Murder in Stained Glass. Armstrong Margaret

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ had been uneasily conscious of her, peering over my shoulder, so tall and dark and dead silent! In the old days at school that stony silence would have been a storm signal; the Spook was in one of her black moods. I glanced up at her as she walked beside me. Her face told me nothing.

      “That is a pretty little pond across the field,” I remarked. “Do you skate there?”

      “Oh yes; the ice was fine last week,” Phyllis said. “But this hot sun may have turned it to slush. I’ll run and have a look at it.”

      She jumped a fence and ran off, her scarlet sweater making a pretty spot of color against the brown field, and disappeared behind a clump of alders.

      “A charming girl,” I said.

      Charlotte’s stern face softened. “Phyllis has come to mean a great deal to me in my solitary life.”

      “I’m afraid you won’t keep her long,” I ventured. “Leo Ullathorne seems very admiring. Would you approve?”

      “In some ways. I’m very fond of Leo. But I don’t see how it can come to anything.”

      “Mr. Ullathorne objects?”

      “Not openly.”

      “But isn’t Leo of age?”

      “Twenty-two. But he hasn’t a penny of his own. I heard his father tell him the other day in that hateful sneering way of his that fortune-hunting was the best occupation for a handsome young pauper! And I’m helpless, I would gladly give Phyllis a dot if I could, but my money is in an annuity.”

      “Mr. Ullathorne may relent. Phyllis is very attractive.”

      “That’s the worst of it,” Charlotte shuddered. “He’s in love with her himself, and he’s fifty if he’s a day.”

      “Does she like him?”

      “In a way. She doesn’t see through him as I do. He is a wicked man, Harriet. He’s been a cruel father to poor Leo, and you can’t think how much harm he has done in the village in the short time he has been here, flirting with the girls and giving the boys drinks. I can’t for the life of me see why God lets such people go on living!”

      Her voice was rising hysterically. I was thankful that just then Phyllis appeared in the road a little farther on and came running to meet us.

      Charlotte relapsed into silence. Phyllis and I talked, a little breathlessly, for Charlotte kept walking faster and faster. We were fairly running when we reached the house. Charlotte stalked in ahead of us and disappeared. A doom slammed.

      “Oh dear,” Phyllis sighed. “I’m afraid we are in for another spell.”

      “Where has she gone?”

      “To her own rooms. They’re on this floor with a door opening into the garden so she can rush out with her field glass if a bird shows itself. If the spell is a bad one she may stay shut up there for days.”

      And that, would you believe it, is just what Charlotte did, stayed incommunicado for more than a week! If it had been anyone else I should have been furious. But I was so sorry for Charlotte that I forgave her.

      I was sorry for Phyllis too. I determined to give her as good a time as I could, and the next few days passed very pleasantly. Phyllis and Leo and I—luckily Mr. Ullathorne had to go to New York—drove and walked and climbed Baldface and explored the Glen and went to the movies in Banbury, although it’s forty or fifty miles away; and we took tea with some friends of mine, the Lorrimers, who have a country place near Banbury and one evening we drove all the way to Stockton, sixty miles, to dine and dance at the new hotel and the Ford broke down and we had to spend the night there, a proceeding which turned out to be a good deal more important than any of us realized at the time, and Leo spent every spare moment at our house and took all his meals with us except breakfast.

      And every morning we asked Minnie how Miss Char lotte was, and she just shook her head and sighed.

      So my first week at Bassett’s Bridge wore away to the entire satisfaction of my two young friends, who, being unsophisticated—to me it is one of their greatest charms—were easily pleased; but I was beginning to think I had had about enough of a peaceful country life when on Sunday afternoon our peace broke with a vengeance.

      We were having tea in the library, Phyllis and Leo and I, when we heard heavy feet come pounding up the piazza steps, followed by a wild tattoo on the front door.

      Minnie ran to open it.

      A boy dashed into the library, white as a sheet and panting:

      “Mr. Leo! Mr. Leo!”

      “Clarence!” Leo jumped to his feet. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

      “Bones, Mr. Leo. That’s what. There’s bones in the kiln.”

       II

      The fact was seen at once by you,

      In casual conversation, O!

      Which is most creditable to

      Your powers of observation, O!

      W. S. GILBERT.

      LEO’S car was standing in the drive. We snatched our coats and hats as we dashed through the hall. Within five minutes we were running up the path to the glass shop.

      The door was open; dim light filtered out into the dusk. We stepped inside and for a moment stood looking down in puzzled silence at a heap of ashes and clinkers scattered on the cement floor in front of the kiln. The stuff looked harmless enough. I couldn’t understand Clarence’s excitement as he dropped on his knees and pointed to several whitish fragments heaped together at one side.

      But Leo stooped with a muttered exclamation, picked up a small object from among the ashes, straightened himself, and stared at us with horror in his face.

      “What’s happened?” Phyllis cried. “Why do you look so frightened, Leo? What does it all mean?”

      He shook his head, slipped that small something into his pocket, and turned to Clarence:

      “When did you rake out the ashes, Clarence?”

      “ ’Bout half hour ago.”

      “You were alone? The men had gone home?”

      “Gone home! What you thinking of, Mr. Leo? It’s Sunday. Shop’s been closed since Saturday noon.”

      “Of course. Why did you come then?”

      “Peter told me to. He said he was firing first thing tomorrow, and the kiln must be ready.”

      “I see. Well then?”

      “So I come and I started to shake down and the ashes didn’t shake good and I poked and the grate was sort of clogged up and I poked some more, and them bones come out and I put my hand in the oven and it was warm, Mr. Leo, and I knew there’d been some monkey business and then I saw СКАЧАТЬ