The Stone That Never Came Down by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A

there’d be hell to pay.”
    “Sir!” Diffidently from the young constable. “The body did look as though someone had searched the pockets. And these kids are a rough lot. Wouldn’t put it past ’em to …” He ended on a shrug. With a sigh, Sawyer gave ground.
    “You come too, Campbell,” Randolph said. “You knew him and his habits better than us, I imagine. We’re likely to need your advice.”

    “Oh, Billy! Thanks!” gasped Ruth as she ducked into the hallway of Malcolm’s home, followed by a blast of freezing air. Setting down the heavy bag of shopping she carried, obviously her last pre-Christmas purchases, she went on, “Are you okay?”
    Touching the bandage around his head, Billy answered with a sour grin. “As well as can be expected. They didn’t even, have to put stitches in.”
    “Thank goodness for that! Uh–is Malcolm in?”
    “I don’t think so. I just knocked on his door and got no answer. I passed out when I came home from the clinic, you see, because of the shot they gave me, I guess, and when I woke up a few minutes ago I came down to say thanks, and … Mind out, Ruth.”
    Descending the stairs carrying luggage, embittered Len Shaw, oldest of Malcolm’s lodgers. Pushing by, he said, “Merry Christmas!” In a tone suggestive of afterthought.
    “Is Malcolm expecting you?” Billy went on.
    “Not exactly. I … Well, it may sound silly, but I make a point of not seeing him every day.”
    “And of not having a key to this house,” Billy said acutely. “Too much like permanent, hm?”
    She gave him a sharp suspicious glance.
    “No, Malcolm hasn’t been talking about you to me! But … Well, I’ve seen the change you’ve brought about in him, and I think it’s great. You know what a state he was in when I arrived, a month or so after his wife walked out with the kids because he’s unemployed. Even if he was just my landlord, he struck me as a nice guy, and I was worried to see him so miserable. And then you showed up, and ever since … Say, can I ask a personal question?”
    “I won’t promise to answer, but go ahead.”
    “You’re single, right? Well–why the hell?”
    Ruth bit her lip. “If you must know,” she said after a pause, “by accident. Fatal-type.”
    “Oh! Like–uh–a car-crash killed your fiancé?”
    “No, a train-crash killed my father. And left my mother crippled. It meant I couldn’t go to university, and when she did eventually die … Well, it seemed too late for children, and that to me is the reason for being married. But I’m doing okay. I have a steady secure job, because of course I had to have one, and I don’t think I was cut out to be a wife.”
    More luggage being carried down the stairs: Reggie Brown, the dreadfully earnest student of archaeology, helping devout Mary with her bags. More insincere cries of “Merry Christmas!” And a renewed blast of cold wind down the hallway.
    “Are you going away over Christmas?” Billy asked as the door shut.
    “Yes, I’m visiting my brother in Kent. What about you?”
    Billy shrugged. “Oh, I’ll stay home. I don’t have any kinfolk in England, you know, and all my friends are around here. Besides, after what happened this morning I don’t feel too much inclined to celebrate a Christian feast.”
    “It was terrible, wasn’t it?” Ruth said. “They were like wild beasts! I really thought for a moment they were going to kill you.”
    “Wouldn’t have been the first time a Jew got killed for being Jewish, would it?” Billy grunted. “I’ve run across them before, you know. Once we caught one of them planting a gas-bomb–I mean a petrol-bomb–in the section of the bookstore where we keep sex-counselling books and medical texts. And there’s a clothing store I pass every morning and evening that closed down after they smashed its windows half a dozen times. They’d found out it was catering to gay people. That made me really hate their guts. Not that I could afford the prices