The House 'Round the Corner Part 6

"Of course I was. What a question!"

"A natural one, from my point of view. I was sound asleep, when your ally, Betty Jackson, kicked up a din in the hall, and you began pounding on the trap-door."

"Poor Betty! Is she here? Betty! Betty!"

Leaning over the banisters, she peered into the blackness beneath. There was a glimmer of spectral light here, for a late-rising moon was adding to the silvery brightness of a perfect night, and some of its radiance was piercing the stained gla.s.s. Armathwaite noted her action with increasing bewilderment.

"Betty fled as though she were pursued by seven devils," he said, when no other answer came to her cry. "I guessed at some mischief being afoot, so planned a surprise for anyone crossing the hall without my knowledge. No matter what her earlier opinions, Betty believes in that ghost now."

"Ghost! What ghost? There is no ghost here. Do you think to scare me with a bogey, like a naughty child?"

They were descending the broad stairs of the lower flight together, and Armathwaite had stolen one glance at the lissom young figure. He was minded to smile at a cunningly-hidden safety pin which kept a broad-brimmed fisherman's hat of heather mixture cloth in position so that the girl's hair was concealed. The coat hung rather loosely on slender shoulders, but the disguise was fairly effective in other respects, and the masquerader moved with an easy grace that betokened a good walker.

"I have not occupied the house many hours, but I have come to the conclusion that it harbors certain strange fantasies," he said, taking the lead, and stopping to break a thread stretched across the foot of the stairs. "We'll find a lamp and matches in the dining-room," he added. "Suppose we go there and discuss matters?"

"Isn't it rather late? Whatever time is it?" was the hesitating comment.

"And aren't you rather hungry?" he replied, ignoring both questions.

"I'm simply ravenous. I haven't eaten a morsel since six o'clock this morning."

"I can offer you bread and b.u.t.ter and milk. Shall I boil you some eggs?"

"If you mention food again, I shall drop. Please, what time is it?"

"Nearly midnight."

"Oh, I must be going! I must, really. The Jacksons will find me something to eat."

"You're going into that room, and, unless I have your promise to remain there, you'll accompany me to the kitchen. Which is it to be--a comfortable chair, with a lamp, or a compulsory prowl through kitchen and larder?"

"I'll sit down, please," came the slow admission. "I'm very tired, and rather done up. I walked miles and miles this morning, and the long hours up there in the dark were horrid."

Without another word Armathwaite threw open the dining-room door, and lighted the lamp which he had left on the table. The girl sank wearily into an arm-chair; her action was a tacit acceptance of his terms.

Somehow, he was convinced that she would not take advantage of his absence and slip out through the front door, which Betty Jackson had a.s.suredly not waited to lock.

Among the kitchen utensils he had found a small oil-stove in working order. In a surprisingly short time, therefore, he was back in the dining-room with a laden tray.

"Do you like your eggs soft-boiled, medium, or hard?" he inquired, treating an extraordinary episode with a nonchalance which betokened either a temperament wholly devoid of emotion or a career crowded with uncommon experiences.

"Need I eat eggs at all?" said the girl. "I'm sure, Mrs. Jackson----"

"Do you want to rouse the village?"

"No; anything but that."

"Then I must point out that the one cottage in Elmdale whose inmates will be deaf and dumb at this moment is Mrs. Jackson's. Both mother and daughter are quaking because of the possible consequences of an attempt to enter this house at an hour which no person could choose for a legitimate purpose. Eat and drink, therefore. We'll deal with the Jacksons subsequently. No, don't begin by a long draught of milk. It is tempting, but harmful if taken in that way. Try some bread and b.u.t.ter.

Now, two eggs. Oh, dash it! I've forgotten an egg-spoon, and I don't know where such things are kept. I'll go and hunt for them."

"Don't trouble. Lend me that electric lamp--how useful it is!--and I'll bring one in a minute."

By this time Armathwaite had seen that his captive was a remarkably pretty girl. Male attire supplies the severest test of feminine beauty, since form and feature are deprived of advent.i.tious aids; but a small, oval face, two pouting lips, a finely-modeled nose, brilliant brown eyes, swept by long curved lashes, and a smooth forehead, rising above arched and well-marked eyebrows, needed no art of milliner or dressmaker to enhance their charms. She was fairly tall, too--though dwarfed by Armathwaite's six feet and an inch of height in his slippered feet--and admirably proportioned, if slender and lithe. Evidently, she thought he had not penetrated her disguise, and was momentarily becoming more self-possessed. Again, she had some explanation of her presence in the house which could not fail of acceptance, and did not scruple, therefore, to display a close acquaintance with its arrangements denied to one who admittedly had taken up his abode there only that day.

The man listened to her quick, confident steps going to the kitchen, heard the rattle of a drawer in an antique dresser which stood there, and, with an emphatic gesture, seemed to appeal to the G.o.ds ere he bent over the stove to see if the water was yet a-boil.

The girl might be hungry, but feminine curiosity proved stronger than the urgent claims of an empty stomach. She went into the larder, and undoubtedly eyed the new tenant's stores. She implied as much when she re-entered the dining-room.

"Boiled eggs require pepper and salt," she explained. "You've got so many little paper bags that I didn't dare rummage among them, so I've secured a cruet which was left here when my--when the people who used to live here went away. The salt may be a bit damp, but the pepper should be all right."

Without more ado she tackled a slice of bread, breaking it into small pieces, and b.u.t.tering each piece separately before munching it.

"Some wise person said in a newspaper the other day that one ought to give every mouthful of bread three hundred bites," she went on. "I wonder if he ever fasted eighteen hours before practicing his own precept. I'm afraid I wouldn't believe him if he said he did."

"People who study their digestion generally die young," said Armathwaite drily.

"Oh, I don't agree with you in that," she retorted. "My dad is great on food theories. He knows all about proteins and carbohydrates; he can tell you to a fourth decimal the caloric value of an egg; and _he's_ a phenomenally healthy person. By the way, how are those eggs coming on?"

"Try this one. I think the water has been boiling three minutes!"

Armathwaite spoke calmly enough, but a stoutly-built edifice of circ.u.mstantial evidence had just crumbled in ruins about his ears. He was persuaded that, for some reason best known to herself, Miss Marguerite Garth had adopted this freakish method of revisiting her old home. Such a thesis made all things plausible. It explained her singularly self-contained pose, her knowledge of the house's contents, her wish to remain hidden from prying eyes, and, last but not least, it brought the peculiar conduct of the Jackson family into a commonplace category, for the two women would be governed by a clannish feeling which is almost as powerful in rural Yorks.h.i.+re as in Scotland. A girl who had lived nearly all her life in the village would be looked on as a native. She might appeal confidently for their help and connivance in such a matter.

But this girl's father was alive, and Marguerite Garth's father had been in a suicide's grave two years. Who, then, was the audacious young lady now a.s.suring him that he could boil eggs admirably? He was puzzled anew, almost piqued, because he flattered himself on a faculty for guessing accurately at the contents of a good many closed pages in a human doc.u.ment after a glance at the outer cover and its endors.e.m.e.nt. He was spurred to fresh endeavor. He wanted to solve this riddle before its baffling intricacies were made plain by the all-satisfying statement which his companion obviously had it in mind to give.

"Won't you remove your hat?" he said, thinking to perplex her by a mischievous request.

"No, thanks," she said blithely. "I'll just demolish this second egg.

Then I'll tell you why I am here, and awaken Mrs. Jackson, no matter what her neighbors may think. But, why wait? I can eat and talk--put the facts in an eggsh.e.l.l, so to speak. My relatives own this house. Mr.

Garth has long wanted a few books and knick-knacks, and I've come to get them. Some are collected already on the library table; the remainder I'll gather in the morning, with your permission. But I don't wish my visit to be known to others than Mrs. Jackson and Betty, and that is why I retreated to the loft when you and Mr. Walker arrived. It was a bother that anyone should select this day in particular to visit the property; but I imagined you would go away in an hour or so. Even when that vain young person, James Walker, locked me in, I believed Betty would come and release me after your departure. Besides, I wouldn't for worlds have let Walker see me. I--er--dislike him too much."

Armathwaite allowed to pa.s.s without comment her real motive for refusing to meet sharp-eyed James Walker; but again the problem of her ident.i.ty called insistently for solution. If she was not Marguerite Garth, who on earth was she?

"Let me understand," he began. "The owner, and former occupant, of this house, was Mr. Stephen Garth?"

"Is," she corrected. "It remains his property, though he is living elsewhere."

Armathwaite so far forgot himself as to whistle softly between his teeth. And, indeed, such momentary impoliteness might be excused by his bewilderment. If Stephen Garth, who had owned and occupied the Grange, was still living, who was the man whose ghost had excited Elmdale, and driven back to prosaic Sheffield a certain Mrs. Wilkins, of nervous disposition and excitable habit?

"Ah!" he said judicially. "Messrs. Walker & Son, of Nuttonby, are his agents and Messrs. Holloway & Dobb, also of Nuttonby, his solicitors?"

"I suppose so," said the girl, deep in the second egg.

"But I understood that Mr. Stephen Garth had only one child, a daughter."

"Isn't he allowed to have a nephew, or an a.s.sorted lot of cousins?"

"Such contingencies are permissible, but they don't meet the present case."

"Why not?"