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Page 10
Some of the grimness faded from the wrinkled old face, and the
housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed
in a queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might
follow. One did not follow, however. "I am sure I apologize,
sir," she said. "Benson did not tell me you had arrived."
"That's quite all right," said Harley, genially.
His smile held a hint of amusement, for in the comprehensive
glance which the old lady cast across the library, a glance keen
to detect disorder and from which no speck of dust could hope to
conceal itself, there remained a trace of that grimness which he
had detected at the moment of her entrance. In short, she was
still bristling from a recent encounter. So much so that
detecting something sympathetic in Harley's smile she availed
herself of the presence of a badly arranged vase of flowers to
linger and to air her grievances.
"Servants in these times," she informed him, her fingers busily
rearranging the blooms, "are not what servants were in my young
days."
"Unfortunately, that is so," Harley agreed.
The old lady tossed her head. "I do my best," she continued, "but
that girl would not have stayed in the house for one week if I
had had my way. Miss Phil is altogether too soft-hearted. Thank
goodness, she goes to-morrow, though."
"You don't refer to Miss Phil?" said Harley, intentionally
misunderstanding.
"Gracious goodness, no!" exclaimed the housekeeper, and laughed
with simple glee at the joke. "I mean Jones, the new parlourmaid.
When I say new, they are all new, for none of them stay longer
than three months."
"Indeed," smiled Harley, who perceived that the old lady was
something of a martinet.
"Indeed, they don't. Think they are ladies nowadays. Four hours
off has that girl had to-day, although she was out on Wednesday.
Then she has the impudence to allow someone to ring her up here
at the house; and finally I discover her upsetting the table
after Benson had laid it and after I had rearranged it."
She glanced indignantly in the direction of the lobby. "Perhaps
one day," she concluded, pathetically, as she walked slowly from
the room, "we shall find a parlourmaid who is a parlourmaid. Good
evening, sir."
"Good evening," said Harley, quietly amused to be made the
recipient of these domestic confidences.
He continued to smile for some time after the door had been
closed. His former train of ideas was utterly destroyed, but for
this he was not ungrateful to the housekeeper, since the
outstanding disadvantage of that strange gift resembling
prescience was that it sometimes blunted the purely analytical
part of his mind when this should have been at its keenest. He
was now prepared to listen to what Sir Charles had to say and to
judge impartially of its evidential value.
Wandering from side to side of the library, he presently found
himself standing still before the mantelpiece and studying a
photograph in a silver frame which occupied the centre of the
shelf. It was the photograph of an unusually pretty girl; that is
to say, of a girl whose beauty was undeniable, but who belonged
to a type widely removed from that of the ordinary good-looking
Englishwoman.
The outline of her face was soft and charming, and there was a
questioning look in her eyes which was alluring and challenging.
Her naive expression was palpably a pose, and her slightly parted
lips promised laughter. She possessed delightfully wavy hair and
her neck and one shoulder, which were bare, had a Grecian purity.
Harley discovered himself to be smiling at the naive lady of the
photograph.
"Presumably 'Miss Phil'," he said aloud.
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