THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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it was. And then, on top of that, was the murder. Kitchen-maid it was, found dead in the house, with her throat slit from ear to ear. She was always hard on tramps and used to like to turn them from the door, and one was heard to threaten to do her in. They never caught him. But it got the house a bad smell."
Helen clasped her hands tightly.
"Mrs. Oates," she asked, "where, exactly, was she murdered?"
"In the dark passage, where the cellars are," was the reply. "I wouldn't tell you, just now, but Oates and I always call that bit, 'Murder Lane.'"
As she listened, it occurred to Helen that Lady Warren's rambling talk about trees breaking into the house was built on a solid foundation. When she was a young woman, she had been soaked to the marrow in this damp solitude. She had stood at her window staring out into the winter twilight, while the mist curled to shapes, and trees writhed into life.
One of the trees—a tramp, savage and red-eyed—had actually slipped inside. No wonder, now that she was old, she re-lived the scene in her memory.
"When did this happen?" she asked.
"Just before Sir Robert's death. Lady Warren wanted to give up the house, as they couldn't get no servants, and it was rows, all the time, till the accident."
"And has the Professor servant-trouble, too?" enquired Nurse Barker.
"Not till now," replied Mrs. Oates. "There's always been old and middle-aged bits, as wanted a quiet home. They've kept things going until these murders started the old trouble again."
Nurse Barker licked her lips with gloomy relish. "One of them was quite close to the Summit, wasn't it?" she asked.
"A few miles off."
Nurse Barker laughed as she lit a fresh cigarette.
"Well, I needn't worry," she said. "I'm safe, as long as she is here."
"Do you mean Miss Capel?" asked Mrs. Oates.
"Yes."
Helen did not like being picked out for this special distinction. She felt sorry that she had stepped into the limelight, with the announcement of her alleged power to attract men.
"Why pick on me?" she protested.
"Because you are young and pretty."
Helen laughed, with a sudden sense of fresh security.
"In that case," she said, "I'm safe, too. No man would ever look at me, while the Professor's daughter-in-law was by. She is young, too, and oozes sex-appeal."
Nurse Barker shook her head, with a smile full of dark meaning.
"No," she insisted. "She is safe."
"Why?" asked Helen.
In her turn, Nurse Barker put a question.
"Haven't you noticed it for yourself?"
Her hints were so vague and mysterious that they got under Helen's skin.
"I wish you would come out in the open," she cried.
"I will, then," said Nurse Barker. "Haven't you noticed that the murderer always chooses girls who earn their own living? Very likely he's a shell-shock case, who came back from the War, to find a woman in his place. The country is crawling with women, like maggots, eating up all the jobs. And the men are starved out."
"But I'm not doing man's work," protested Helen.
"Yes, you are. Men are being employed in houses, now. There's a man, here. Her husband." Nurse Barker nodded to indicate Mrs. Oates. "Instead of being at home, you're out, taking a wage. It's wages from somebody else. That's how a man looks at it."
"Well—what about yourself?"
"A nurse's work has always been held sacred to women."
Mrs. Oates made an effort to relieve the tension, as she rose from her chair.'
"Well, I'd. better see what mess one man's made of the dinner. Upon my word, Nurse, to hear you talk, you might be a man yourself."
"I can see through their eyes," said Nurse Barker.
Helen, however, noticed that Mrs. Oates had scored a bull, for Nurse Barker bit her lips, as though she resented the remark. But she kept her eyes fixed upon the girl, who felt herself shrink under the relentless stare. Her common-sense returned at the sound of Mrs. Oates' loud laugh.
"Well, anyone what wants to get our little Miss Capel, will have to get past Oates and me first."
Helen looked at her ugly face, her brawny arms. She thought of Oates with his stupendous strength. She had two worthy guardians, in case of need.
"I'd not afraid of getting preferential treatment," she said. As though she had some uncanny instinct, Nurse Barker seemed to know exactly how to raise up the spectre of fear.
"In any case," she observed, "you will have Lady Warren to keep you company. You are sleeping with her tonight."
Helen heard the words with a horrible sense of finality. Lady Warren knew that Helen would have to come. Her smile was like that of a crocodile, waiting for prey which never failed it.
The old lady would be waiting for her.
CHAPTER VIII. JEALOUSY
While Helen grappled with the problem of how to make the doctor understand her aversion to night-duty—so that he might back her up with the necessary authority—the triangle was working up to a definite situation. Had she known it, she would have been indifferent to any development of marital friction. For the first time in her life, she was removed from her comfortable seat in the theatre, and pushed on to the stage.
The more she thought of the prospect of sleeping in the blue room, the less she liked it. It was a case for compliance, or open rebellion, when she risked not only dismissal, but a probable forfeiture of salary. She was positive that Miss Warren would side with the nurse, for her short spell as her deputy had been both repugnant and inconvenient.
Nurse Barker's status in the household, as a trained professional woman, was far higher than the help's. If she declared an ultimatum, Helen must inevitably go to the wall. Moreover, in spite of his apparent interest in herself, she had an uneasy suspicion that—as a matter of etiquette—the doctor must support the nurse.
"If he fails me, I'll just have to grit my teeth and see it through," she thought. "But, first, I'll have a desperate dig at his higher nature."
While there seemed to be no connection between her own grim drama of fear and the teacup tempest in the drawing-room, the repercussions of the trivial theme were to be of vital importance to her safety.
Yet the drawing room and kitchen seemed a world apart. As Helen was grating nutmegs, Simone tossed her cigarette into the fire and rose, with a yawn. Instantly her husband's head shot up from behind the cover of his book.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To dress. Why?"
"Merely an opening gambit for conversation. Your unbroken silence is uncivilised."
Simone's eyes flashed under her painted brows.
"You do nothing but ask questions," she said. "I'm not used to cross-examination—and I resent it. And another thing. I object to being followed."
Newton stuck out his lower lip as he threw away his own cigarette.
"But your way happens to be my way, my dear," Newton told her. "I'm going up to dress, too."
Simone spun round and faced him.
"Look here," she said, "I don't want to throw a scene here, because of the Professor. But I warn you once and for all, I've had enough