The Lying Tongue

The Lying Tongue by Andrew Wilson

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Authors: Andrew Wilson
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sorry. The damned thing just wouldn’t stop bleeding, so I had to keep it under the tap,” I said as I helped him to his feet.
    “Let’s see,” said Crace, grasping my hand and bringing the cut digit closer to his face. “Your hand is still hot.”
    He eyed me with suspicion.
    “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to buy time to think.
    “You can’t have put your hand under the tap to stop the bleeding because your hand is not cold.”
    I didn’t know what to say. Had he guessed? Had he seen me?
    “Let me explain—”
    Crace cut me off. “You fool, you’re supposed to put it under the cold, not the hot tap. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?”
    I had to disguise my relief.
    “I just hope I never have to depend on you for first aid.”
    We both laughed.
    “Now, let’s find that fucking key, shall we?”
    Needless to say, it didn’t take us long to find it. When I thought Crace wasn’t looking, I simply took it out of my pocket and quietly placed it on the floor, behind one of the legs of the dining table.
    “There it is,” I said, pointing. You could just see the end of it sticking out from the shadows. I stretched out and grabbed it, bringing it up to show Crace as proudly as a boy diver brandishing an oyster containing a fat pearl.
    “Well done, Adam, well done,” he said, patting me lightly on the arm. “So let’s go and see what secrets the box holds, shall we? You don’t mind, do you?”
    He seemed unusually keen to accompany me downstairs, and I couldn’t fob him off any more. Perhaps my story had been so compelling that he now felt unusually involved, curious to know more about Eliza and the situation back home. Maybe he even felt like part of me in a funny sort of way. It didn’t matter. Who cared? Now there was nothing to fear. I had retrieved the letter from the box. I was on his trail. I was in control.
    We walked slowly together down the portego. I supported him as he lowered himself down one stair at a time into the courtyard, his skeletal hands cupping themselves around my shoulders, occasionally touching my neck as we descended. Crace stopped for a moment as we passed the Cupid sculpture in the center of the courtyard and mumbled something about love not looking with the eyes but the mind. He turned to me and smiled.
    “Go on then, Adam. Let’s see what’s inside.” He gestured to the box.
    As I pushed the key into the lock, a bloody fingerprint on the lid looked back at me like an unblinking, dark red eye.
    “Found anything?” asked Crace.
    I lifted the lid, trying to smudge away the print as I did so. I reached inside.
    “There’s nothing here,” I said.
    “Now, isn’t that strange?”

    All I wanted to do was escape into my bedroom where I could read the letter. But as I helped Crace into his chair in the drawing room, he patted the neighboring chair and gestured for me to sit by him. He looked at me with a serious, concerned expression.
    “I think we need to talk a little more about what we were discussing earlier,” he said.
    There was no way out of this one. I sat down beside him. I could feel my face beginning to burn.
    “But before we do, I feel it only fair that I tell you a little about myself,” Crace said, his tongue flicking over his thin, dry lips. “I’ve deliberately given you very little information or insight into my life, and please don’t think that is a reflection on you. In fact, it has nothing to do with you whatsoever. I have to be careful, you see. Well, I suppose I feel I have to be careful. Oh, I’m afraid I’m making very little sense.” His face seemed to crease and crumple like an old sheet of paper. “Of course, I know what you must think of me, living here without stepping outside—”
    I tried to speak, to come to his defense out of a spirit of politeness, but he raised his hand and brushed aside whatever I was going to say.
    “And I do think that to the outside world I must appear rather an eccentric, indeed quite a sad

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