Reflected Glory. John Russell Fearn

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      “Oh, nothing very terrible,” he assured her, laughing. “Gosh, what a nervy girl you are sometimes! My secret is a slit in the bathroom wall of my flat into which I push my old razor blades. Ssssh! Don’t tell a soul!”

      “Oh, you—you idiot!” she exclaimed, laughing somewhat uncomfortably. “I thought for a moment it was going to be something really important.”

      “Like your mysterious furniture?” he asked dryly. “And how are you going to do about your various things? Pity I didn’t bring the car.”

      “It doesn’t signify,” she answered. “Ted Husting, the estate agent, knows me well enough, and he’s an auctioneer, real estate agent, remover, and heaven knows what else. I’ll simply tell him what I want done and where to send everything, and that will be that. He’ll find storage space for the stuff in—that room.”

      “Uh-huh,” Clive agreed, and they were both silent for a moment.

      Clive, indeed, was conscious of a grim impasse. Though he had tossed the matter off lightly his mind was still drifting in vague perplexity to whatever “secret” the girl had.

      “I take it that everything can go to your flat except the furniture?” she asked, picking up her handbag.

      “Surely— Which reminds me, you haven’t even seen it yet!” Clive gave a start. “Hmm—we’ll remedy that the moment we get back to the city. The address is Grant Apartments, 18a, Marton Street, West Central.”

      “I’ll remember,” Elsa said; then after a final glance about her she added, “Well, that’s all for now. Let’s be going. Tomorrow I’ll telephone my bank and have them transfer my account to the nearest London branch.”

      Clive followed, her out of the room and across the hall. She made sure the front door was securely locked and together they went down the pathway.

      “I still like this district,” Clive said, giving his head a little admiring shake as he glanced about the hot countryside. “All except the swamp, of course.... Anybody ever get lost in it?”

      “Plenty of people,” the girl answered quietly. “Strangers as a rule who lost their way in the mist which settles at night around these low-lying parts. Far as I know about a dozen people have gone down at different times. Once, even, I heard one of them scream as he sank. It was in the winter— I never quite for­got it,” she finished, with a little shudder.

      Clive glanced at her and gripped her arm reassuringly.

      “This is daylight, and summertime,” he said gently. “There’s no earthly good can come of remembering those kind of happenings. Candidly, Elsa, I think you let your mind brood far too much on the unpleasant things of life. Maybe that’s why your thrillers are so horrific.”

      “No, that isn’t the reason,” she answered, with a strange little smile. “It’s because—”

      She stopped, glancing up, and Clive drew her to the side of the road as a two-seater open car came into view round the bend. The driver sounded the horn once and then applied the brakes. A dark, homely-looking young man with brown eyes, a soft hat push­ed up on his forehead, contemplated the two seriously.

      “Clem!” Elsa exclaimed, and for some reason there was look of consternation on her face. “Where on earth did you spring from?”

      “Not a matter of springing. I was just coming along to take you out in the ordinary way. It’s Thursday evening, remember—and that’s my usual time for calling.”

      “Thursday?” Elsa repeated vaguely. Then she seemed to remem­ber. She glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes to six.

      “At six o’clock on Thursdays I always call,” the young man said, a harshness in his deliberate voice. “Why should this Thursday be any different?”

      “I’d—forgotten,” Elsa said, making an effort to get herself in hand. She turned to Clive. “This is Clem Hargraves, Clive, a very good friend of mine. This is Clive Hexley, Clem....”

      “Also a very good friend of yours?” Clem Hargraves asked.

      “As a matter of fact I am,” Clive responded, his jaw hardening. “I can’t say I altogether like your attitude towards my fiancée, either.”

      “Your what?” Clem Hargraves gave a start, and Elsa gave an anx­ious glance from one man to the other.

      “Fiancée,” Clive repeated deliberately.

      “That,” Clem Hargraves said, “definitely does it! Of all the cheap, low-down tricks! I’d never have thought it of you, Elsa.... Oh, congratulations,” he added sourly, and raised his soft hat to a needless height. Then reversing the car swiftly, he aped back up the lane and vanished in clouds of dust.

      “Who is that character?” Clive demanded, as the girl stared helplessly after him.

      “I was going to become engaged to him,” she responded, after a pause. “Each Thursday evening he used to call for me in his car and we’d go out somewhere together—to Kingswood, or Guildford, to a show of some kind. Only with so many other things happening I’d completely forgotten all about him.”

      “You had, eh?” Clive took her arm as they resumed walking. He had the feeling that there was something wrong here. Surely no girl could completely forget the man to whom she was all but engaged? It was more suggestive of her so timing things that they had been bound to meet him, which had given her the chance to snub him. Which seemed to throw a not altogether pleasant side­light on Elsa’s character.

      “He’s a commercial,” Elsa explained presently. “Grocery, or something. I’ve known him for years, and since I’ve lived a pretty secluded sort of life he seemed to be about the only man near my own age with whom I came in contact. He used to call at the house when my parents were alive, for grocery orders. We became friends and....” She raised a shoulder negatively. “Well, I really had seriously considered becoming engaged to him. He’d asked me often enough. Then I met you and he went clean out of my mind.”

      “Uh-huh,” Clive murmured, and be was perfectly willing to admit that the emotional impact could have banished all other thoughts from Elsa’s mind.

      “He’s a dull chap,” Elsa sighed. “Incredibly dull. He plods, whereas I like to trip. I don’t think you can ever escape from yourself by just plodding, do you?”

      “Having never tried to escape from myself—which seems to be a passion with you—I can’t say,” Clive answered. Then he laughed slightly. “Y’know, Elsa, come to think of it, we seem to have upset two people with our affairs. Babs Vane, and now this chap. Too bad, of course, but after all they shouldn’t take so much for granted.”

      They both became silent again, and it was a quietness in which they finished their journey to the village, Elsa leading the way along the high street to the estate agent’s office. Across his window was a string of qualifications which in any modern town would have excited amusement—AUCTIONEER, REAL ESTATE, REMOVALS, PORTERING, DECORATING.

      “Apparently the ‘Admirable Crichton’,” Clive commented, grinning.

      Elsa smiled and seized the knob of the office’s front door; then she frowned in annoyance, СКАЧАТЬ