This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online

dolphin, the shooting stopped.’
    ‘But,
Lucy
!’ Phyllida was horrified. ‘You might have been hurt!’
    ‘I didn’t think,’ I confessed. ‘I was just so blazing mad, I had to stop him somehow.’
    ‘You never do think! One of these days you
will
get hurt!’ She turned, with a gesture half of exasperation, half of amusement, to Godfrey. ‘She’s always been the same. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen her really fly off the handle about – animals. She even rescues drowning wasps, and spiders out of the bath, and worms that come out when it rains and get caught crossing the road. The funny thing is, they see her coming. She once put her hand down on an adder, and it didn’t even bite her.’
    ‘It was probably knocked cold,’ I said curtly, as embarrassed under Godfrey’s amused look as if I was being accused of some odd perversion. I added,defiantly: ‘I can’t stand seeing anything hurt, that’s all. So from now on I’ll keep my eye on it if I have to bathe there every day. That dolphin of yours has got itself a one girl guard, Mr Manning.’
    ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’
    Phyl said: ‘I still can’t believe it. Who in the world could it have been, up in those woods with a gun?’
    I thought for a moment he was going to answer, but he turned back to his task of stowing away the photographs, shutting the portfolio on the last of them with a snap. ‘I can’t imagine.’ Then, to me: ‘I suppose you didn’t see anyone?’
    ‘Oh, yes.’
    This produced a gratifying amount of sensation. Phyllida gave a little squeak, and clapped a hand to where, roughly, one imagined Caliban to be. Godfrey Manning said quickly: ‘You did? Where? I suppose you didn’t get near enough to see who it was?’
    ‘I did indeed, in the wood below the Castello terrace, and he was utterly beastly!’ I said warmly. ‘He said he was Julian Gale’s son, and—’
    ‘
Max Gale!
’ This from Phyllida, incredulously. ‘Lucy, you’re not trying to tell me that Max Gale was running round in the woods with a rifle, loosing it off at all and sundry? Don’t be silly!’
    ‘Well, he did say it wasn’t him,’ I admitted, ‘and he’d got rid of the gun, so I couldn’t prove it was, but I didn’t believe him. He
looked
as if he’d be capable of anything, and anyway, he was quite foully rude, and it wasn’t a bit necessary!’
    ‘You were trespassing,’ said Godfrey dryly.
    ‘Even so, it couldn’t have been him!’ said my sister positively.
    ‘Probably not,’ said Godfrey.
    She looked at him sharply. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    But she had obviously understood whatever it was he hadn’t said. Her eyes widened. ‘But why in the world—?’ She caught her breath, and I thought she changed colour. ‘Oh, my God, I suppose it could be …! But Godfrey, that’s frightful! If
he
got his hands on a gun—!’
    ‘Quite. And if he did, naturally Gale would cover up.’
    ‘Well, but what can we do? I mean, if there’s any danger—’
    ‘There won’t be, now,’ he said calmly. ‘Look, Phyl, it’ll be all right. If Max Gale didn’t know before, he does now, and he’ll have the sense to keep anything like that out of the old man’s hands.’
    ‘How?’ she demanded. ‘Just tell me how? Have you ever
been
in that ghastly museum of a place?’
    ‘No. Why? Is there a gun-room or something?’
    ‘Gun-room!’ said Phyllida. ‘Give me strength! Gun-room! The Castello walls are just about
papered
with the things! Guns, daggers, spears, assegais, the lot. I’ll swear there’s everything there from carbines to knuckle-dusters. There’s even a cannon at the front door! Good heavens, Leo’s grandfather
collected
the things! Nobody’s going to know if a dozen rifles or so go missing!’
    ‘Now isn’t that nice?’ said Godfrey.
    ‘Look,’ I said forcibly, ‘one minute more of this, and I shall scream. What’s all the mystery? Are you two talking about Julian Gale? Because if you are I never