The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest (20 page)

“Sorry. That's what the two-headed penny was about. Caine had used it to trick the tribe into letting him stay with them, and Aaron thought it'd be the clincher for making Eve get rid of him. I daresay Caine would tell you about it now if you twisted his arm a bit. Miss Hermitage said he was as soft as butter.”

“He's gone,” said Graham. “There's nothing anyone can lay on him, as far as I can see, but he's run. There's a call out, but you can't tell how long it'll be.”

“Yes,” said Pibble. “She said he'd do that.”

“Who? Mrs. Caine?”

“Nan Hermitage. How are the others taking it, Sandy?”

“Not been down there myself, but Fernham rang up to say they were having a community hymn singing; all the gloomy ones—‘Abide with Me,' and so on. He said they were quiet, but the men looked sulky. That all, Jimmy?”

“I've blotted my copybook with this one, Sandy. Heard what they think about it at the Yard?”

“Don't you worry, Jimmy boy. They're all too busy running round in circles after Furlough. They won't notice a slight cockup over a silly little case like this.”

“I suppose not.”

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“Be a pal and find out if anything's been done for Ned's mother. She's a little old saint, stone blind.”

“Right. Crewe sent you a letter. Bye, then.”

There was a handwritten note, saying, “This is from my girl in traffic control. I got quite pally with the chap I saw at London University, and the feeling seems to be that Dr. Ku is unique in a very specialized and very limited field, and that her ideas—as distinct from her knowledge—are on the old-fashioned side. Chaos here. Get well soon.”

“This” was a typewritten flimsy, which said:

EPHRAIM FLAGG,
18??—1893, born in Newcastle. Nothing else known of his early life. Appeared in London in the mid-sixties with a small sum of capital and set up as a builder, at a time when London was expanding uncontrollably with the advent of the suburban railways. Flagg soon became notorious as a jerry-builder even in a jerry-building age. His property speculations were accompanied by lavish corruption of officials. He was never successfully sued, but only just escaped the attentions of a Parliamentary Commission—it was alleged by spending a fortune in bribes. In 1885, Flagg was converted to a sect of ultraenthusiastic evangelists whose moving spirit was the Reverend Richard Oakenhouse (later convicted for a series of frauds on elderly widows) and who called themselves the Pure People. Flagg wished to use part of his fortune to build them a church, but worship inside buildings was contrary to their tenets. However, Oakenhouse persuaded him to atone for his previous sins by building a terrace of perfect houses for the Pure People to inhabit. Oakenhouse vetted every contractor before he would pass them as workers worthy of their task. It was only when the buildings were almost completed that Flagg discovered how much commission Oakenhouse had squeezed out of the contractors. In his rage, he left the Pure People and named the Terrace after himself. The Minister has recently refused to place a preservation order on Flagg Terrace.

About the Author

P
eter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of
Punch
, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.

The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children's literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for two books running:
Skin Deep
(1968) and
A Pride of Heroes
(1969).

A collection of Dickinson's poetry,
The Weir
, was published in 2007. His latest book,
In the Palace of the Khans
, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.

Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Reprinted with the permission of the author and Georges Borchardt, Inc.

Copyright © 1968 by Peter Dickinson

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-5040-0365-0

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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