Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/17



A mass of a man was Valentine Morley, a collection of sinew and firm flesh, a monolith who towered impressively above the average human to the extent of six feet two. Such a man was made for hand to hand combat, straining flesh against straining flesh, with muscles taut under the smooth skin; such a man was for work with his two hands, wresting a livelihood from a world that was his if he would but go forth and throttle it. That’s the kind of man Valentine Morley looked.

But was he straining any flesh or tightening any muscles? Was he engaged in the business of wresting a livelihood? Not perceptibly. It is simply one of the ironies of the Fates, the stern gods who control the destinies of human kind. The only thing Val Morley was straining at the moment was his eyesight, over the fine print of an old book in the dim recesses of the second hand bookshop kept by old man Masterson on Fourth Avenue from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Rh