Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 72 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 72: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Page 60 of "The Taking of Helen" This is a page of running prose from a Victorian sensation novel. An officer interrogates a young underling named Myrtle about a failed search of a dovecot for political prisoners. The officer suspects negligence—the man was ordered to search but claims the cote was full of doves. A servant named Myrtle offers to fetch a sponge after the officer soils himself in the muck. The officer then notices an unusual scent in what was once a spinning-room, now used occasionally as storage, suggesting hidden prisoners may actually be concealed there.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
60 THE TAKING OF HELEN Nireus knew when he saw it that Paris was lying there just above his head. The officer moved up again to the dovecot door, to examine it more closely. ‘By your own confession,’ he said to his underling, “you were in here this morning, hunting for political prisoners upon whose capture the King himself sets the utmost importance, yet you did not open this door, mor search the cote. You may have been within six feet of them.” “Sir,” the young man answered, “the cote was full of doves when I was here. The prisoners could not have been there.”’ “You were trusted to search and did not search. It is odd that you young fools cannot be left two min- utes by yourselves.’’ | “T am afraid, sir,’ Myrtle said, “that you have made yourself in rather a mess in the cote among the doves. It is a mucky place at this season. When you come to the kitchen I'll fetch you a sponge.” The officer looked at his soiled gear. “What is this room used for?”’ he asked. “T believe it was a spinning-room in the old lord’s time, sir,’ Myrtle said. “But it is not used now, ex- cept sometimes as a store.”’ The officer looked about it and snuffed. ‘“‘A queer smell here,” he said. “It is not quite the pigeons. It smells like the smell of some scent.” CONRNICLOOKS»1EO