The Club of Queer Trades by G. K. Chesterton (the rosie project TXT) ๐
Description
Charles Swinburne and his friend, the private detective Rupert Grant, are startled when Major Brown recounts the things that happened to him that morning. Along with Rupertโs brother, the ex-judge Basil Grant, they launch headlong into their investigation only to discover that the antagonist is a member of the Club of Queer Trades. Over the course of six short stories, the secrets of the Club come to light in surprising ways.
The Club of Queer Trades was one of G. K. Chestertonโs earlier works, and was originally serialized in Harperโs Weekly in 1904 before being collected into a novel in 1905. In recent years it was produced as a six-part radio drama by the BBC.
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- Author: G. K. Chesterton
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Very few people knew anything of Basil; not because he was in the least unsociable, for if a man out of the street had walked into his rooms he would have kept him talking till morning. Few people knew him, because, like all poets, he could do without them; he welcomed a human face as he might welcome a sudden blend of colour in a sunset; but he no more felt the need of going out to parties than he felt the need of altering the sunset clouds. He lived in a queer and comfortable garret in the roofs of Lambeth. He was surrounded by a chaos of things that were in odd contrast to the slums around him; old fantastic books, swords, armourโ โthe whole dust-hole of romanticism. But his face, amid all these quixotic relics, appeared curiously keen and modernโ โa powerful, legal face. And no one but I knew who he was.
Long ago as it is, everyone remembers the terrible and grotesque scene that occurred in โธป, when one of the most acute and forcible of the English judges suddenly went mad on the bench. I had my own view of that occurrence; but about the facts themselves there is no question at all. For some months, indeed for some years, people had detected something curious in the judgeโs conduct. He seemed to have lost interest in the law, in which he had been beyond expression brilliant and terrible as a K.C., and to be occupied in giving personal and moral advice to the people concerned. He talked more like a priest or a doctor, and a very outspoken one at that. The first thrill was probably given when he said to a man who had attempted a crime of passion: โI sentence you to three years imprisonment, under the firm, and solemn, and God-given conviction, that what you require is three months at the seaside.โ He accused criminals from the bench, not so much of their obvious legal crimes, but of things that had never been heard of in a court of justice, monstrous egoism, lack of humour, and morbidity deliberately encouraged. Things came to a head in that celebrated diamond case in which the Prime Minister himself, that brilliant patrician, had to come forward, gracefully and reluctantly, to give evidence against his valet. After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: โGet a new soul. That thingโs not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.โ All this, of course, in the eyes of the sagacious, was premonitory of that melancholy and farcical day when his wits actually deserted him in open court. It was a libel case between two very eminent and powerful financiers, against both of whom charges of considerable defalcation were brought. The case was long and complex; the advocates were long and eloquent; but at last, after weeks of work and rhetoric, the time came for the great judge to give a summing-up; and one of his celebrated masterpieces of lucidity and pulverizing logic was eagerly looked for. He had spoken very little during the prolonged affair, and he looked sad and lowering at the end of it. He was silent for a few moments, and then burst into a stentorian song. His remarks (as reported) were as follows:
โO Rowty-owty tiddly-owty
Tiddly-owty tiddly-owty
Highty-ighty tiddly-ighty
Tiddly-ighty ow.โ
He then retired from public life and took the garret in Lambeth.
I was sitting there one evening, about six oโclock, over a glass of that gorgeous Burgundy which he kept behind a pile of black-letter folios; he was striding about the room, fingering, after a habit of his, one of the great swords in his collection; the red glare of the strong fire struck his square features and his fierce grey hair; his blue eyes were even unusually full of dreams, and he had opened his mouth to speak dreamily, when the door was flung open, and a pale, fiery man, with red hair and a huge furred overcoat, swung himself panting into the room.
โSorry to bother you, Basil,โ he gasped. โI took a libertyโ โmade an appointment here with a manโ โa clientโ โin five minutesโ โI beg your pardon, sir,โ and he gave me a bow of apology.
Basil smiled at me. โYou didnโt know,โ he said, โthat I had a practical brother. This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, aโ โwhat are you now, Rupert?โ
โI am and have been for some time,โ said Rupert, with some dignity, โa private detective, and thereโs my client.โ
A loud rap at the door had cut him short, and, on permission being given, the door was thrown sharply open and a stout, dapper man walked swiftly into the room, set his silk hat with a clap on the table, and said, โGood evening, gentlemen,โ with a stress on the last syllable that somehow marked him out as a martinet, military, literary and social. He had a large head streaked with black and grey, and an abrupt black moustache, which gave him a look of fierceness which was contradicted by his sad sea-blue eyes.
Basil immediately said to me, โLet us come into the next room, Gully,โ and was moving towards the door, but the stranger said:
โNot at all. Friends remain. Assistance possibly.โ
The moment I heard him speak I remembered who he was, a certain Major Brown I had met years before in Basilโs society. I had forgotten altogether the black dandified figure and the large solemn head, but I remembered the peculiar speech, which consisted of only saying about a
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