Post by Lorpius Prime on Feb 21, 2008 5:06:17 GMT -5
Martin Bozeman Holland picked up the pack of cigarettes from the table and twirled it around in the fingers of his right hand. He tapped the little paper box on the table idly a few times before setting it back down. He did not remove any of the cigarettes to smoke. Martin felt oddly at peace and his need to smoke was not at all urgent.
He leaned back in his chair and took a deep, refreshing breath. The air in the servants’ dining room was cool and pleasant. The kitchen fires had not been burning so much as they might on a busier day and the stone walls were not turning the sunken semi-basement into an oven itself.
The entire house was much quieter than it had been since Martin had arrived and the staff was taking what they probably thought was a well-deserved break and sleeping in. Most of them were, anyway. Across the table from Martin the Blakes’ Indian butler, Rames, was thumbing through a worn pocket novel. The author was some ancient Canadian woman named Stowe whom Martin had never heard of; literature was never an interest of his. He had, however, developed a certain amount of respect for Rames. The Gurkha had apparently fought in one of the Bengal uprisings of the last century and been wounded while saving the life of his even more severely wounded superior officer. Martin respected service and sacrifice and he didn’t give a damn where the person giving it came from.
Sun streamed in through the high windows of the basement and onto the devastated remains of Martin’s breakfast. It was the first one at the Blake estate that he had not eaten in the grander dining hall with his hosts. The Blakes had decided to accept a long wait for news and to return to their normal lives, or some pretense thereof, in the meantime. Baron Blake had reluctantly boarded the train back to London that morning while Margaret had returned to school with her friend. Lady Blake was still at the estate, probably attending to her garden, but Martin found conversation with the woman exceedingly boring and suspected that she harbored some resentment for him still as the bearer of bad news. No consideration to the fact that Martin had told her that her son was still alive rather than dead, of course. Martin sneered contemptuously. He would still probably be required to dine that evening with the truncated family, but breakfast he had taken in the far less oppressively sophisticated surroundings of the servants’ quarters.
That evening would be the last dinner Martin would have to suffer through with Blakes, too. His expression changed to a smile. His meeting with the Stonewell woman had finally brought him to make up his mind. Martin was a little worried that he felt so at ease with his decision to defy his superiors, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care about the consequences anymore. That incident at the funeral had been the last straw. Martin had a duty to his country and to the Crown and it had finally become clear that the people running his agency were now obstacles to that duty, rather than its instruments. Martin wasn’t going to wait around any longer to let them destroy themselves and imperil the security of the Crown while doing it. His only concern was determining what he would tell Margaret and the Lady Blake, he intended to tell his office nothing at all.
He frowned. It really should not concern his attention all that much, what he would tell his hosts, and yet it did. He didn’t think he had enjoyed his time at the estate all that much. After all, the Blake family was no different from any of the hundreds of other disgustingly wealthy and self-important aristocrats Martin had met during his career. They were one and all little else but deadweight drags on strength and well-being of his country, and he resented them for it. And yet…
Martin shook his head. It wasn’t worth troubling himself over, and he needed to get started if he wanted to make it into town at a reasonably early hour. He pushed back from the table and pulled his suspenders up over his shoulders before standing to stretch.
“I am going to head into town to handle some business, Rames,” he addressed the dark-skinned man. “What should I do with…?” Martin gestured at his breakfast plate.
The butler didn’t look up from his book, but he must have caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, “I will have one of the maids take care of it. You are, after all, still a guest, Colonel. Master Blake would have me skinned if he found out I was having you do servants’ work.”
Martin chuckled, “Thank you. For the meal, too, it was far better without all the pomp upstairs.”
Rames chuckled himself, but said nothing more. Martin pocketed his cigarettes and picked up his coat from the back of his chair. It was a light brown piece of ordinary and inexpensive cut, no uniform today.
He was nearly done sliding it over his arms and had reached the stairs when a bell rang. Martin glanced over at the little labeled bank of bells on the wall to see that it was the chime announcing someone at the front door. He turned fully around to see that the butler was already closing his book and rising from the table.
“Don’t trouble yourself about it,” Martin said, still under the influence of his unusually cheery mood. He tugged at his sleeves to straighten them, “I’ll see to the door; I’m heading up there anyway. Finish your chapter or page or whatever it is.”
“I really shouldn’t,” the Indian continued to stand.
“Nonsense,” Martin waved him down. “The Empress has proclaimed that I am an officer and a gentlemen, and by God that ought to empower me to answer a ruddy door. Sit.”
Rames blinked, then shrugged and resumed his seat. Martin felt happy about giving the other man an excuse to relax. It was all turning into a very peculiar day.
He even considered whistling as he ascended the steps towards the entry hall.
It had taken Sam almost a minute just to figure out how to knock on the door. He supposed the subtly placed pull-bell cord made things far more convenient for the residents of a house like the Blake manor, but would good old-fashioned door-knockers have been so much worse? Sam shifted his weight nervously. He really just wasn’t equipped to survive among the high society. Which was a little ironic, he was able to admit, considering the fact that most of his readers were probably just the sort of aristocrats who would live in houses like this one.
But in large part that was just because Sam was a writer, and one of humble working-class London origins. He simply could not have done the job of one of The Times’ correspondents or even lowly reporters, could not do the schmoozing or work the parties which were a successful reporter’s bread and butter.
He turned around on the porch, looking across the estate. It actually reminded him quite a bit of his wife’s family’s estate in Virginia. It lacked the enormous tobacco plantation beyond the well-kept grounds, of course, and the manor house itself was significantly smaller. But whereas the Washington manor had been built up over generations into a castle in its own right, the Blake manor had been constructed wholly from a single design. It was much nicer than the ancient core of the Washington house, and if it was less impressive, size was the only reason.
A latch turned and one of the front doors opened; Sam turned back around hurriedly. He blinked. The man in the doorway was not what Sam had expected, although he realized that didn’t know what he had expected. He didn’t know much about Jay’s family; he and Sam had mostly avoided each other at the office prior to their recent project. But the man at the door looked nothing at all like Jay Thomson; he was older than Sam, though not by much and his dark hair was cropped short and neat while his broad shoulders made him look like he might once have played a very successful game of rugby, and perhaps did even still. Sam stared at him for a long and awkward moment.
“Yes?” the man finally asked and raised an eyebrow.
Sam felt incredibly stupid, “Uh…” What was he supposed to say? He’d been thinking about his introduction the entire walk from the train station, but now it fled from his mind leaving him helpless.
“I— is this is the Blake manor? They gave me directions at the train station but I’m not sure… I could have gotten them wrong.”
“It is,” the man nodded gravely, his expression conceding nothing. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I…” Sam took a deep breath and just let it spill out. “I’m a friend—well, I’m a colleague—of Jay Thomson. Blake, I mean, of course. We write for the same newspaper. Anyway I have…” Sam lifted the brown telegram envelope in his right hand, “…well, I need—I should really speak with his family. Do you—are you Jay’s… brother?”
The other man’s brow furrowed as his eyes dropped to the letter in Sam’s hand. “No,” he said. “I’m a… friend of the family, C—well, you can call me Martin. Martin Holland.” He stepped out onto the porch and nodded towards Sam’s hand, “Do you have some news of Jay Thomson?”
“Yes,” Sam exhaled with some relief that the stranger hadn’t bitten his head off. He held up the telegram again to look at it. “I’ve received a letter from him, it—“
“A letter?” Holland stepped closer to Sam, trying to get a better look at the envelope in his hands.
“A telegram, yes,” Sam turned it over and looked back to the stranger, who seemed very excited by the news. As well he should be, Sam thought. “I brought it from London, he asked me to pass it on to his family. Are the Blakes in?” Sam was able to ask the question much more calmly now that he was past the nervous introduction.
Mr. Holland turned around, “Um…” He peered inside the house for a moment then pulled the door shut. “The Baron is out at the moment. But,” he nodded towards the manor’s south wing, “Lady Blake should be in the orchard. She usually likes to take a stroll at this time, and especially this past week she’s been spending more and more time, since…” he trailed off.
Sam just nodded, unsure of what to say. He felt his discomfort returning and was beginning to wish he had just sent a telegram as Edith had suggested.
“Come,” Holland spoke again, emerging from his thoughts, “I’ll show you to her, Mr.…?”
“Ah, Reynard, Samuel Reynard. As I said, I work with Jay at the paper.”
The other man nodded politely and Sam stepped back to allow him to pass, then followed him back down the porch steps and along one of the little stone and gravel paths leading to the yards at the estate’s flanks.
“So, Jay Thomson must be alive if he’s sent you a telegram, Mr. Reynard,” Holland said as he led Sam on.
“Yeah,” Sam replied, picking his steps carefully and wishing he hadn’t worn one of his nicer pairs of shoes. “Apparently he’s been having something of a time in Germany since the airship went down.”
Martin Holland nodded and held out a hand to show Sam into the orchard. It was an interesting design, actually resembling the stylistic hedge-labyrinth gardens of many large estates, but with short well-kept trees instead of the typical dense shrubs. Sam thought he preferred the choice of plant-life, it felt more open and relaxing than the stuffily formal styles he’d seen in so many pictures and paintings. Not that he was ever likely to be in the position of purchasing or designing such a garden himself, but he was glad to experience one in person at least this once.
“It’s been hard on the family since the news came,” Holland went on. “I’m sure you can imagine how it was. Their son dead so suddenly, and so far away too.” He shook his head, “Terrible.”
“It must have been,” Sam agreed. They were winding their way through the orchard on a dirt path now, but it wasn’t so muddy as Sam had expected, for which he was glad. “I was there when we got the news… and when we printed the story.” His eyes narrowed at the memory, and the dark anger he’d had for Barry Godwin threatened to bubble to the surface again, but he managed to force it down.
“But I guess that’s over now,” Holland said with a sigh. They turned a corner and came to a large opening in the center of the orchard. Sam thought it must be the center, anyway, since it was dominated by the single enormous tree which seemed to preside over the entire arrangement. “Will he be coming back soon, do you know?”
Sam stepped over a protruding root, “Well—“
He was forced to stop when Holland spun quite abruptly and drove a fist into Sam’s stomach just below his ribcage. Sam dropped the telegram and doubled over, sputtering. He gasped for breath but was unable to draw any through uncooperative lungs.
A pair of large hands clamped around his neck and forcibly lifted Sam upright again. His head felt like it was going to explode from the pressure on his throat and arteries. Sam was still having trouble believing that Holland was attacking him, and he was barely able to raise his arms to fight back before his head was wrenched violently to one side. The snap was deafening in Sam’s ears and suddenly he could not move his arms at all.
Nor could Sam feel the ground as he dropped to it in a heap. He could feel the pain of his severed spinal cord, and it was excruciating, but there was nothing he could do about it. He could neither scream, nor attempt to crawl away, nor even kick at the ground against the pain. All Sam could do was look at the man who was now staring down at him without the slightest trace of emotion in his eyes or face. Mercifully, the pain faded quickly as his brain starved of fresh blood and Sam Reynard died.
Martin watched the movement cease in the newspaper man’s face then exhaled slowly. He was lucky, he told himself. It could be nothing except sheer, raw luck in gratuitous quantities that had allowed him to be the one to answer the door with no one else in earshot and then to lead his victim to the empty orchard without catching the attention of any of the staff or Lady Blake in the flower garden outside the north wing greenhouse. Luck and nothing more would allow him to continue his mission, although now it seemed fortune might have also provided some unanticipated assistance.
He picked up the envelope from the ground by the dead man’s feet and shook off some loose soil. He took out the letter inside and scanned the words, but they didn’t have his full attention. Martin’s mind was far more focused on his next steps and making sure his windfall of fortune didn’t go to waste.
The Exeter City Police coroner shook his head at the body on the examining table. It had been pulled from the River Exe that afternoon and already the coroner could tell that it represented a dead end. Clearly the poor fellow had been murdered, the bruising made that much was obvious; but it was just as obvious that there was nothing in the way of evidence which might provide a lead in any sort of investigation. No clothes or personal items of any kind, nothing which might even help to identify dead man. His only hope was a witness to the crime coming forward or someone reporting a missing person coming to the morgue to identify the body. Neither of which was very likely, the coroner knew from experience. But it wasn’t his job to lament for the dead, it was his job to examine them for anything useful towards identification for the doomed homicide investigation. He prepared for the business of cataloguing the gruesome details then tagging and storing the body with all the rest.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-
He leaned back in his chair and took a deep, refreshing breath. The air in the servants’ dining room was cool and pleasant. The kitchen fires had not been burning so much as they might on a busier day and the stone walls were not turning the sunken semi-basement into an oven itself.
The entire house was much quieter than it had been since Martin had arrived and the staff was taking what they probably thought was a well-deserved break and sleeping in. Most of them were, anyway. Across the table from Martin the Blakes’ Indian butler, Rames, was thumbing through a worn pocket novel. The author was some ancient Canadian woman named Stowe whom Martin had never heard of; literature was never an interest of his. He had, however, developed a certain amount of respect for Rames. The Gurkha had apparently fought in one of the Bengal uprisings of the last century and been wounded while saving the life of his even more severely wounded superior officer. Martin respected service and sacrifice and he didn’t give a damn where the person giving it came from.
Sun streamed in through the high windows of the basement and onto the devastated remains of Martin’s breakfast. It was the first one at the Blake estate that he had not eaten in the grander dining hall with his hosts. The Blakes had decided to accept a long wait for news and to return to their normal lives, or some pretense thereof, in the meantime. Baron Blake had reluctantly boarded the train back to London that morning while Margaret had returned to school with her friend. Lady Blake was still at the estate, probably attending to her garden, but Martin found conversation with the woman exceedingly boring and suspected that she harbored some resentment for him still as the bearer of bad news. No consideration to the fact that Martin had told her that her son was still alive rather than dead, of course. Martin sneered contemptuously. He would still probably be required to dine that evening with the truncated family, but breakfast he had taken in the far less oppressively sophisticated surroundings of the servants’ quarters.
That evening would be the last dinner Martin would have to suffer through with Blakes, too. His expression changed to a smile. His meeting with the Stonewell woman had finally brought him to make up his mind. Martin was a little worried that he felt so at ease with his decision to defy his superiors, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care about the consequences anymore. That incident at the funeral had been the last straw. Martin had a duty to his country and to the Crown and it had finally become clear that the people running his agency were now obstacles to that duty, rather than its instruments. Martin wasn’t going to wait around any longer to let them destroy themselves and imperil the security of the Crown while doing it. His only concern was determining what he would tell Margaret and the Lady Blake, he intended to tell his office nothing at all.
He frowned. It really should not concern his attention all that much, what he would tell his hosts, and yet it did. He didn’t think he had enjoyed his time at the estate all that much. After all, the Blake family was no different from any of the hundreds of other disgustingly wealthy and self-important aristocrats Martin had met during his career. They were one and all little else but deadweight drags on strength and well-being of his country, and he resented them for it. And yet…
Martin shook his head. It wasn’t worth troubling himself over, and he needed to get started if he wanted to make it into town at a reasonably early hour. He pushed back from the table and pulled his suspenders up over his shoulders before standing to stretch.
“I am going to head into town to handle some business, Rames,” he addressed the dark-skinned man. “What should I do with…?” Martin gestured at his breakfast plate.
The butler didn’t look up from his book, but he must have caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, “I will have one of the maids take care of it. You are, after all, still a guest, Colonel. Master Blake would have me skinned if he found out I was having you do servants’ work.”
Martin chuckled, “Thank you. For the meal, too, it was far better without all the pomp upstairs.”
Rames chuckled himself, but said nothing more. Martin pocketed his cigarettes and picked up his coat from the back of his chair. It was a light brown piece of ordinary and inexpensive cut, no uniform today.
He was nearly done sliding it over his arms and had reached the stairs when a bell rang. Martin glanced over at the little labeled bank of bells on the wall to see that it was the chime announcing someone at the front door. He turned fully around to see that the butler was already closing his book and rising from the table.
“Don’t trouble yourself about it,” Martin said, still under the influence of his unusually cheery mood. He tugged at his sleeves to straighten them, “I’ll see to the door; I’m heading up there anyway. Finish your chapter or page or whatever it is.”
“I really shouldn’t,” the Indian continued to stand.
“Nonsense,” Martin waved him down. “The Empress has proclaimed that I am an officer and a gentlemen, and by God that ought to empower me to answer a ruddy door. Sit.”
Rames blinked, then shrugged and resumed his seat. Martin felt happy about giving the other man an excuse to relax. It was all turning into a very peculiar day.
He even considered whistling as he ascended the steps towards the entry hall.
* * *
It had taken Sam almost a minute just to figure out how to knock on the door. He supposed the subtly placed pull-bell cord made things far more convenient for the residents of a house like the Blake manor, but would good old-fashioned door-knockers have been so much worse? Sam shifted his weight nervously. He really just wasn’t equipped to survive among the high society. Which was a little ironic, he was able to admit, considering the fact that most of his readers were probably just the sort of aristocrats who would live in houses like this one.
But in large part that was just because Sam was a writer, and one of humble working-class London origins. He simply could not have done the job of one of The Times’ correspondents or even lowly reporters, could not do the schmoozing or work the parties which were a successful reporter’s bread and butter.
He turned around on the porch, looking across the estate. It actually reminded him quite a bit of his wife’s family’s estate in Virginia. It lacked the enormous tobacco plantation beyond the well-kept grounds, of course, and the manor house itself was significantly smaller. But whereas the Washington manor had been built up over generations into a castle in its own right, the Blake manor had been constructed wholly from a single design. It was much nicer than the ancient core of the Washington house, and if it was less impressive, size was the only reason.
A latch turned and one of the front doors opened; Sam turned back around hurriedly. He blinked. The man in the doorway was not what Sam had expected, although he realized that didn’t know what he had expected. He didn’t know much about Jay’s family; he and Sam had mostly avoided each other at the office prior to their recent project. But the man at the door looked nothing at all like Jay Thomson; he was older than Sam, though not by much and his dark hair was cropped short and neat while his broad shoulders made him look like he might once have played a very successful game of rugby, and perhaps did even still. Sam stared at him for a long and awkward moment.
“Yes?” the man finally asked and raised an eyebrow.
Sam felt incredibly stupid, “Uh…” What was he supposed to say? He’d been thinking about his introduction the entire walk from the train station, but now it fled from his mind leaving him helpless.
“I— is this is the Blake manor? They gave me directions at the train station but I’m not sure… I could have gotten them wrong.”
“It is,” the man nodded gravely, his expression conceding nothing. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I…” Sam took a deep breath and just let it spill out. “I’m a friend—well, I’m a colleague—of Jay Thomson. Blake, I mean, of course. We write for the same newspaper. Anyway I have…” Sam lifted the brown telegram envelope in his right hand, “…well, I need—I should really speak with his family. Do you—are you Jay’s… brother?”
The other man’s brow furrowed as his eyes dropped to the letter in Sam’s hand. “No,” he said. “I’m a… friend of the family, C—well, you can call me Martin. Martin Holland.” He stepped out onto the porch and nodded towards Sam’s hand, “Do you have some news of Jay Thomson?”
“Yes,” Sam exhaled with some relief that the stranger hadn’t bitten his head off. He held up the telegram again to look at it. “I’ve received a letter from him, it—“
“A letter?” Holland stepped closer to Sam, trying to get a better look at the envelope in his hands.
“A telegram, yes,” Sam turned it over and looked back to the stranger, who seemed very excited by the news. As well he should be, Sam thought. “I brought it from London, he asked me to pass it on to his family. Are the Blakes in?” Sam was able to ask the question much more calmly now that he was past the nervous introduction.
Mr. Holland turned around, “Um…” He peered inside the house for a moment then pulled the door shut. “The Baron is out at the moment. But,” he nodded towards the manor’s south wing, “Lady Blake should be in the orchard. She usually likes to take a stroll at this time, and especially this past week she’s been spending more and more time, since…” he trailed off.
Sam just nodded, unsure of what to say. He felt his discomfort returning and was beginning to wish he had just sent a telegram as Edith had suggested.
“Come,” Holland spoke again, emerging from his thoughts, “I’ll show you to her, Mr.…?”
“Ah, Reynard, Samuel Reynard. As I said, I work with Jay at the paper.”
The other man nodded politely and Sam stepped back to allow him to pass, then followed him back down the porch steps and along one of the little stone and gravel paths leading to the yards at the estate’s flanks.
“So, Jay Thomson must be alive if he’s sent you a telegram, Mr. Reynard,” Holland said as he led Sam on.
“Yeah,” Sam replied, picking his steps carefully and wishing he hadn’t worn one of his nicer pairs of shoes. “Apparently he’s been having something of a time in Germany since the airship went down.”
Martin Holland nodded and held out a hand to show Sam into the orchard. It was an interesting design, actually resembling the stylistic hedge-labyrinth gardens of many large estates, but with short well-kept trees instead of the typical dense shrubs. Sam thought he preferred the choice of plant-life, it felt more open and relaxing than the stuffily formal styles he’d seen in so many pictures and paintings. Not that he was ever likely to be in the position of purchasing or designing such a garden himself, but he was glad to experience one in person at least this once.
“It’s been hard on the family since the news came,” Holland went on. “I’m sure you can imagine how it was. Their son dead so suddenly, and so far away too.” He shook his head, “Terrible.”
“It must have been,” Sam agreed. They were winding their way through the orchard on a dirt path now, but it wasn’t so muddy as Sam had expected, for which he was glad. “I was there when we got the news… and when we printed the story.” His eyes narrowed at the memory, and the dark anger he’d had for Barry Godwin threatened to bubble to the surface again, but he managed to force it down.
“But I guess that’s over now,” Holland said with a sigh. They turned a corner and came to a large opening in the center of the orchard. Sam thought it must be the center, anyway, since it was dominated by the single enormous tree which seemed to preside over the entire arrangement. “Will he be coming back soon, do you know?”
Sam stepped over a protruding root, “Well—“
He was forced to stop when Holland spun quite abruptly and drove a fist into Sam’s stomach just below his ribcage. Sam dropped the telegram and doubled over, sputtering. He gasped for breath but was unable to draw any through uncooperative lungs.
A pair of large hands clamped around his neck and forcibly lifted Sam upright again. His head felt like it was going to explode from the pressure on his throat and arteries. Sam was still having trouble believing that Holland was attacking him, and he was barely able to raise his arms to fight back before his head was wrenched violently to one side. The snap was deafening in Sam’s ears and suddenly he could not move his arms at all.
Nor could Sam feel the ground as he dropped to it in a heap. He could feel the pain of his severed spinal cord, and it was excruciating, but there was nothing he could do about it. He could neither scream, nor attempt to crawl away, nor even kick at the ground against the pain. All Sam could do was look at the man who was now staring down at him without the slightest trace of emotion in his eyes or face. Mercifully, the pain faded quickly as his brain starved of fresh blood and Sam Reynard died.
* * *
Martin watched the movement cease in the newspaper man’s face then exhaled slowly. He was lucky, he told himself. It could be nothing except sheer, raw luck in gratuitous quantities that had allowed him to be the one to answer the door with no one else in earshot and then to lead his victim to the empty orchard without catching the attention of any of the staff or Lady Blake in the flower garden outside the north wing greenhouse. Luck and nothing more would allow him to continue his mission, although now it seemed fortune might have also provided some unanticipated assistance.
He picked up the envelope from the ground by the dead man’s feet and shook off some loose soil. He took out the letter inside and scanned the words, but they didn’t have his full attention. Martin’s mind was far more focused on his next steps and making sure his windfall of fortune didn’t go to waste.
* * *
The Exeter City Police coroner shook his head at the body on the examining table. It had been pulled from the River Exe that afternoon and already the coroner could tell that it represented a dead end. Clearly the poor fellow had been murdered, the bruising made that much was obvious; but it was just as obvious that there was nothing in the way of evidence which might provide a lead in any sort of investigation. No clothes or personal items of any kind, nothing which might even help to identify dead man. His only hope was a witness to the crime coming forward or someone reporting a missing person coming to the morgue to identify the body. Neither of which was very likely, the coroner knew from experience. But it wasn’t his job to lament for the dead, it was his job to examine them for anything useful towards identification for the doomed homicide investigation. He prepared for the business of cataloguing the gruesome details then tagging and storing the body with all the rest.
Book One, Chapter:
-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-
-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-36-37-38-39-40-41-42-
-43-44-45-46-47-48-49-50-51-52-53-54-55-56-57-58-59-60-61-62-
Appendix: -A-B-C-