CHAPTER ONE. Hail Happy Morn

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      Miss Loveapple awoke with a smile. She had slept well; her digestion was good—her conscience clear; and she had not an enemy in the world.

      There was nothing to warn her that, within the next hour, she would be selected as a victim to be murdered.

      As she threw aside the sheets and sat up in bed, she looked beautiful. Just as every dog has his day, every woman has her hour. Since Miss Loveapple's dress allowance was shaved to the limit, she triumphed when she was in undress.

      Her low sleeveless nightdress revealed the whiteness of her skin which had not been exposed to the sun. Her fair hair fell over her shoulders in thick plaits. As she stretched out her arms in a yawn, she seemed to be welcoming the gift of life.

      It was a blue windy day in late summer. The sun shone brightly upon her toilet table, striking through the cut-glass trinket set in rainbow gleams. She could hear the welcome rattle of china which told her that the maid was mounting the stairs with her early tea and the Times.

      Birds were singing in the beech-tree which shaded her window, as though to celebrate good news. It had come, the night before, by the last post, in a letter from a London house agent. He had told her of an unexpected chance to let her town house, which would enable her to take a rare holiday abroad.

      'Switzerland,' she said aloud. 'Mountains. You lucky me.'

      Miss Loveapple believed in her luck. She was positive that Providence had drawn up a schedule of beneficent events for her special benefit. If any sceptic doubted that she was under the direct protection of an unseen Patron, she could offer proof of her claim.

      To begin with, out of millions of hopeful gamblers, she, alone, was chosen to draw a certain horse in an Irish Sweep and consequently to realise the supreme ambition of her life.

      In addition to this spectacular slice of good fortune, she could produce a long list of minor examples of her luck. Royalty died after she had bought a black hat, to justify an extravagance. On the nerve-racking occasion when she had forgotten to provide cakes for her At Home day, it rained heavily, spoiling the hay harvest, but keeping every visitor away.

      Little things like that.

      Each year, when her vegetable marrows or her gladioli received the coveted blue ticket—First Prize—at the local flower show, she would inhale the hot mashed-grass and fruit-laden atmosphere of the tent, as though it were incense compounded for her.

      'My luck again,' she would declare to her disappointed competitors. 'Not your fault. Too bad—when you tried so hard.'

      And then her hearty laughter would ring out, for she was genuine rather than tactful.

      She was fortunate even over the circumstances in which she was orphaned. Her parents thoughtfully went on living until she was twenty-one and had finished her education and received proper dental attention. She was therefore spared the restrictions imposed upon a minor when they both died of epidemic influenza, just