Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White (books for 5 year olds to read themselves .TXT) 📕
For all that, it offered a solidly resistant front to the solitude. Its state of excellent repair was evidence that no money was spared to keep it weather-proof. There was no blistered paint, no defective guttering. The whole was somehow suggestive of a house which, at a pinch, could be rendered secure as an armored car.
It glowed with electric-light, for Oates' principal duty was to work the generating plant. A single wire overhead was also a comfortable reassurance of its link with civilization.
Helen no longer felt any wish to linger outside. The evening mists were rising so that the evergreen shrubs, which clumped the lawn, appeared to quiver into life. Viewed through a veil of vapor, they looked black and grim, like mourners assisting at a funeral.
"If I don't hurry, they'll get between me and the house,
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difficulty about a dog. As mistress of my house, Miss Warren’s
prejudices are law. But—as it is for one night only—she will relax her
rule.”
He turned to his sister.
“You understand, Blanche?” he asked.
“Yes, Sebastian,” was the low reply.
She went upstairs, while the Professor returned to his study.
Suddenly Helen remembered her coffee. She never took any in the
drawingroom, because the conventional cups were too small for her
liking. Like a true pantry mouse, she always reboiled what was left in
the pot, adding sufficient milk to make about a pint, which she drank in
her own room.
At the end of the official day, it was etiquette not to disturb Mr. and
Mrs. Oates, whose kitchen became their private property; so she always
used her own saucepan and spirit stove.
Her room seemed a specially attractive refuge tonight, as, down in the
basement, she seemed cut off from the worst of the ‘storm. The light
glowed on her golden walls and ceiling, like artificial sunshine. When
she had settled down in her old basket-chair, she felt too comfortable
to stir. Although the sound of stealthy footsteps, stealing down the
back-stairs, followed by a succession of dull thuds, piqued her
curiosity, for once it was submerged in laziness.
There were faces forming in the red heart of the fire; they peered at
her, from between the coals, and she stared back at them. Her knees felt
pleasantly warmed, and she was at peace with the world.
Presently she heard the footsteps again, ascending the back-stairs. This
time, her nature reasserted itself in a surge of frantic curiosity.
Leaping up, she was just in time to see the tail of Miss Warren’s
mushroom-lace gown whisking round the bend of the landing.
Mrs. Oates did not look exactly pleasant when she opened the kitchen
door in answer to Helen’s knock.
“You?” she said. “I expected to see Marlene Dietrich. What’s the idea of
getting me up, just when I was off my feet?”
“I only wanted to know what Miss Warren was doing down here?” asked
Helen.
“And you got me up—just for that? As if the mistress wasn’t free to go
through her own kitchen without leave from you.”
“But it’s the very first time I’ve seen her down here,” insisted Helen.
“And, please, how long have you been here? Since anny-domminy?” demanded
Mrs. Oates, as she slammed the door.
In a chastened mood, Helen returned to her own room and lit her
spirit-lamp, in order to re-boil the coffee. She was watching the brown
bubbles foam up in the saucepan, when she heard the front-door bell.
Turning out the flame, she rushed upstairs, hoping to be first to let in
the doctor She had a frantic fight to force the door open, for the wind
seemed whirling in all directions; before she could throw it wide, Dr.
Parry slipped through the aperture, and slammed it behind him. Without a
word, he fastened all the bolts, and put up the chain.
There was an urgency in his manner, and also in his silence; which
excited her to a pitch of fearful expectation.
“Well?” she asked breathlessly. “Why don’t you say something?”
“It’s a dirty night,” he said, taking off his dripping coat, while he
looked at her with stern eyes.
“No, no,” she insisted. “Tell me—have you found out the cause of that
poor girl’s death?”
“Yes,” was the grim reply. “She was murdered.”
MURDER
The news stunned Helen with such a shock of horror that she felt herself
rock, while the house seemed to sway with her, in the wind. When she was
stationary again, she realized that the entire family had gathered in
the hall, andwas listening, with strained attention, to Dr. Parry.
“She was strangled,” he said.
“When?” asked the Professor.
“Impossible to tell within an hour or so. But I should say, roughly,
about five or six o’clock.”
“Strangled,” repeated Miss Warren. “Is it—the same kind of murder as the
others?”
“Definitely,” replied the doctor. “Only more ferocious. Ceridwen was a
strong girl, and she put up a fight, which enraged him.” “Then”—Miss
Warren’s face wavered painfully—“if she was murdered in Captain Bean’s
garden, the maniac was quite close to us.”
“Closer than that,” said the doctor. “The murder was actually committed
in the plantation.”
A gasp of horror sobbed from Miss Warren’s lips, while
Simone grasped Stephen’s arm. Even in the midst of her own terrible
excitement, Helen noticed that Mrs. Newton was alive to the amatory
possibilities of the situation, while her husband watched her with
contracted eyes.
She felt herself slipping away on a back-wash of recent memories. While
she stood, defenceless and stranded, staring at the stronghold of the
Summit, across a bowl of empty country, she was even then in the company
of Murder. All the time it was creeping nearer—unseen, unheard. She
might even have passed close to It, while It hid in the undergrowth of
the gulley.
But It had smelt her out—marked her down. It knew that she would have to
come, and It waited for her, in the plantation, in evil mimicry of a
tree.
“What a wonderful escape,” she thought.
Now that the danger was over, she could almost exult in the adventure,
were it not for the reminder that the tree had not been cheated of its
ultimate prey. The thought of poor Ceridwen, going light-heartedly to a
horrible fate, made her feel faint.
When the mist had cleared from her eyes, it was a relief to notice that
the Professor’s face showed no sign of emo tion. As he spoke in his
habitual pedantic tones, she felt removed from a dark quivering
landscape—split to reveal lightning glimpses of hell—and back in the
comfortable interior of an English home.
“How do you establish your fact that this murder was committed in the
plantation?” he asked.
“Because there were pine-needles in her clenched hands, and her clothing
showed signs of having been dragged through a hedge… Of course, it
is useless to try to follow the impulses of a distressed brain; but it
seems rum to have taken such an unnecessary precaution. The body could
easily have lain, undiscovered, in the plantation, for many hours.”
“And it might not,” remarked the Professor. “You can depend on it, there
was some basic idea behind the seeming absurdity.”
His son, who shared his dislike of their eccentric neighbor, gave a
chuckle. “Bean must have had a startling homecoming,” he said. “A corpse
propped up on his doorstep, to let him in.”
“He was a bit upset.” Dr. Parry spoke coldly. “It was a nasty shock for
a man of his age. Sudden death is not really amusing—least of all, to
the victim.”
His dark eyes flashed angrily over the stolid faces of the young men,
and Simone’s vermilion lips-parted eagerly as though to sip sensation.
“I don’t want to alarm you people,” he said. “No, that’s a lie. I do
want to alarm you. Thoroughly. I want you all to realize that there is a
criminal lunatic at large, who has tasted blood, and will probably lust
for more. And he’s somewhere near quite close to you.”
“Will—will he try to break in here?” quavered Miss Warren.
“Don’t give him a chance. I take it for granted that the Professor will
insist on everyone remaining in the house. It goes without saying that
you will lock every door and window. Don’t underdo your
precautions—however ridiculous they may appear.”
“I have seen to all that. Ever since the—the governess,” Miss Warren
told him.
“Good. It takes a clever woman to realize danger, and her
responsibilities towards her juniors. You’ll be all right. Oates, alone,
could account for the chap, with one hand, if he should happen along.”
Again Helen was assailed by that odd pang of desolation as she listened
to the Professor’s explanation of Oates’ absence. She felt strangely
depressed, too, by the thought that Dr. Parry would soon be gone.
His practical, cheerful personality seemed to reduce even murder to its
proper proportions. It was an unnatural evil, which could be guarded
against by natural means—which would prevail, since the defense was so
much more powerful than the attack.
He presented an uncouth figure in contrast with the other men, who were
all in immaculate evening-dress, but when he caught her eye and smiled
at her, she knew, instinctively, that he could inspire both affection
and trust.
Some bright elusive vision quivered before her eyes, filling her with
happiness and hope. She felt she was on the verge of some discovery. But
before she could collect her thoughts the doctor had turned to go.
“I must push off,” he said cheerfully. “Professor. I know you understand
the importance of all the men staying in tonight to protect these two
girls.”
His glance included Simone, who responded with an alluring smile.
“Peter,” she said, leaning her chin on the Professor’s shoulder, “you’re
not going to let the doctor go without offering him a drink.”
Before the doctor could refuse the unspoken invitation,
Helen stepped into the breach. “I’ve some coffee, downstairs,” she said.
“Shall I bring some up?”
“The very thing,” remarked the doctor. “But may I comedown and dry off a
bit while I mop it up?”
Helen could not resist a feeling of triumph over Simone, as Dr. Parry
clattered after her, down the kitchen stairs. While Simone’s man strained
at his chain, she had hers coasting in her wake.
Her sitting-room looked even more cheerful and restful when Dr. Parry
sat opposite to her, gulping coffee from a huge breakfast cup.
“What are you beaming about?” he asked abruptly.
“I ought not to,” she said apologetically. “This is all so terrible.
But—it is living. And I’ve done so very little of that.”
“What have you done?” he asked.
“Housework. Sometimes, with children thrown-in.”
“Yet you keep your tail up?”
“Of course. You never know what’s just round the corner.”
Dr. Parry frowned.
“Have you never heard that ‘Curiosity killed the cat’?” he asked. “I
suppose, if you saw a smoking bomb, you’d feel bound to examine its
fuse?”
“Not if I knew it was a bomb,” explained Helen. “But I wouldn’t know if
it was, until I’d found out.”
“And must you find out?” “Yes, you must—if you’re me.”
“I give you up.” Dr. Parry groaned. “Haven’t you enough wit to realize
that their’s a human tiger waiting to turn you into—what’s left of
Ceridwen. If you’d seen what I’ve just seen—”
“Oh, don’t,” wailed Helen, her face suddenly pinched.
“But I want to frighten you. This sort of lunatic is usually normal in
between his fits…of mania. He might be living in this house with you,
and you’d accept him, just as you accept—young Rice or the Professor.”
Helen shuddered.
“Might it be a woman?” she asked.
“No, unless she was abnormally strong.”
“In any case, I should be bound to know.”
“No, that is the paralyzing part of it,” insisted the doctor. “Just
imagine the horror of seeing a friendly face-like my own—suddenly
change into an unfamiliar mask—with murder glaring out of its eyes?”
“Are you trying to tell me someone in this house committed all the
murders?” Helen asked. “Well, I’d take on anyone here, except Oates. He
would be awful, if he turned inside out. A sort of King Kong.”
Dr. Parry lost his temper.
“You’re
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