The Laughing Hangman

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He missed her. Nicholas Bracewell felt a pang of regret so sharp and so unexpected that it made him catch his breath. He looked down involuntarily to see if the point of a knife had pricked his chest and drawn blood. Nicholas had not even been thinking about Anne Hendrik, still less talking about her, yet she was suddenly filling his mind, standing before his eyes and stroking his cheek with wistful fingers. It was at once reassuring and tantalising.

For several minutes, Nicholas was so enveloped by a flurry of wonderful memories that he paid no heed to the argument that was raging in front of him. Anne Hendrik whispered softly in his ear and kept out the violent discord. The book holder did not even hear the fist that banged the table like the blast of a cannon.

‘I’ll not be thwarted!’ roared Lawrence Firethorn.

‘Then leave off this madness!’ argued Barnaby Gill.

‘I put the good of the company first and foremost.’

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