The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page B

row, all ugly and one horribly misshapen. Eight men stood in a group between the windows—or, rather, two groups, six graybeards and two blackbeards. Paul still sat at his desk, painting with the absorption of a craftsman in the grip of his daemon. Dr. Ku, slim in her Hamlet garb, leaned against the wall behind him.
    On the card table were little piles of filing cards, one pile for the women, one for the men, one for Dr. Ku and her Paul, one with a slip of paper on top saying, “Children at school.” There was an envelope labeled “Finance,” and a note on another piece of paper saying, “None of us would think it an impertinence if you were to refer to us by our given names, including Paul and Eve. There are too many Mr. Kus and Mrs. Kus in the house for formality to result in anything but confusion.” The handwriting was very small and square, the letters unconnected.
    Pibble sat down, dithery with irrational panic after his meeting with Caine. How in holy hell (unless Fernham and Strong turned up some blood spots in someone’s linen basket) was he to cope with picking a winner out of those sixteen undifferentiated and inscrutable faces? Even after twenty-five years, Caine couldn’t tell some of them apart, so how was he to tell when they were lying, or flanneling, or pulling his leg? And as for motives! He realized that everyone in the room, except Paul, was looking straight at him, one black stare mitigated by Eve’s brown-colored eyes. Odd that she was so resolutely not looking at what Paul was doing. Oh well, here goes.
    â€œYou all know,” he said, “that Aaron Ku, your chief, was killed on the stairs last night. I am here to find his killer. Perhaps that killer came from outside. Perhaps he is one of you. I must make sure. The killing was done an hour before midnight. Did any of you hear anything at that time?”
    Silence.
    â€œDo you all understand what I am saying?”
    Silence.
    Pibble glanced at the top card in the left-hand pile.
    â€œMelchizedek Ku, do you hear what I say?”
    â€œYour tongue is lucid and apt, policeman.”
    The voice was as deep as Paul’s, but grittier. The speaker was second from the right in the group of graybeards, a very fat man but with most of his weight low on his torso, which was thus shaped like an American space capsule. He had a thin tassel of beard, which wobbled as he spoke.
    â€œThen why did you not answer me first time?” said Pibble.
    â€œThere is none to speak for us. Our chief is dead.”
    â€œI see. Well, then, I am the Queen’s servant, and I appoint you, Melchizedek, to speak for the Kus until you choose yourself a new chief. . .” He’d made a mess of it. The tension and shock in the air were tangible. Plunge in deeper. “And Leah Ku will speak for the women.” Tension and shock gone. He wondered if Eve had purposely put the most suitable leaders at the top of the pile; he wouldn’t put it beyond her.
    â€œNow, Leah and Melchizedek, are there any of your people who do not understand what I say?”
    â€œThe men understand.”
    â€œThe women understand.”
    Damn. He must remember to put the men before the women. Leah, he thought, was the beldame who had knelt at Aaron’s feet, though it might have been any of the four older ones. Two were obviously younger, and an unfortunately ugly one had strewn the herbs. She clearly had some disease; even in this strong light she seemed hardly to possess a distinct outline, as if she were some figurine which the sculptor had scarcely begun to model before he was called on by a celestial gentleman from Porlock. Funny, Pibble would have expected her eyes to be small and piggy amid those hummocks of flesh, like a whale’s. He turned his head away, as an animal abashed, from her soft jet gaze.
    â€œSo I may take it that none of you heard anything?” he said.
    A deep, formless muttering, like double basses