Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ before them at right angles. As the two girls looked up it seemed to them that a figure dressed in a nurse’s costume and looking away from them walked slowly past and down the path. Simultaneously they caught hold of one another. Alice Brown gave a terrified sob.

      “It is her—-it is Nurse Marston!” she whispered.

      As they stood clinging together, staring at the spot with fascinated eyes as if unable to stir, the same figure came slowly into sight once more, and, halting, stood as if looking at them. With a sound like nothing but a howl of terror Minnie threw herself on the ground. Alice, shivering with fright, saw the figure raise its hand as if beckoning to them and make a few steps forward. With an awful shriek of horror she dragged Minnie up.

      “It—it is coming to us, Minnie!”

      Stumbling, running, sobbing, how they got back to the house they never could afterwards tell, but the fear of what might be behind them quickened their footsteps as nothing in the world could have done.

      Then, seeing through the open door a vision of the great kitchen beyond, with the servants passing and re-passing in all the pleasant bustle inseparable from a big country house, leaning against the outer doorpost, Alice opened her lips and tried to call out, to make herself heard, but the words refused to come; twice she caught her breath with a curious gasping sound, then a loud hoarse cry rang through the hall—a cry that roused the cook and the frightened maids in the kitchen, that reached Mrs. Parkyns, sitting in her solitary dignity in the housekeeper’s room, and brought her on the scene.

      “What on earth is the meaning of this, Minnie Spencer?” she demanded sternly. “And Alice Brown—have you taken eave of your senses, both of you?”

      At this moment two fresh auditors appeared on the scene—Jim Gregory, who had brought down some flowers for Lady Laura’s room, appeared from the back regions, and Tom Greyson ran round the corner from the stable-yard.

      He hurried up to the two girls, while Gregory stood staring at them in amazement.

      “Why, Minnie, what is the matter? Are you ill?” he cried, catching her in his arms as she was apparently about to fall to the ground.

      “I should like to know what is the matter with both of them!” remarked Mrs. Parkyns in an exasperated tone. “Starting us out of our wits by shouting in such a fashion as that, and then struck dumb as far as I can see; and there—I declare if you haven’t smashed those nice fresh eggs I gave you to take to your mother, Minnie Spencer! Of all the aggravating girls—”

      “Oh, Mrs. Parkyns, don’t!” sobbed Alice Brown, finding her voice at last. “I’m sure I’m all of a shiver—but we have just seen something—seen her—in the shrubbery!”

      Minnie gave a little groan and clutched wildly at Greyson’s arm. Gregory stepped forward quickly, scowling at his rival.

      “Minnie, let me—”

      “Now Heaven give me patience, Alice Brown!” cried Mrs. Parkyns irritably. “I am sure I have need of it to-night. Who have you seen in the shrubbery, girl?”

      “Nurse Marston—leastways it was her ghost!” said Alice. “We both saw it, Mrs. Parkyns, me and Minnie, and I don’t suppose either of us will forget it till our dying day.”

      “Well, of all the couple of simpletons!” said the housekeeper wrathfully, though her florid face had turned some degrees paler. “Who told you that Nurse Marston was dead, pray? Ghosts indeed! Fiddlesticks!”

      “Oh, Mrs. Parkyns, doesn’t everybody feel sure she was made away with that night? Doesn’t her spirit come back to her mother in her dreams? I tell you we saw her to-night as plain as could be, in her bonnet and cuffs and all,” said Alice, rallying somewhat now that the familiar faces were round her. “I—I thought she wanted to speak to us; she raised her hand and pointed. Perhaps,” shuddering, “she wanted to show us where she was buried.”

      “Well, of all things, Alice Brown!” said Mrs. Parkyns with uplifted hands. “What are you going to say next, I wonder? A pack of rubbish! Buried, indeed!”

      Minnie Spencer was still clinging to Greyson’s arm, seeming to derive some comfort from the contact. Gregory had halted a few paces in apparent discomfiture; even in that dim light it was obvious that his tanned complexion had altered to one of a curious leaden pallor.

      “Nurse Marston’s ghost in the shrubbery!” he repeated, staring at them. “Minnie, it can’t be true!”

      “True!” echoed Greyson, as Minnie at last raised herself and drew away from him. “I have heard you jeer at us country folk for superstition, Jim Gregory, but I tell you if Mary Marston is in the shrubbery it is herself and no ghost. I am going to see into it, I can tell you that. Don’t you frighten yourself, Minnie, I’ll soon find your ghost and settle it for you. Anybody like to come with me?”

      Two stable-men who had lately been added to the group volunteered, and so did Gregory, after a moment’s hesitation, which did not pass unremarked by Greyson.

      They were gone some little time—it seemed hours to the waiting women as they stood there wondering what the next news might be; but at last they heard the footsteps returning.

      “Well, Mr. Greyson, what news?” Mrs. Parkyns called out as they came round the corner.

      “None at all, ma’am. We have been all over the shrubbery and we haven’t seen so much as a sign of anybody or anything,” said Greyson in a reassuring tone.

      “I never thought you would,” Mrs. Parkyns responded, with a relieved air. “You dreamt it all, you two girls, that is about it—a pair of geese! Well, I’m much obliged to you for your trouble, Mr. Greyson. As to you, Minnie Spencer, I suppose now you have put yourself into this state you won’t dare to go down to the village, and that nice pudding I gave you for your mother will be wasted, to say nothing of those eggs you have spoilt! Well, well!”

      Minnie was standing by Gregory, who had drawn her hand through his arm. Greyson reached over and took the basket from her.

      “I’ll take your pudding for you, Minnie,” he said gruffly. “I have got to go down to Lockford, and I will bring you word how your mother is before I go my rounds.”

      Chapter XII

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      “It is only what I expected!” Garth Davenant’s face was very grave as he stood before the mantelpiece and looked at Mavis’s anxious face. “What does your mother say about it, Mavis?”

      “Oh, mother is in dreadful trouble! You know how she always hoped it would be Dorothy; in fact, I think she had persuaded herself that it was quite a settled thing, and that was how it was she never minded Hilda’s being here. But why do you say you expected it, Garth?”

      Davenant shrugged his shoulders.

      “It is not an unusual thing when a young man as impressionable as Arthur is thrown into the daily and hourly companionship of a beautiful woman older than himself.”

      “Garth!” Mavis interrupted him with a little cry. “Hilda herself does not know her age, and we can only guess, but we feel quite sure that she СКАЧАТЬ