THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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opposed Simone's passion, He did not run from her pursuit; he merely shoved her away. Even then, he was in the kitchen, helping Mrs, Oates. He had been offered romance—and he chose onions.
The dining-room was the finest room in the Summit, with an elabourate ceiling of dark carved wood, and a massive fireplace and over-mantel to correspond.
The great windows were screened with thick crimson curtains, while dark red paper covered the walls.
Helen crossed to the walnut sideboard, where the glass and silver was kept, and took a table-cloth from one of the drawers.
From years of practice, Helen could lay a table in her sleep. As she mechanically sorted out spoons and forks, her mind was busy in speculation, Although she was denied the privilege of argument with an employer, she was positive that, during her absence, there had been some monkey-work in the blue room.
"I'm sure Mrs. Oates is right," she thought. "Lady Warren is not bed-ridden. She got up, and then she tried to cover her traces by tidying the bed. Well, she overdid it. I'd like to talk it over with Dr. Parry,"
Dr. Parry was clever, young and unconventional. The first time he met Helen, he had shown a direct interest in her welfare, which she had accepted on a medical basis. He asked her personal questions, and seemed apprehensive of the influence of her surroundings on her youth.
What appealed to her most was his unprofessional gossip about his patient.
"Her heart's in a shocking state," he told her. "Still, hearts are sporting organs, She might climb Snowdon and be all right, and the next time she sneezed it might finish her off. But—she keeps me guessing. I sometimes wonder if she is so helpless. To my mind, she is an old surprise-packet."
Helen remembered his words as she trotted to and fro, between the table and the sideboard. But her ears still burned whenever she recalled the irony of Miss Warren's voice.
"Well, I've warned her," she thought. "It's her pigeon. But I would like to know where that revolver is. You won't catch me in that room again, if I can help it."
Although she tried to listen for the sound of the car, the fury of the storm prevented her from hearing the hum of the engine, It was not until she caught Mrs. Oates' welcome to her husband, that she realised that the new nurse had come.
She rushed across the room and opened the door, but was too late to see her face, for she was in the act of following her guides through the entry to the kitchen stairs. Her back view, however, was impressive, for she was unusually tall.
Helen felt a burst of confidence.
"She's not a weak link, anyway," she decided. "She'd be an awkward customer for him to tackle."
As she lingered in the hall, she remembered the loose handle of Miss Warren's door: She had watched where Oates kept his handful of tools, and discovered that he left them where he had used them, With this clue to guide her, she found the box stuck away in a corner of the boot-closet, in the hall.
As this was not a legitimate job, she crept up the stairs to the first floor landing, and knelt before the door. She had hardly begun her investigations, when a sudden sound made her look up.
As she did so, she was the victim of an illusion. She was sure that the door across the landing, leading from the back-stairs, opened and shut again, giving her a glimpse of the face of a stranger.
It passed, like the dissolving memory of a dream, yet it left a horror in her mind, as though she had received a vision of elemental evil.
Even while she stared in stunned bewilderment, she realised that a door had actually opened and that the Professor was advancing towards her.
"It must have been the Professor," she thought. "It must. I believe it looked like him. Some trick of light or shadow altered his expression. It's so dark here."
Even while she clung to this commonplace explanation, her reason rejected it. At the back of her mind remained a picture of the spiral of the back-stairs. The two staircases of the Summit offered special chances to anyone who wished to hide.
She reminded herself that no one could get in during the daytime. Besides, the house was so full of people that it would be impossible for anyone to escape notice. The intruder would have to know the habits and time-table of all the inmates.
Suddenly she remembered that Mrs. Oates had commented on the supernormal cunning of a criminal maniac.
He would know.
A shiver ran down her spine, as she wondered if she ought to tell the Professor of her experience. It was her duty, if any unauthorised person was secreted in the house. But, as she opened her lips, the memory of her recent encounter with Miss Warren made her afraid of appearing officious.
Although the Professor's eyes seemed to reduce her to the usual essential gases, the sight of his conventional dinner clothes acted as a tonic. His shirt-front gleamed, his black tie was formal, his grey hair was brushed back from his intellectual brow.
Although he was rigid where his sister was fluid, he inspired her with the same sense of unhuman companionship.
Suddenly aware that he might suspect her of spying through a bedroom keyhole, she broke into an explanation of the defective door-handle.
"Tell Oates to see to it, please," he said, with an absent nod.
Toned by the incident, Helen resolved to test her nerve by a descent of the back-stairs. When she opened the landing door, and looked down the spiral, it looked a trap, corkscrewing down to depths of darkness. But her courage did not desert her until the last flight, which she nearly leaped, at a sudden memory of a seared, distorted face.
CHAPTER VII. THE NEW NURSE
When Helen entered the kitchen, she was greeted by the explosions of splattering fat. Although the table was crowded with materials for dinner—in different stages of preparation—while vegetables bubbled on the range, Mrs. Oates fried fish, juggled with her saucepans, and dried her husband's wet things over the boiler. In spite of the seeming confusion, she took these interludes in her stride, without loss of head, or temper.
Oates, in his grey woollen cardigan, was eating a huge meal in the corner, which his wife had cleared for him. He was a good-natured giant of a man, with the build of a prize-fighter.
At the sight of his small honest eyes, Helen's heart leaped in real welcome. Like his wife, he always appeared to her as a tower of strength.
"I'm so glad you've come back," she told him. "You're as good as three men about the house."
Oates smiled sheepishly as he tried to return the compliment.
"Thank you for laying my table, miss," he said.
"Is it still raining heavily?" went on Helen.
"Not near so much," interposed Mrs. Oates bitterly. "Oates brought most of it in with him."
Oates poured Worcester sauce over his fish, and changed the subject.
"Wait till you see what I've brought back with me," he chuckled.
"You mean—the new nurse?" asked Helen.
"Yes, the little piece I picked up at the Nursing Home. By the look of her, she's as good as another man."
"Is she nice?"
"As nasty a bit of work as ever I've come across. Talks with plums in her mouth, and kept me in my place. Well, if she's a lady, I'm Greta Garbo."
"Where is she?" enquired Helen curiously.
"I put a meal for her in the sitting-room," replied Mrs. Oates.
"My room?"
Mrs. Oates exchanged a smile with her husband. Helen's sense of ownership was a perpetual source of amusement to them,