THE MAN WITH THE DARK BEARD (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ of chest to be seen, and the grey silk stockings with the grey suede shoes. Her hair was shingled, of course, and had been permanently waved, but the permanent waves had belied their name, and the dyed, stubbly hair betrayed a tendency to stand on end.

      She repeated her question.

      "What is this I hear from your father?"

      "I really don't know, Aunt Lavinia."

      "You know what I mean well enough, Hilary. You want to engage yourself to young Wilton."

      "I am engaged to Basil Wilton," Hilary returned with a sudden access of courage.

      Miss Lavinia raised her eyebrows.

      "Well, you were twenty yesterday, Hilary, out of your teens. It is time you were thinking of matrimony. Why, bless my life, before I was your age I had made two or three attempts at it."

      "You! Aunt Lavinia!" Hilary stared at her.

      "Dear me, yes!" rejoined Miss Lavinia testily. "Do you imagine because I have not married that I was entirely neglected? I don't suppose that any girl in Meadshire had more chances of entering the state of holy matrimony, as they call it, than I had. But you see I went through the wood and came out without even the proverbial crooked stick."

      "I remember Dad telling me you had been engaged to a clergyman," Hilary remarked, repressing a smile.

      "My dear, I was engaged to three," Miss Lavinia corrected. "Not all at once, of course. Successively."

      "Then why did you not marry some—I mean one of them?" Hilary inquired curiously.

      Miss Lavinia shrugged her shoulders.

      "I don't know. Thought somebody better would turn up, I suppose. And I had to do something. Life in the country is really too appallingly uninteresting for words, if one is not engaged to the curate."

      "What did the curates think on the matter?"

      "I am sure I don't know," Miss Lavinia returned carelessly. "One of them died—the one I liked the best. Doubtless he was spared much. Another is an archdeacon. The third—I really don't know what became of him—a mousy-looking little man in spectacles. His father had seventeen children. Enough to choke anyone off the son, I should think. Not at all in my line!"

      Hilary coughed down a laugh. The vision conjured up of her maiden aunt with a numerous progeny of mousy-looking, embryo curates was somewhat overpowering.

      "To change the subject," Miss Lavinia went on briskly, "who is this parlourmaid of yours, Hilary?"

      "Parlourmaid!" Hilary echoed blankly. "Why, she is just the parlourmaid, Aunt Lavinia."

      "Don't be a fool, Hilary," rebuked her aunt tartly. "I know she is the parlourmaid. But how did she come to be your parlourmaid? That's what I want to know. Did you have good references with her? That sort of thing. What's her name?"

      "Her name?" debated Hilary. "Why, Taylor, of course. We always call her Taylor. Oh, you mean her Christian name. Well, Mary Ann, I think. And we had excellent references with her. She is quite a good maid. I have no fault to find with her."

      "She doesn't look like a Mary Ann Taylor," sniffed Miss Lavinia. "One of your Dorothys or Mabels or Veras, I should have said. She is after your father—casting the glad eye you call it nowadays."

      "After Dad!" Indignation was rendering Hilary almost speechless.

      "Dear me, yes, your father," Miss Lavinia repeated with some asperity. "He won't be the first man to be made a fool of by a pretty face, even if it does belong to one of his maids. And this particular girl is making herself very amiable to him. I have watched her. By the way, where is your father tonight? He is generally out of the consulting-room by this time, and I want a word with him before bed-time. That is why I came after dinner."

      "He is rather late," Hilary said; "but he had ever so many people to see before dinner, and I dare say he has had more writing to do since in consequence."

      "That secretary of his gone home, I suppose?"

      "Miss Houlton? Oh, yes. She goes home at seven. But really, Aunt Lavinia, she is a nice, quiet girl. Dad likes her."

      Miss Lavinia snorted.

      "Dare say he does. As he likes your delightful parlourmaid, I suppose. In my young days men didn't have girls to wait on them. They had men secretaries and what not. But nowadays they have as many women as they can afford. Believe it would be more respectable to call it a harem at once!"

      Hilary laughed.

      "Oh, Aunt Lavinia! The girls and men of the present day aren't like that. They don't think of such things."

      "Nonsense!" Miss Lavinia snapped her fingers. "Short skirts and backless frocks haven't altered human nature!"

      "Haven't they?" Hilary questioned with a smile. "But we will send for Dad, Aunt Lavinia. He always enjoys a chat with you."

      "Not always, I fancy," Miss Lavinia said grimly. "However, he gets a few whether he enjoys them or not."

      As she finished the parlourmaid opened the door. She was looking nervous and worried.

      "Oh, Miss Hilary—" she began. "The doctor—"

      "Well?" interrupted Miss Lavinia "What of the doctor?"

      "He is in the consulting-room, ma'am, but he doesn't take any notice when we knock at the door. Mr. Wilton and I have both been trying."

      "What are you making such a fuss about?" said Miss Lavinia contemptuously. "The doctor doesn't want to be disturbed. That is all."

      The maid stood her ground, and again addressed Hilary:

      "I have never known the doctor lock the door on the inside before, miss."

      "Well, of course, if it was locked on the outside, he would not be there," Miss Lavinia rejoined sensibly. "I'll go and knock. He'll answer me, I'll warrant."

      Hilary was looking rather white.

      "I will come too, Aunt Lavinia. Dad often sits up late over his research work. But he promised me he wouldn't to-night. It was my birthday yesterday and he had to go out, so he said he would come in for a chat quite early this evening."

      Miss Lavinia was already in the hall.

      "I expect the chat would have been a lively one from the few words I had with him when I came in. Well, what are you doing?"

      This question was addressed to Basil Wilton, who was standing at the end of the passage leading to the consulting-room.

      Like the parlourmaid, he was looking pale and worried. Miss Lavinia's quick eyes noted that his tie was twisted to one side and that his hair, short as it was, was rumpled up as if he had been thrusting his hands through it.

      "There is an urgent summons for the doctor on the phone, and we can't make him hear," he said uneasily.

      "I dare say he has gone out by the door on the garden side," Miss Lavinia said briskly. "Yes, of course that СКАЧАТЬ