The Step In The House

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 474, 2 October 1928, Page 5

The Step In The House

♦- By

Rina Ramsay.

CHAPTER IX (Continued) "They stop the express on market days at two or three small stations down the line,” said Mr. Smith, “and there was a crowd of farmers and marketing women getting into the train, so she wasn’t noticed. But somebody did take a ticket for town. The booking clerk didn’t look up, just pushed it through his window. Somebody was bothering him about a lost umbrella. But it’s good enough.” Richardson looked the further question he could not ask. “She’ll be found all right in London,” said Mr. Smith confidently. “There’ll be no difficulty about that, and if she tries to get out of the country—if she should be so foolish —she will be detained. There will be no disappearance—except in the newspapers. We don’t want this kind of thing to embarrass us—yet. But I’ll let you know.” There was an unbearable sympathy in his manner. Richardson felt that the man understood all that he was feeling, but he could not resent it. After all, Mr. Smith had been decent- It wasn’t his fault if he showed too openly that he was sorry for him. “Can X give you a lift?” he said, but the detective thanked him and said he had a car with him. So the doctor drove out of the yard alone. He had to go slowly. There was a waggon in front of him, and the street hefe was too narrow for him to pass. At a snail’s pace he moved along, glancing indifferently at the houses on either side. A quaint lot they were: a thatched cottage, so old that it poked outwards, leaning over the pavement, a sweet shop, a stiff stone house with prim evergreens on each side of the door, and a tobacconist’s. Xex;, door to the tobacconist’s, a shop with a few faded hats, a heap of tumbled finery, and one little black silk frock hanging in the window. The little frock looked pathetic, with empty sleeves, dangling from a hook. The sight of it gave him a queer, incomprehensible shock; called up in his vacant mind a dreadful image. He found himself hot and cold . . . found that he had stopped the car. and was stupidly staring at it. Without moving he wondered vaguely what kind of a fool he was. What was it in that sad little limp garment that had fixed his attention? All at once he knew. It was hers. He remembered her little white neck rising like satin out of the quaint jet edging. He remembered the scarf like train that she had hung over her arm when she came down the stairs to him. Just there the street was widening out into the market place. He took

his car a little farther, above there was room for it to stand by the pavement without stopping all the traffic, then he went back quickly to the shop. Over the door were two legends, “Ladies’ Wardrobes,” and in large proud letters, “Registry for Servants.” Eagerly he went in.

A woman, with a tired red face came out from an inner room, and looked at him with a discouraging kind of smile as if she knew what he wanted and was uttex'ly unable to supply it. He cast about for an introduction. “I want a housekeeper,” he said, desperately. That was true. The woman's face lightened. She looked less gloomy. “Oh,” she said. “It is possible that. I was afraid it might be a cook.” She went back into the recesses of the shop, and fetched out a ledger, then waited for him to notify his requirements. He did so, and paid the five shillings for putting them in her book, then took the plunge. “And,” he said, “I want to buy that frock.” That surprised her; but she took it down from the window and laid it across the counter. He made a pretence of examining it, strangely moved at the soft feel of it in his fingers. “How much?” he asked. The woman asked a ridiculously low figure for such a treasure. A faint scent of roses reached him as she shook out the soft folds and packed it up. She wanted him to buy it; there was no sale here for anything so simple. Her customers were mostly servants, and servants, she admitted, hated black. Eager, important questions were on his tongue. He controlled himself trying to look as if it were auite an ordinary thing for a sedate country doctor to burst into a shop and buy a second-hand lady’s dress. “I suppose you know where it’s come from?—it’s quite clean and ... no infection or anything of that kind?” he said, trying to look doubtful; and waited with a pounding heart for an answer. “Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “We are very particular. We take nothing here from a doubtful quarter. Ladies often give their cast-off dresses to their maids, and they sell them to us. This little dress came from Mrs. Waller’s housemaid.” It was not the answer he had hoped for. His wild guess was dashed. He looked at the woman blankly, and she, thinking a deal was going to slip’ through her fingers, and that the

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strange customer was regretting his absurd fancy, made haste to clinch the bargain. , “A very clean bouse, she said, iou don’t know Whiteboro’, perhaps, sir?” “No I fished here once,” said Richardson, curtly. “Oh, she lives here then?” “Mrs. Waller?” said the woman. “Yes, sir, and very respectable people. Mrs. ’waller’s very particular with ner servants, and they stay a long time. Never complain of the food. You can take this costume with every confidence. Your lady could put it on directly as it comes from me ” Mrs. Waller’s housemaid? It was a ridiculous thing, but he could not bring himself to believe it. Whether it was magic or illusion, he couldn’t get over the notion that this little silk rag was hers. Romantic fool that he was—wild idea that had been knocked on the head! It was an impossible thing of course. Again the faint fragrance of roses reached him, and reminded him poignantly of her. “I’ll take it,” he said briefly. Let him cheat himself if he liked! His reason told him he was acting like a lunatic, but he couldn’t part from it, and that was the simple truth. And he was no nearer finding her. He had to go back and possess himself in patience, throw himself once more into the most exacting calling a man could follow, and go up and down his little world with an impassive countenance, though all the gossips in the place were pulling him to pieces. He got home at night. The house, to his great comfort, was empty of Mrs. Price. His two women servants —the small one, who was mostly on

her hands and knees, and the elder one, who did whatever Mrs. Price was too genteel to undertake —seemed both rather pleased about it. They got his dinner, and hovered pleasantly in the background. There was no fussing in the house, no stilted conversation, no —he laughed ruefully to himself as he at last realised it —no designing woman. Pure spite and jealousy was what had made her break out like that. It w-as to be hoped he had done with her. He trusted she had gone right away, and ■wasn't lurking in the town trying to do more mischief. He had been very curt with her when he handed her the extra large cheque that was intended to stop her mouth, but, he might have been certain, wouldn’t. He had not asked her what her plans might be. Well, anyhow, he was rid of her in his house. Restlessly after dinner he walked up and down, wondering what was in the wund; what new turn things would take in the cruel tangle, and as he wondered he heard Johnny Adams at the front door inquiring for him. Colossal impudence that man had! Or was it just conceit? What other man, after the scene of yesterday, would have came to seek him out, would have walked in and held out his hand in that jaunty fashion? Richard son mastered himself and took it. He must make no imprudent move. He must wait and watch for a chance of serving her. “Hullo! Back again, are you?” said Johnny. “I saw old Harrington rushing about, very important, dosing your patients. He’s the old school, isn’t

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he; gives everybody rhubarb? Good Lord deliver us, that housekeeper of yours did let you down. Bnt what an advertisement! Got your car back, did you?” Richardson winced. Well, he had got to face it. He had not missed the interested faces all down the street as he drove himself home. Already there wasn’t a house in the place, most likely, that didn’t know that much. What did that kind of thing matter? It was less than nothing. “Yes, I’m back,” he said, in a noncommittal tone, and passed his cigarettes to Johnny. Johnny Adams leaned back in his chair and stuck one in the corner of his mouth, lit it, and pitched the match in the fender. “And I’m back,” he said. “They talk of the dilatory ways of lawyers. I was dragging things out, I tell you frankly, because it was all so queer, and I was suspicious. I’d a sort of instinct something like this would happen. I’ve seen her.” "Seen her?” cried Richardson. Johnny smiled. “Oh, her!” he said immediately. "No, not that one. A jolly good thing for her if nobody ever sees her again over here. I hope for her sake she has slipped the police. She’d have had a longer start if you’d muzzled Mrs. Price. Hang that woman! That was a handsome photograph they printed of you. I suppose she pinched it for them. Well, when this comes out, and it will now, they’ll be wanting mine. I’ll be the hero next. Perspicacious lawyer, eh? As I was saying, I've lost no time. I went and called on the lady.” (To be continued.)