Gibbous House 50

On the other side of this elongated extension from the main body of the house, a shorter edifice did indeed emerge from the dome. It was almost commensurate with what one might have expected from the bedroom arrangements on the first floor. Disconcertingly, it did seem a little short, as though several of the bedrooms were little more than closets.

Despite this peculiarity, I was in fact more interested in the ground floor of this part of the house, for the simple reason that I had not seen it. The first two windows belonged to the kitchen, it was a little small for the house, had both wings been in use. A solitary candle guttered on a large table, its flickering light reflected in the shine from numerous copper pans hanging from a rack suspended from the ceiling. It was deserted. Although I did detect an occasional rapid movement, that might have warranted the recall of a cat or two from the east wing. At the next window, I truly was discomposed when the cook appeared with an oil lamp before her breast. The woman could have been blind for all she registered my presence a few scant inches away on the other side of the glass. She put me in mind of the anatomical specimen hidden behind the wardrobe, peering out of the dining room window. Perhaps because she was naked, and would have provided quite as good a guide as to the composition of the thoracic skeleton as that other assemblage of bones.

I passed several darkened windows, obscured by the absence of candlelight and the dirt of neglect. The final window in the wall was brightly illumated; Maccabi was bare-chested. He appeared in a state of some excitement. I caught a flash of blue skirts as someone left his room. A sleepless night for Jedediah, I surmised. I stepped back quickly into the shadows. Maccabi stared, chin jutting, out of the window, the very picture of the romantic hero. Stifling a laugh, I decided to put off exploring the other half of the exterior until the morrow. Retracing my steps , I soon found myself on the terrace outside the library. My eye was caught once more by the red coal light. Taking the right-hand edge of the flagstones as my departure point, I descended the gradient, thinking to place myself some yards to the right of the smoking shepherd.

Though scarce ten feet from me, he remained unaware of my presence. The sheep were skittish, but he appeared to think little of it. There could be no other reason for a shepherd to be abroad at this hour save to protect his master's flock. This fellow appeared to making a very poor effort at his duty and so I felt his fate was deserved. There was a yellow scarf in my pocket, but even the most credulous would not have accepted the presence of thuggee in this isolated place. My boot struck a rock lightly, I bent down and picked it up. It made a fine sound as it cracked the man's skull. Picking him up, I carried him over the brow of the hill. We were looking towards the pond and both frogs and ducks were silent until I threw the shepherd down the slope. He rolled like a misshapen barrel until I heard a splash and the renewed hostilities between the waterfowl and the amphibians.

I cursed the fact I had not kept his pipe, for a smoke would have completed my pleasure.