SHE FADED INTO AIR (A Thriller). Ethel Lina White

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СКАЧАТЬ strangers. I prefer a gentleman's agreement. I can trust to my judgment to size up anyone. Besides an unsatisfactory tenant gets spot-notice."

      He laughed as he added, "I've discovered that references are not infallible. For instance, I don't know a thing about Miss Power except that she is a student. But she's an ideal tenant--quiet and regular with her payments. On the other hand, Miss Green is a bishop's granddaughter and she's a little scamp."

      "Quite. I'll have a look at No. 16. But I want a word with the porter first."

      Feeling a need to clarify the situation, Foam hurried downstairs. He was not satisfied by what he had already heard. Although three persons had given him the same facts, he could not ignore the factor of mass suggestion. But he instinctively trusted the porter, who reminded him of a gardener he had known in boyhood.

      When he reached the hall, the man was at his post, watching the door.

      "What's your name?' asked Foam.

      "Higgins," replied the porter.

      "Well, Higgins, can you be sure that it was Mr. Cross' daughter that you saw go upstairs? The lights were not turned on."

      "I saw her face when I lit her fag," replied the porter positively. "She came here once before with her father, so I knew her by sight."

      "Did you actually see her go into No. 16?"

      "No. You can't see the landing from the hall because of the bend of the stairs. But I saw the three of them go up, and so did Marlene Simpson."

      "Is there a back entrance to Pomerania House?"

      "Yes, the door's over there. But she'd have to come down the stairs and cross the hall to reach it--and she didn't. It's a blinking mystery to me."

      Foam was on the point of turning away when he asked another question on impulse.

      "Higgins, you see a good many people. In confidence, can you place Mr. Cross?"

      "I'd say he was a gentleman," replied the porter. "Not Haw-haw, like the boss, but a bit colonial."

      "And Miss Cross?"

      "Ah, there you have me. I know a lady and I know a tart; but when they try to behave like each other, I get flummoxed."

      "You mean--Miss Cross was lively?"

      "That's right."

      "Thanks, Higgins. That's all."

      Foam was on the point of going upstairs when he stopped to peep through the open door of an office which had Major Pomeroy's name painted on the frosted glass panels. A little girl with a pale, intelligent face and large horn-rimmed glasses stopped typing and looked up at him expectantly.

      "I'm from the agency," he explained. "Do you happen to know Mr. Cross' private telephone number?"

      He blessed her for her instant grasp of his meaning.

      "That's been attended to," she said. "The major told me to ring up the apartment hotel where Mr. Cross is staying before I got on to you. They had no news of her, but the major said it was too soon."

      "Nice work," approved Foam. "Keep ringing the number."

      Running upstairs to the landing where Cross and the major were still waiting, he opened the door of No. 16.

      It was a typical example of the architecture of its period--large and lofty, with an ornate ceiling and cornice decorated with plaster mouldings of birds, flowers and fruit. The walls were panelled with cream-painted-wood, much of which was hidden by fixtures--a cupboard wardrobe, a tall erection of book shelves and a full-length mirror in a tarnished gilt frame. A huge oil painting of a classical subject--a goddess supported by super-clouds and surrounded by a covey of cupids--took up much space.

      It was furnished in modern style, with a conventional suite of a divan and two large easy chairs which might have come from any window of a furnishing store. The colouring of the upholstery was neutral and toned with the buff Axminster carpet. Madame Goya's personal taste was indicated by cushions of scarlet and peacock blue and by a couple of sheepskin rugs dyed in distinctive tints of jade and orange. The open grate had also been modernised with built-in tiles and an electric fire.

      Such was No. 16--the room in which, according to the inference of the evidence, a girl had faded into air.

      CHAPTER THREE--PROTECTION OF PROPERTY

       Table of Contents

      Foam did not need the aid of Euclid to reject the vanishing theory as absurd. If the girl were actually lost inside Pomerania House, it stood to reason that she must be still there--in the flesh. It seemed to him that the mystery admitted one of two explanations.

      The first was that Evelyn Cross had slipped away voluntarily out of the house. Unfortunately, the chances of this were remote, since it involved choosing the identical blind moment of four witnesses, all endowed with normal senses.

      The second was that she had been kidnapped--in which case Goya must be the agent. This, too, was not a watertight theory. Apart from the necessity of co-operation with another person--or persons--in Pomerania House, Goya would have to devise as ingenious and foolproof hiding place for her victim, in view of the inevitable search of her premises.

      Foam considered that such a crime would be highly hazardous, but he had no choice in the matter he had either to find the girl--dead or alive--or to disprove her father's suspicions. Cross was in no mental state to wait patiently for proof that Evelyn had merely slipped away. Besides, delay was dangerous because, in the worst case, the girl would be gagged and trussed-up in a restricted space, with a shortage of air.

      At the far end of her room, Madame Goya sat at a small table near the radiator, stitching gloves. An adjustable lamp threw a cone of light upon her work, but left her face in shadow. Behind her were closely drawn window curtains of lined brown velvet.

      Foam looked around for the evidence of a bed other than the inadequate divan, before he asked a question.

      "Do you sleep here, madame?"

      "I?" repeated the lady incredulously. "What a grim idea. I have a flat in St. John's Wood--This is merely a lock-up place of business."

      It did not suggest a workshop to Foam's suspicious eye. It was so tidy and free from snippets or threads that he suspected the glove-making to be a blind to some dingier profession. At the same time he remembered the major's statement about objectionable tenants, so concluded that the line could not be too obvious.

      He turned to the major.

      "You searched the room thoroughly, of course?" he asked, "What about the window?"

      "It was closed and the shutters bolted," replied Major Pomeroy. "This room is nearly hermetically sealed--Madame prefers to work by artificial light."

      Foam's nose confirmed the statement. The temperature was that of a forcing frame, while the air smelt of burnt pastilles, rotten apples and fog. He glanced at the open door of the cupboard wardrobe which revealed a fur coat on a stretcher, and then СКАЧАТЬ