12 books

2. Pengakuan Psikopat

Febi mempercepat langkahnya. Gadis itu berjalan menyusuri g**g kecil dan gelap itu karena itu satu-satunya jalan menuju ke kostnya. Didengarnya suara seperti langkah kaki tapi samar-samar dan terasa jauh. Ia menoleh ke belakang dengan gerakan yang tiba-tiba...tidak ada siapapun. Perasaan apa ini? Seperti perasaan cemas bercampur takut dan kuatir yang tidak pada tempatnya. Sudah kesekian kalinya Febi merasa ada yang mengikutinya di belakang sepulang ia dari kampus. Gadis itu memutuskan cepat-cepat berlari sampai ke kost dan segera masuk ke kamarnya. g**g kecil itu begitu sepi, jauh dari kamar kost Febi. Seorang pria bertubuh tinggi berpundak lebar sedang berdiri setengah tertutup tembok, sedang memperhatikan Febi yang setengah panik masuk ke kost. Pengalaman menegangkan itu membawa kecurigaan Febi pada seorang psikopat yang berusaha menghancurkan hidupnya. Ian adalah seorang pria yang selalu tampil baik dan superior. Tapi Febi mengetahui dibalik penampilan primanya, Ian memiliki kejahatan-kejahatan yang terselubung. Hanya saja semakin Febi berusaha menghubungkan misteri-misteri yang dialaminya dengan Ian, semakin ia terjerembab dalam siasat dan tingkah laku Ian yang tidak normal. Ian yang menjadi tersangka penguntitan Febi akhirnya menjadi tersangka sebuah kasus pembunuhan yang terjadi di kampus mereka. Semua misteri yang terjadi terhubung pada sindrom psikopatisnya. Benarkah Ian yang melakukan tindakan kriminal itu?

Lei Locke

3. The House of Baltazar

THE early story of Baltazar is not the easiest one to tell. It is episodic. It obeys not the Unities of Time, Place and Action. The only unity to be found in it is the oneness of character in that absurd and accomplished man. The fact of his being lustily alive at the present moment does not matter. To get him in perspective, one must regard him as belonging to the past. Now the past is a relative conception. Save to the academic student of History, Charlemagne is as remote as Sesostris. To the world emerging from the stupor of the great war, Mons is as distant as Balaclava. Time is really reckoned by the heart-throbs of individuals or nations. Yester-year is infinitely far away. . . . To get back to Baltazar and his story. In the first place it may be said that he was a man of fits and starts; a description which does not imply irresponsible mobility of purpose and spasmodic achievement. The phrase must be taken in the literal significance of the two terms. A man of fits—of mental, moral and emotional paroxysms; of starts—of swift courses of action which these paroxysms irresistibly determined. Which same causes of action, in each case, he doggedly and ruthlessly pursued. One, an intimate teacher of Baltazar, one who, possessed of the knowledge of the scholar and the wisdom of the man of the world, might be qualified to judge, called him a Fool of Genius. Now the genius is steadfast; the fool erratic. In this apparent irreconcilability of attributes lies the difficulty of presenting the story of Baltazar. But for the war, the story would scarcely be worth the telling, however interesting might be his sheer personality and his calculated waywardness. It would have led no whither, save to a stage or two further on his journey to the grave. But there is scarcely a human being alive with whose apparently predestined lot the war has not played the very devil. It knocked Baltazar’s world to bits—as soon as the realization of it burst on his astonished senses; yet it seemed to bring finality or continuity into his hitherto disconnected life. It was during the war that his name was mentioned and his character discussed for the first time for many years, by two persons not without interest in his fate.

4. The Glory of Clementina Wing

Unless you knew that by taking a few turnings in any direction and walking for five minutes you would inevitably come into one of the great, clashing, shrieking thoroughfares of London, you might think that Romney Place, Chelsea, was situated in some world-forgotten cathedral city. Why it is called a “place,” history does not record. It is simply a street, or double terrace, the quietest, sedatest, most unruffled, most old-maidish street you can imagine. Its primness is painful. It is rigorously closed to organ-grinders and German bands; and itinerant vendors of coal would have as much hope of selling their wares inside the British Museum as of attracting custom in Romney Place by their raucous appeal. Little dogs on leads and lazy Persian cats are its genii loci. It consists of a double row of little Early Victorian houses, each having a basement protected by area railings, an entrance floor reached by a prim little flight of steps, and an upper floor. Three little houses close one end of the street, a sleepy little modern church masks the other. Each house has a tiny back garden which, on the south side, owing to the gradual slope of the ground riverwards, is on a level with the basement floor and thus on a lower level than the street. Some of the houses on this south side are constructed with a studio on the garden level running the whole height of the house. A sloping skylight in the roof admits the precious north light, and a French window leads on to the garden. A gallery runs round the studio, on a level and in communication with the entrance floor; and from this to the ground is a spiral staircase. From such a gallery did Tommy Burgrave, one November afternoon, look down into the studio of Clementina Wing. She was not alone, as he had expected; for in front of an easel carrying a nearly finished portrait stood the original, a pretty, dainty girl accompanied by a well-dressed, well-fed, bullet-headed, bull-necked, commonplace young man. Clementina, on hearing footsteps, looked up.

5. The Wonderful Year

THERE is a letter for you, monsieur,” said the concierge of the Hôtel du Soleil et de l’Ecosse. He was a shabby concierge sharing in the tarnish of the shabby hotel which (for the information of those fortunate ones who only know of the Ritz, and the Meurice and other such-like palaces) is situated in the unaristocratic neighbourhood of the Halles Centrales. “As it bears the Paris postmark, it must be the one which monsieur was expecting,” said he, detaching it from the clip on the keyboard. “You are perfectly right,” said Martin Overshaw. “I recognise the handwriting.” The young Englishman sat on the worn cane seat in the little vestibule and read his letter. It ran: Dear Martin, I’ve been away. Otherwise I should have answered your note sooner. I’m delighted you’re in this God-forsaken city, but what brought you here in August, Heaven only knows. We must meet at once. I can’t ask you to my abode, because I’ve only one room, one chair and a bed, and you would be shocked to sit on the chair while I sat on the bed, or to sit on the bed while I sat on the chair. And I couldn’t offer you anything but a cigarette (caporal, à quatre sous le paquet) and the fag end of a bottle of grenadine syrup and water. So let us dine together at the place where I take such meals as I can afford. Au Petit Cornichon, or as the snob of a proprietor yearns to call it, The “Restaurant Dufour.” It’s a beast of a hole in the Rue Baret off the Rue Bonaparte; but I don’t think either of us could run to the Café de Paris or Paillard’s and we’ll have it all to ourselves. Meet me there at seven.

6. Ovunque ci porti

Affascinante. Sexy. Irresistibile.Ovvero: un sacco di guai. Brynne Calloway sa bene che tutto ciò che sembra troppo bello per essere vero di solito è rischioso. Fenton Abbott con la sua voce vellutata, il corpo di un Adone e un magnetismo senza uguali rientra in quella categoria. Ma che razza di vita è quella in cui non si osa nemmeno un po'?Reduce dall'ultima delusione d'amore, Brynne decide allora di fuggire dalla realtà per qualche giorno, gettandosi tra le braccia di Fenton e godendosi quella che avrebbe dovuto essere un'avventura senza complicazioni.Le cose, però, non vanno proprio secondo i suoi piani.Fenton si rivela essere molto di più che un “gran bel rischio calcolato” e Brynne, sorpresa dai suoi modi e dal suo carattere, si troverà a dover far i conti con un cuore, il suo, che desidera molto di più che un'avventura.

Adriana Locke

7. The Wonderful Year

THERE is a letter for you, monsieur,” said the concierge of the Hôtel du Soleil et de l’Ecosse.He was a shabby concierge sharing in the tarnish of the shabby hotel which (for the information of those fortunate ones who only know of the Ritz, and the Meurice and other such-like palaces) is situated in the unaristocratic neighbourhood of the Halles Centrales.“As it bears the Paris postmark, it must be the one which monsieur was expecting,” said he, detaching it from the clip on the keyboard.

8. The Tale of Triona

OLIVIA GALE leaned back in her chair at the end of the dining-room table, and looked first at the elderly gentleman on her right, and then at the elderly gentleman on her left.“You’re both of you as kind as can be, and I’m more than grateful for all you’ve done; but I do wish you’d see that it’s no use arguing. It only hurts and makes us tired. Do help yourself, Mr. Trivett. And—another cup of tea, Mr. Fenmarch?”Mr. Fenmarch, on her left, passed his cup with a sigh. He was a dusty, greyish man, his face covered with an indeterminate growth of thin short hair. His eyes were of a dull, unspeculative blue.“As your solicitor, my dear Olivia,” said he, “I can only obey instructions. As the friend of your family, I venture to give you advice.”

9. The first soldier to fight with heavenly demons!

The first rift on the world appeared on the Pacific ocean, the soldier from the Philippines was the first to appear on the front line. When the soldier entered the rift they was annihilated and there was only one soldier that suvived the annihilation.

Typical Locke

10. The Usurper

It was at the opening by Royalty of the new General Hospital which his munificence had provided for the suburb of North Ham that they first met.Jasper Vellacot’s eye caught her slender figure and kind, serene face as soon as she drove up with the Member for the borough and his wife, and he wondered who she was. In his character of host, he stood at the top of the flight of steps down which ran the conventional strip of red baize, and received his guests. Over the shoulders of the preceding arrivals he watched her approach, curiously interested. He shook hands with the Member and his wife, and was introduced to their companion. He did not catch her name, and before he could say anything intelligible, the Mayor, gorgeous in robe and chain, mounted the steps, and she passed on. After that the Royalties arrived, and henceforward he was in close attendance upon them; but at intervals his glance wandered over the well-dressed crowd and rested upon the woman, and the sight of her gave him a queer sense of relief. Once or twice he met her eyes, and fancied he read in them a reciprocal look of interest, half grave, half humorous. He began to chafe under the constraint, to wish that he could escape from the gracious compliments of the Personages and the circumambient odour of flattery, and talk quietly with her. She seemed to hold out a promise of restfulness.

11. The Town of Tombarel

My acquaintance with Monsieur Alcide Tombarel was formed in a very pleasant way; for Bacchus at his most innocent and most charming brought us together.No one who lives in any part of wine-growing France can despise the little wines of the country—the little wines, like the children of the soil, that pine away and die if transplanted far from their own district, that laugh out their butterfly life for a season or two, and then perish from premature old age. In the south especially they are part and parcel of the sunshine of the midday meal. Now, such a wine, pale gold, full, with a faint perfume of hyacinth and a touch of the flavour of flint to give it character, did I drink at the table of my friend, General Duhamel, who has a villa of the modern stucco world in the Mont Boron quarter of Nice, super-imposed on a cellar of Paradise. He was good enough to give me the address of the vine-grower; for thus do the wise buy their little wines of the country—not in commonplace bottles from pettifogging wine merchants, but in casks filled from generous tuns in the vineyards themselves.

12. The Kingdom of Theophilus

THEOPHILUS BIRD, having walked the half-mile or so from Blackheath Station, opened the gate of his dark villa, crossed the bit of garden faintly lit by the fanlight over the front door, and with his latch-key let himself into the house. Hat and coat hung up on a walnut hatstand, he rubbed his hands together, for it was a frosty January evening, and though, according to convention, he had put on his gloves in order to walk from his office in Whitehall to Charing Cross Station, he had taken them off in the railway carriage and forgotten to put them on again.The plan of the entrance floor was simple. On the immediate left of the hall, a small room—grandiloquently termed the library—and, farther along, the dining-room. On the right, one flight of stairs going up, and another going down, with a toilet-room between. In front, the drawing-room. The door of this he opened, to find pitch blackness. An electric light switched on showed the ashes of a dead fire. The dining-room proved equally cheerless. He rang the bell. A meagre woman in a soiled print dress appeared.