Obeying Dr. Clifton』s instrus, I spent two days in bed, eating and sleeping and reading Sherloes. I fess I overdosed on my prescribed treatment, gulping dowory after another. Before the end of the sed day Judith had been down to the library ached another volume of Doyle for me. She had grown suddenly kind toward me since my collapse. It was not the fact that she was sorry for me that altered her—though she was sorry— but the fact that now Emmeline』s presence was no longer a secret in the house, she was at liberty to let her natural sympathies govern her exges with me, instead of maintaining a stantly guarded facade.
『And has she never said anything about the thirteenth tale?「 she asked me wistfully one day.
『Not a word. And to you?「
She shook her head. 「Never. It』s strange, isn』t it, after all she』s written, that the most famous story of all is ohat might not eve, just think, she could probably publish a book with all the stories missing and it would still sell like hotcakes.」 And then, with a shake of the lead to clear her thoughts, and a one, 「So what do you make of Dr. Clifton, then?」
When Dr. Clifton dropped by to see how I was doing, his eye alighted on the volumes by my bedside; he said nothing but his nostrils twitched.
Ohird day, feeling as frail as a newborn, I got up. As I pulled the curtains apart, my room was flooded with a fresh, light. Outside, a brilliant, cloudless blue stretched from horizon to horizon, ah it the garden sparkled with frost. It was as if during those long overcast days the light had been accumulating behind the cloud, and now that the cloud was gohere was nothing to stop it flooding down, dreng us in a fht』s worth of illumination at once. Blinking in the brilliance, I felt something like life begin to move sluggishly in my veins.
Before breakfast I went outdoors. Slowly and cautiously I stepped around the lawn with Shadow at my heels. It was crisp underfoot, and everywhere the sun sparkled on icy foliage. The frost-rimed grass held the imprint of my soles, but at my side Shadow stepped like a dainty ghost, leaving no prints. At first the cold, dry air was like a knife in my throat, but little by little it rejuvenated me, and I rejoiced in the exhilaratioheless, a few minutes were enough; cheeks tingling, pink-fingered and with ag toes, I was glad to e ba and Shadow was glad to follow. First breakfast, then the library sofa, the blazing fire, and something to read.
I could judge how much better I was by the fact that my thoughts turned not to the treasures of Miss Winter』s library, but to her own story. Upstairs I retrieved my pile of paper, ed sihe day of my collapse, and brought it back to the warmth of the hearth where, with Shadow by my side, I spent the best part of the daylight hours reading. I read and I read and I read, disc the story all ain, reminding myself of its puzzles, mysteries as. But there were no revelations. At the end of it all I was as baffled as I had been before I started. Had someoampered with John-the-dig』s ladder? But who? And what was it that Hester had seen whehought she saw a ghost? And, more inexplicable than all the rest, how had Adelihat violent vagabond of a child, uo unicate with a her slow-witted sister and capable of heartbreaking acts of horticultural destru, developed into Miss Wihe self-disciplined author of dozens of best-selling novels and, furthermore, maker of an exquisite garden?
I pushed my pile of papers t