Mince No Words: Seventh Battle Stations
The Folly
Battle Stations
Mince No Words
Business is to be got to…Trout, though he’d offered pretext
Possesses so little of personal quality
While a monocled eye, unsuffering of fools, peers so expectant
The host shrugs away his first, introductory amblings
Though ahead he forages as much as forges…
‘You know, of course, that we are a Spiritualist circle
at the Folly, that Mrs. Tattersby…ahem…however’
It had looked to him as though Llewellyn thought to speak
‘Mrs. Tattersby, I say, is curiously a connexion of Atherleigh
She has gone abroad…’
A silence
‘Follow me to my library.’
An upstairs room well-heated, a view of the sea
Two armchairs in conversation placed to catch salt draughts
from the balcony. ‘Now we’ll mince no words,’ the colonel says
‘You mention Atherleigh. For a reason. I’ll have it.’
Curiously, the host rebukes himself
The very spot I put the fatal foot
No help. Truth the recommended thing, and none to tell
Falco’s name delivered them from the dead man Krug.
‘I should waste your time making pretence—
Llewellyn’s eye says, late for that
‘Fiona is a private woman, but these events
Are…were…have been, rather spectacular…
She finds the boy Leslie given into her care
I believe, in fact, they call him Wennie…from his second name…’
‘They may call him as they like, no doubt. Hardly to do with me.
Sir, you have said nothing to the point.
I suspect you are less the simpleton than you make out.’
Why yes. Why no. Never mind.
The point is a gamble, a desperate toss
Or not. Dare it…dare it…
What will they do, clap you in the stocks?
‘I don’t know the fellow’s Christian name…’
Mince No Words
A Body Surfaces
(2020, Stephanie Foster)