Mr Snipe hadn’t got to his position in the Snatch
& Grabbe Company without being a bit of a wily old cove, and he knew upon
which side his bread was buttered, mostly because he was one of the few
employees who could actually afford to regularly have his bread buttered.
He very swiftly bundled the younger Mr Snatch into a
shed and, with as much politeness as he could muster, managed to insist that he
stayed put for a few minutes and gained a promise from the bewildered and angry
young gentleman that he would indeed do so. Mr Snipe had, of course, taken the
opportunity to mention upon several occasions both the existence and nature of
the various slavering hounds which were currently running loose within the
grounds, as if to emphasise the importance of not trying to make a run for it.
Satisfied that his charge would indeed now be
precisely where he left him, he then went upstairs to run the considerable risk
of upsetting his current employer by returning to his office unannounced,
ostensibly to report back to him that the hounds had indeed been released as
per his employer’s previous instruction.
However, he had a much more devious reason for doing
so and consequently risking the vexation of Old Mr Snatch, who was rather used
to his instructions merely being carried out, and seldom felt the need to have
such matters confirmed to him in person. As he stood before that oh-so powerful
figure who did, ultimately, have the entire future of the Snipe family resting
in the palm of his hand (and, of course, knew it), Mr Snipe did, just for a
second, reconsider his plan and almost failed to go through with it.
But do it he did.
He feebly croaked out his report that the dogs were
indeed now loose and managed to get the sentence to tail off into the sort of
spluttering, hacking cough of which he was all rather too familiar.
Fearing that his employee might have spent far too
long in the damp and the cold of the outdoors and consequently caught a chill,
which might transform into a cold, and therefore might already be turning into
something he himself might catch, Old Mr Snatch covered his own nose with a
handkerchief and immediately waved Mr Snipe from his presence and demanded that
he go home immediately, rather grateful at the thought that he was more than
likely to spend the festive season recovering and might very well be back at
his own desk without missing neither a beat nor one actual working day.
And so, whispering a hoarse “Merry Christmas” in the
general direction of his employer, who chose to ignore the familiarity, he was
able to depart from his immediate vicinity and, not only that, was given leave
to return home to his family, and to rescue the young gentleman from inside the
hut in which he was waiting, and escort him from the site, talking to him as if
he was an old friend and business acquaintance, right under the very nose of
the slumbering gatekeeper.
Fairly swiftly, as the old ironwork gates swung
gratefully closed behind them, Mr Snipe did wonder quite what he was to do with
this lost soul, who suddenly had gone very quiet as he drank in his
surroundings with an air of bafflement which made Mr Snipe wonder whether he
had happened upon one of the Snatch family’s darker secrets and this poor
fellow had somehow escaped his incarceration in some kind of Bedlam.
Nevertheless, he seemed a calm and amiable enough
fellow, and he seemed willing enough to take him up on the offer of a warm
fireside and a bowl of hot soup, and he seemed to be positively invigorated as they
approached the welcoming light which glowed in the front window of his home.
Despite the lateness of the hour, both his wife Emily
and his older daughter were still waiting up for him, and leapt into action
almost as soon as the front door opened, running around like a couple of
dervishes to ensure that his homecoming was as happy as they could make it. The
presence of an unexpected guest caused them to miss hardly a step as they
cleared away the various Christmas preparations upon which they had been
working and busied themselves in swiftly divesting Mr Snipe of his topcoat, hat
and muffler, exchanging his shoes for some socks ready-toasted for him by the
fireside in anticipation of his return, and finally parking him in his
favourite armchair to get warm, some time after which they eventually expected to be sitting
themselves around the table for a lovingly prepared family meal.
Whilst all of this had been going on, Mr Snatch had
been particularly pleased that the daughter, whose name he learned was Jane,
fussed about him and removed his damp socks and hung them up to dry alongside
his jacket and shirt, and wondered about where his shoes had got to. This was
the first time that he had even noticed that he wasn’t wearing any, as his mind
had been so distracted by where he was and what had been happening, that he
hadn’t even had the time to think about such a thing.
She seemed amused when he mentioned that he had taken
them off when he went to bed and he didn’t know where they were, and she tried
to stifle a charming little giggle so as not to appear impolite about the
strangeness of such a remark, but he laughed along with her at the undeniable
fact of their absence, whilst wondering at the same time whether his toes would
ever thaw out, which made them both laugh all the harder.
Then she had sat him down in front of the roaring fire
to warm himself through and to dry out his trousers (which they had awkwardly
agreed ought to stay right where they were) whilst she and her mother went off
somewhere deep inside the house to sort out the food, returning briefly to hand
glasses of a warming punch to both of the gentlemen.
Mr Snipe looked across at the dishevelled young fellow
sitting across on the other side of the fireplace from him, his face lit by the
flickering firelight. “Yes,” he thought, “There is a definite resemblance…” He
watched intently as Mr Snatch shivered and tried to take a sip from the glass
which he struggled to hold in his cupped hands.
Then he felt the blood in his veins turn to the cold
water of fear as the figure sitting right in front of him simply vanished,
leaving the glass to tumble through mid-air and smash onto the hearth below.
One second he had been sitting right there, and the
next he was gone leaving nothing behind him but a jacket, a shirt and a pair of
socks still steaming away in front of the fire to say that he had ever been
there…
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