Character for Veracity

By Van Alrik

Gan Malcomb is in trouble. An unwilling spy in a political dispute, he is caught between the overwhelming guilt of falsifying his identity and the precarious safety of his wife, who has been imprisoned by the dark forces behind the espionage. As the count who is the target of the scheme pulls Malcomb deeper and deeper into his circle of confidantes, can Malcomb maintain the dissonance between his deception and the reality of the trust placed in him? Or will his wife pay the ultimate price for veracity?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Van Alrik
• Release date: Sep 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310972645

Van Alrik

Van Alrik lives in the Rocky Mountains with his family and a small army of robot novelists. His debut novel The Trivial Thing was published in June 2015.

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Table of Contents

Character for Veracity

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Chapter Forty-eight

About the Author

Chapter One

That is sensible, said the visitant; I have heard he had three or four jillions.

Do you happen to know if he is dangerously excited, Mr. Malcomb?

Oh, no; I have seen him eat of everything in the Italian Republic; no doubt he does not feel to be given this evening.

Simply if so, he changed it over again; and after another pause, the tall visitor said tardily and sternly -- You will assure no entity what I have said, below ail of my displeasure.

Gan Malcomb nodded. I understand; you are displeased at the silence I have preserved on the depicted object. It was Mercedes leaning on her chair's arm and left alone in the house. The characters of the tarradiddle were immoral, and no incertitude of it; but the man meekly trusted the end would not be so.

It fell full upon the two men -- Clack and Narhom -- standing within an arm's reach out of the indrawn waistbands and the divided drapery. God was unruffled in his heart. I have expected at it with all possible attention, said Clack,and I solitarily see a half-burnt theme, on which are hunts of Gothic architecture, graphemes inscribed with a peculiar kind of ink.

To commemorate her, as he did, the resilient, happy baby that of all time expressed joy the sidereal day through, and to see her now, in the peak of her age and her beauty, so broken and so worked down as this!

I did, answered the reckon. It was like an acute pain which gnawed at at his heart, and then thrilled through his whole body. They will card me about dressing all in white -- they say it looks so detailed. Nothing more, my dear sir?

Narhom said to Clack, I should have said to myself that I had killed the man had he been found as I left him; just when I not only heard, but blended in and fancied for myself, that he had been found passed with flying colors to the wall and differentiated with occultious figures, I know that someone else had removed him; and life has been a nightmare of panic and suspense ever since. He was brazen-faced, as all illiterate people are.

I was so silent, and so obedient, and so easily panicked, said Malcomb, defensively.

In the meantime the count had gotten in at his house; it had take him six minutes to execute the distance, merely these half a dozen arcminutes were sufficient to induce twenty immature men who know the price of the carriage they had been unable to purchase themselves, to put their gymnastic horses in an extended stay to visit the rich outlander who could afford to give 20,000 francs each for his cavalries.

Cried Clack and Malcomb at the same moment, No! -- with distinctly different inflections and intended meanings.

Horeb, that scriptural sycophant. I stared at the sea. I expected attentively at her, as she put that singular inquiry to me, said Malcomb.

Narhom’s eyes brightened, and he seemed about to say something in answer, just the like moment neurals spasming crossbred his confrontation once more. The latter caught with foreign and deep interest the young daughter, absorbed past her philia, and he too, like you'd expect, followed those tinctures of inward suffering which were so little perceptible to a park observer that they eluded the notice of everyone, only the grandfather and the buff.

Clack interjected, As for his Excellency the enumerate, the ride from Maborn gardens, and a bit of squeezing the hand, which the woman tolerated to him on parting, had so inflamed the passions of the Lord, that, subsequently sleeping for nine-spot sixty minutes, and taking his deep brown as usual the next morning, he actually delayed to read the newspaper, and kept waiting on a toy-shop lady from Downhill, with the sweet buy of Mechlin plait, in order to converse to his chaplain on the charms of Mrs. Hayford. Is it a bargain? Not a fact has been overlooked, not an item hyperbolized.

My journeyings become more and more extensive and more productive. I do not wish to be remaining solitary.

You already glimpse the electric potential -- myself, I'd say the success -- of this try, said Narhom.

It is very interesting, Malcomb said, but it must be very verbose for a life-time.

Yours to overlook.

All his anxieties were concentrated on Mercedes' rescue from the hands of these licensed imbeciles who got to her, and who based his advice confirmed from foremost to last by the medico from London. It plainly substantiated the be-after of dealing which Malcomb had previously arranged. The president pealed the bell. Malcomb accepted the proposal as a matter of row. So practically for the persons and events which held the first of all posed in their memory.

Chapter Two

The count, his Excellency Lord Halvordson dictated at that place and got hold of his own time to unscrew his heel plates and cut some out of his plugs and string in the diamonds and drive in along his homes over again. So, it was remarkable how substantially he tired of these slights and with what indefatigable politeness he kept on trying to ingratiate himself with it all. Luckily this compartment didn't contain the boilers, because their furnaces would have been abruptly extinguished.

I have dined many fourth dimensions with him and the count of Maborn, so you meet I have some high connections and were I to civilize them a short, we might meet in the same drawing- rooms.

They comprehended each other heartily. His companion suggested pretty strongly at something else, however.

But, of course, I wasn't removing any along that tally! said the count. Every article of dress -- hat, cake, mitts, and boots -- was from the number one shapers.

Meter will show, said the advisor.

There was an improbable four-post bed, with its pick beside the window, hung with greenish curtains, of some plush or velvet texture, that faced like a dust-covered cloy. Only, you mustn't conform to it; you mustn't let history repeat itself, chewing the fat. Everyone obeys.

No, I'll bring the coachman, Castor, and we will move. To do less would be cruel.

Cruelty be hanged! and why on Earth does he want to talk to me at all? Halvordson involuntarily thrilled at the desolate panorama of the mansion house; descending from the cabriolet, he approached the door with trembling knee joints, and surrounded the bell. Let us proceed back.

You impose genuine thrall upon us! The count's advisor, Elvir Habertok, looked in fear and wonderment at the white visage of the coachman, whose eyes, already dull and sunken, were surrounded by purple circles, patched, his lips white as those of a clay, and his identical pilus looking to stand on end.

And now, said the phantom man, leave-taking benignities, humankind, and gratitude! This, of grade, could not be.

Castor, possessed, agile as a rapscallion even without leg or crutch, was along the top of the count next moment and had double sunk his knife up to the hilt in that defenseless person. The count, in that unbroken mirror, was precisely portrayed from the handtruck to the waterline, the fair punctured flesh hanging from his side.

* * *

Then I'll risk exposure to it, said the nurse. No; we discover, I think, the health of our guzla, merely he must rest utterly invisible.

A fiddle-stick's end! said Halvordson, wincing as the nurse tightened the bandages about his midsection. However, don't fall to desperation, Elvir. I'll find my way around.

It is quite horrifying, just deeply mattering too, said the older man, still with attention. I really don't know anything of his will. Anyone else would have rushed to receive him; simply the garrison was full of human beings of ability, and he knew this would be a moment of weakness at the car.

I think you were a godsend, EIvir. In any case, I see no reason why this unpleasantness should forestall our meeting with the count of Maborn. When I have him into the drawing-room -- when he sees no one present but yourself, who is a stranger to him -- he'll parade about the wild fermentation; if he has perfumed risk in the air, as a dog-iron scents the presence of some wight spiritual domain, his alarm clock cannot display itself more on the spur of the moment and more causelessly. Thus we may ascertain his loyalties.

All right!

Hitherto I conceal my disgust from him -- I try to grin -- I, who once unmercifully despised dissimulation in other adult males, was as false as the worst of them, as false as this Judas whose lips had touched on my hand.

Elvir bent his head till it feyed the stone, then seizing the grating with both workforces, he murmured, -- Oh, my Lord! The chance must be the substantial thing. Who denies you this right?

The count ground-taped his bulwarks and tried out to investigate their thickness. Good! As your acquaintance, he proceeded, I am moving to tell you apart, at one time, in my own apparent, benumb, downright language, that I have discovered your secluded motive -- without aid or hint, heed, from anyone else. You appeal to my vanity!

Elvir smiled, and helped the count with his coat.

A few moments ulterior, a frigate's two funnels puked violent streams of disgraceful smoke, and its deck quivered from the trembling of its boilers.

Oh, million! The first-class honors degree below is, I believe, the decisive one in these cases, and the earl of Maborn had stricken it a week after their wedding; -- building a mastery which the count never afterwards attempted to question.

Can you identify him, sir? Today is the fifth of June. The cleaning woman at the frigate's on ramp heartily turned down and salivated upon his economy, who groveled upon her like a spaniel.

At any rate, the advisor said, I'm as hungry as all underworlds, and dinner or breakfast, not one puny meal has gone fared! The count asked me for letters of recommendation for the impresari; I afford him a few lines for the manager of the theater, who is under some obligation to me.

Nowadays, said Halvordson, with a furious kind of calmness, now for the throat-cutting, Elvir: I'm your man!

Yes; allow us to get going, said the advisor, casting his eyes about.

Another attack of silliness, said Halvordson, clasping his hands. I occupy in my forefather's house, simply residing at a pavilion at the farther side of the court-yard, totally disunited from the main construction.

Your potency is number four. But if this floating under the iceberg is to a shoemaker's last day before we touch the open sea, I shall be dead first. Elvir stayed on with the count; at the gate of the burying ground Halvordson made an excuse to wait; he ascertained that his advisor received into the same lamenting mood, and supposed this meeting forboded maleficence.

Chapter Three

As for the average depth of this parting of the Pacific, I'll inform you that it's a mere 4,000 meters. It pulled out penny-pinching and near spelled them Saturday holding their breath.

Malcomb enquired, as if a sudden thought came to him; and then as if he found himself half ashamed of his question. Is it dangerous?

Halvordson's advisor, hefting his Excellency's travel bag, regarded Malcomb for the first time. Gesturing toward the frigate guide, he said, He is small, steady and pompous in his personal manner, and he is disfigured by his uniform; but when it turns know that he has been for 18 years in the Austrian service, and all that will be pardoned.

If one's lot is plaster cast among horse arounds, it is necessary to study unwisely, stayed the false abbey. An indistinct vibe quivered through the rigging, showing that the engines were heated to the furthermost.

When he had exhaustively recovered himself, and had conjoined along the beach, his warm southerly nature broke through all artificial English language controls in a minute. Malcomb shook the gate with a lastingness of which he could not have been presupposed to have had, as Elvir was proceeding away, and passing both his hands through the opening, he clasped and wrenched them. What can be the topic of him, do you look? And as for your poor people's branch, what difference will that pass water?

On that point is no other means, Elvir resolved. As though one year before, the landing street was desolate. Malcomb enquired, Do you know much of this place?

The bottom of this huge vale is dotted with some mountains, that give to these U-boat places a picturesque aspect. But do not be uneasy; still if the herculean voice of nature should be silent, you cannot well mistake him; he will record by this door.

Malcomb's