Some Must Watch (British Murder Mystery). Ethel Lina White

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СКАЧАТЬ of the blue room. Like her brother, she was tall and of a commanding figure, but there the resemblance ended. She appeared to Helen as an overbred and superior personality, with dim flickering features, and eyes the hue of rainwater.

      In common with the Professor however, she seemed to resent the gaze of a stranger as an outrage on her privacy; yet, while her remote glance sent Helen away on a very long journey, the Professor decimated her out of existence.

      "You're late, Miss Capel," she remarked in her toneless voice.

      "I'm sorry." Helen looked anxious, as she wondered if her precious job were in peril. "I understood, from Mrs. Oates, that I was free till five. It's my first afternoon off since I came."

      "That is not what I meant. Of course, I am not reproaching you for any breach of duty. But it is too late for you to be returning from a walk."

      "Oh, thank you, Miss Warren. I did go farther than I intended. But it did not grow dark till the last mile."

      Miss Warren looked at Helen, who felt herself slipping away a thousand miles or so.

      "A mile is a long way from home," she said. "It is not wise to go far, even by daylight. Surely you get sufficient exercise working about the house?" Why don't you go into the garden to get fresh air?"

      "Oh, but Miss Warren," protested. Helen, "that is not the same as a good stretching walk, is it?"

      "I understand." Miss Warren smiled faintly. "But I want you, in turn, to understand this. You are a young girl, and I am responsible for your safety."

      Even while the warning seemed grotesque on Miss Warren's lips, Helen thrilled to the intangible hint of danger. It seemed to be everywhere—floating in the air—inside the house, as well as outside in the dark, tree-dripping valley.

      "Blanche."

      A deep bass voice—like that of a man, or an old woman—boomed faintly from the blue room. Instantly, the stately Miss Warren shrank, from a paralysing personality, to a schoolgirl hurrying to obey the summons of her mistress.

      "Yes, Mother," she called. "I'm coming."

      She crossed the landing, in ungainly strides, and shut the door of the blue room behind her, to Helen's disappointment.

      "I'm getting a strange contrast in my types," she thought, as she slowly walked up the stairs, to the next landing. "Mrs. Newton is torrid, and Miss Warren frigid. Hot and cold water, by turns. I wonder what will happen in case of fusion?"

      She liked to coin phrases, just as she enjoyed the reflection that she was brought into daily contact with two bachelors and a widower, thus reviving a lost art. Those derided Victorians, who looked upon every man as a potential husband, certainly extracted every ounce of interest from a dull genus.

      Yet, while she respected the Professor's intellect, and genuinely looked forward to the visits of the young Welsh doctor, she resolved to go on buying Savings Certificates, for her old age. For she believed in God—but not in Jane Eyre.

      She was on the point of entering her room, when she noticed that a light was shining through the glass transom of the bachelor's room. It drew her, as a magnet, to his door.

      "Are you inside, Mr. Rice?" she called.

      "Come and see for yourself," invited the pupil.

      "I only wanted to know if the light was being wasted."

      "Well, it's not. Come in."

      Helen obeyed the invitation. She was used to two kinds of behavior from men; they either overlooked her altogether, or paid her stressed attentions, in private.

      Of the alternatives, she preferred to be insulted; she could always give back as good as she got, while she was braced by any kind of personal experience.

      She liked Stephen Rice, because he treated her exactly as he treated other girls—with a casual frankness. He was smoking, as he pitched clothing into an open suitcase, and he made no apology for his state of undress, as his underwear satisfied his own standard of decency. Although he did not appeal to Helen, who liked a man's face to betray some trace of intellect, or spirit, he was generally accepted as unusually handsome, on the evidence of heavy regular features, and thick waving hair, which grew rather too low on his brow.

      "Like dogs?" he asked, shaking out a confusion of ties.

      "Let me," remarked Helen, taking them from him, with kind firmness. "Of course I like dogs. I've looked after them."

      "Then that's a bad mark to you. I loathe women who boss dogs. You set them showing off in Parks. Like the blasted centurion, who said come and he cometh. I always want to bite them, since the dogs are too gentlemanly to do their own job."

      "Yes, I know," nodded Helen, who agreed, on principle, when it was possible. "But my dogs used to boss me. They had a secret understanding to all pull at once, in different directions. The wonder is I didn't develop into a starfish."

      Stephen shouted with laughter.

      "Good for them. Like to see something special in the way of dogs? I bought him, today, from a farmer."

      Helen looked around the untidy room.

      "Where is he?" she asked. "Under the bed?"

      "Is that where you sleep? Inside the bed, you cuckoo."

      "Oo. Suppose he has fleas?"

      "Suppose he hasn't? Come, Otto."

      Stephen raised a corner of the eider-down, and an Alsatian peeped out.

      "Bit shy," explained Stephen. "I say, what price old Miss Warren when she sees him? She won't allow a dog inside the house."

      "Why?" asked Helen.

      "Afraid of them."

      Oh, no, she can't be. It's the other way round. People are afraid of her, because she's so formidable."

      "That's only her make-up. She's a hollow funk. Put her in a jam, and she'd smash." She's got the wind up now, over this gorilla gent. By the way, are you afraid of him?"

      "Of course not." Helen laughed. "Perhaps, I might be a bit if I was alone. But no one could feel nervous in a house full of people."

      "I don't agree. It all depends on the people. You'll always find a weak link. Miss Warren is one. She'd let you down.

      "But there's safety in numbers," persisted Helen. "He wouldn't dare to come here. D' you want any sewing done?"

      "No, thank you, my dear. The godly Mrs. Oates has kept me sewn up. In more sense than one, by the way. Now, there's a character, if you like. You can bank on her—if there's not a bottle about."

      "Why—does she drink?"

      Stephen only laughed in reply.

      "Look here, you'd better clear out," he advised, "before Miss Warren raises hell. This is the bachelor's room."

      "But I'm not a lady. I'm Staff," explained Helen indignantly. "And they're waiting tea for you."

      "You СКАЧАТЬ