled even herself. More suspicious looks followed.
    After two useless hours, she returned to her home to find that the Strellbriggs, together with all their bags and property, had also gone. She telephoned the Police. The Police responded surprisingly quickly to Jane’s call and sent two men round, a Sergeant and a young Constable. As the Sergeant sat very patiently listening to the whole story, the Constable began a rather desultory search of the house and garden. Suddenly Jane and the Sergeant heard him cry out from the back yard.
    They found him leaning against a wall, pale and in a state of shock. He pointed to something lying beside one of the dustbins. It appeared at first sight to be a withered and desiccated chipolata sausage. One end, a tangle of dark brown sinews and gristle, looked as if it had been chewed; at the other end were the chalky remnants of a finger nail. The object was still loosely encircled by Jane’s mother’s engagement ring.
    The Sergeant lifted the lid of the dustbin, looked inside, and then replaced the lid very rapidly. Before Jane fainted, the last thing she remembered was the sensation of seeing stars explode in front of her eyes. 

THE GARDEN OF STRANGERS

    I was ambitious; that is why I wanted to meet him. I cannot honestly say that I felt compassion for the man, though now, fifty years after, I have come to believe that he deserved it.
    It was in the summer of 1900, the year of his death, that I sought him out. I knew he was in Paris and, armed with that information alone, I made my way there. For a man so universally shunned he was surprisingly easy to find. It was all quite deliberate and coldly calculated on my part. I would offer to buy him dinner; he would accept out of necessity; I would then write the article for the New York Sun (with which I had some connections), and it was to make my name as a journalist. I even had a title fixed up; it was to be called: ‘I had dinner with Oscar Wilde’. I thought that was neat.
    But somehow I never got to write the article, though I did have dinner with him. I’d like to say it was some kind of delicacy that