Suspense E-Book

Isabel Ostrander

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 389

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

"Young woman, well-bred, educated, stranger in city, and without relatives, desires situation as companion or social secretary with lady of established reputation and position. Good oral reader, pianist, quick and accurate household accountant, intelligent amanuensis, willing and obliging. Amount of salary optional. Address Miss Betty Shaw, 160 Wakefield Avenue." The girl read the advertisement for the twentieth time, then dropped the newspaper upon the shabbily ornate center table with a shrug of impatience, a frown gathering between her level brows. The boarding house parlor was shrouded in gloom, and outside the window whirling snowflakes showed white against the deepening dusk. A little heap of torn envelopes and a card or two upon the mantel bore evidence that the naïve appeal had evoked response, yet it was with a hopeless gesture that the girl turned from them and began pacing the floor, her brooding eyes fixed as though they would pierce the shadows which crept about her.

Leseprobe

SUSPENSE

ISABEL OSTRANDER

CONTENTS

I.

THE GIRL WITH THE SCAR

II.

THE SILENT INTRUDER

III.

THE VELVET GLOVE

IV.

BLINDFOLD

V.

BOX A-46

VI.

A MESSAGE FROM PHARAOH

VII.

TEN THOUSAND SHEEP

VIII.

THE ORCHID LADY

IX.

CROSSROADS

X.

FACE TO FACE

XI.

THE FOURTH PEW

XII.

THE FANGS OF THE WOLF

XIII.

JUSTICE NODS

XIV.

NAKED FOILS

XV.

THE PORTRAIT OF BEETHOVEN

XVI.

THE CLOSING NET

XVII.

TURNED TABLES

XVIII.

UNMASKED

XIX.

THE HONOR OF THE NAME

XX.

TREASURE TROVE

SUSPENSE

CHAPTER I.

The Girl With the Scar.

"Young woman, well-bred, educated, stranger in city, and without relatives, desires situation as companion or social secretary with lady of established reputation and position. Good oral reader, pianist, quick and accurate household accountant, intelligent amanuensis, willing and obliging. Amount of salary optional. Address Miss Betty Shaw, 160 Wakefield Avenue."

The girl read the advertisement for the twentieth time, then dropped the newspaper upon the shabbily ornate center table with a shrug of impatience, a frown gathering between her level brows.

The boarding house parlor was shrouded in gloom, and outside the window whirling snowflakes showed white against the deepening dusk. A little heap of torn envelopes and a card or two upon the mantel bore evidence that the naïve appeal had evoked response, yet it was with a hopeless gesture that the girl turned from them and began pacing the floor, her brooding eyes fixed as though they would pierce the shadows which crept about her.

All at once she paused tense and alert with lifted chin and quickened breath. The throbbing purr of a motor had pulsed upon the stillness of the snow-enwrapped street, and halted with a dull grinding of brakes before the door.

She darted to the window and peered eagerly out between the dingy curtains. A massive limousine stood at the curb, its bulk looming blackly against the lesser darkness, with broad diagonal lines of white striping the lower body, and a rakish torpedo-shaped hood. It was just such a car as a person of somewhat bizarre taste and the wealth with which to gratify it might have chosen, yet had it been a veritable juggernaut its effect upon the girl could have been no more sinister. She recoiled from the window, her hands clenched, her breast heaving tumultuously, and shadowed as it was, her face seemed distorted into a mere mask of malevolent fury akin to triumph.

Then the small hands relaxed, and with a visible effort at control, she turned toward the door, as laggard feet shuffled along the passageway and a murmur of voices arose.

"'Nother lady to see you, Miss." A frowsy head appeared in the doorway and the girl advanced to meet the summons.

"Ask her to come in, please, Susan." Her voice was guilelessly soft and low. "No, wait, I must light the gas—"

But the servant had already disappeared and in her place stood a tall, commanding figure, swathed in furs and heavily veiled. For a moment the girl hesitated, then with a steady hand she struck a match and a flare of light streamed from the gas jet. In the full flow of its radiance, she turned and faced her visitor.

The woman in the doorway took a step forward and paused involuntarily, with a slight murmur of shocked surprise. The girl before her was slender and of quite a usual type, with soft brown hair and moderately large blue eyes, but a spreading blood-red scar with five curved streaks reaching out from it like an angry clutching hand covered her left cheek from brow to neck.

If the girl observed the other's momentary loss of poise she gave no sign. Her level brows were arched ingenuously, her expression childlike in its bland candor, but the smile which parted her lips did not reach her shadowed, inscrutable eyes.

"Won't you take this chair? You wished to see me regarding my advertisement for a position?"

The woman advanced and sank into the seat indicated, loosening her furs deliberately before she replied. The heavy veil still obliterated her features, but through its meshes her eyes glowed fixedly.

"Yes." She inclined her head slightly. "You are Miss Shaw?"

The girl nodded in turn.

"I have had no previous experience, but it has become necessary for me to earn my own living and I have not had any specialized training. I am quite alone in the world—"

The woman leaned suddenly forward.

"May I ask why you stated that in your advertisement, Miss Shaw? You are very young and doubtless inexperienced, but you must have realized that to announce yourself as alone and friendless would invite unsuitable and even dangerous response."

The girl glanced at the cards on the mantel and then back to her visitor in wide-eyed amazement.

"Why, no!" she exclaimed. "I wanted to make it clear that I could give no references except social ones from my own home town, and that my object was not so much a matter of salary as a home of refinement where I could feel safe and sheltered. It is dreadful to be adrift, with no one to take a personal interest, but back in Greenville there was nothing for me to do."

"Greenville?"

"In Iowa. My mother and I moved out there to live with an uncle of hers when my father died. I was a little girl then. Last year Uncle Will died, and six months ago, my mother." She glanced down at the simple black gown. "There is no one left belonging to me, and very little money, so I came back to the city where I was born to try to find a position. I have been here only a few days, but it is more difficult than I had thought. You are looking for a companion or secretary? I did not put it in the advertisement, but I am quite capable of taking charge of a household and managing servants. If—if you have children I can amuse them, too, they always take to me."

The woman's eyes searched the flushed, eager face but seemed to linger, repelled yet fascinated, on the sinister scar.

"You—er, you have had an accident?" she asked.

"Accident?" The girl repeated. Then with a smile of understanding quite free from bitterness she touched her cheek. "You mean—this? It is a birthmark and everyone around me is so accustomed to it that I scarcely ever think of it. It must be awfully unpleasant to strangers, though. I suppose it—it would be a drawback——"

Her tone was wistful, almost pleading, and she paused with a catch in her breath. There was a long minute of silence before her visitor spoke.

"Not unpleasant. It will merely be necessary, as you so sensibly say, for one to become accustomed to it. I am not sure that it is a disadvantage—" she caught herself up abruptly. "You spoke of social references from Greenville. You have friends there to whom I can write, if we come to an understanding? You realize that I, too, must be careful about whom I take into my household in so intimate a relationship as that of companion."

"Of course," the girl assented quickly. Then she hesitated. "You live here in the city?"

"On the North Drive. I am Mrs. Atterbury." The woman spoke as if the mere mention of her name sufficed to establish her status, and with a deliberate gesture she threw back her veil. The face revealed to the girl's frankly curious gaze was colorless, the thin, arched nose and firm, straight lines of her lips as immobile as if carved from marble. Only the eyes, sloe-black and glittering, gave a semblance of life to the flawless, masklike expression. The smooth, dark hair was coiled tightly about her head and brought low over the ears, but did not cover them sufficiently to conceal their peculiar formation. Small and delicately pink, they were lobeless and narrowed toward the top so sharply that the girl wondered if beneath the hair they might not be pointed, like a cat's.

As if intuitively aware of the other's scrutiny, the woman drew her furs more closely about her neck and spoke hurriedly.

"I forgot for a moment that you were a stranger here. My husband was one of the most prominent financiers in the city, but since his death I have lived very quietly, receiving only a few old friends quite informally. I am childless, and, like you, alone in the world." She paused, with a slight suggestion of a smile and the girl's intent gaze shifted and dropped. "My home is one which you would perhaps consider luxurious, but it needs a youthful presence. I want the companionship of a bright, cheerful young girl, gently reared, who can amuse and interest me, and assist in the occasional entertainment of my guests. Practically the only duty you would have would be to attend to my correspondence, which is large as I have financial interests and property all over the country. I would require your time unreservedly, however. That is why I prefer a stranger, with no affiliations to distract her. For such services I am willing to pay well, but there are certain conditions I should impose."

The girl had listened without a change of expression, but now she glanced up quickly.

"Mourning depresses me. Would you be willing to lay it aside and dress in colors, such colors as I choose for you?"

"Oh, yes. I thought of that, in any event."

"Do you speak any foreign language?"

The girl shook her head.

"There were no foreigners in Greenville but the Italian road builders."

"You are prepared to place yourself absolutely at my disposal? There will, of course, be hours when I will not need you, but I shall want you within call. Moreover, if I make you a member of my household I shall feel responsible for you. You must not attempt to go about the city alone without consulting me first. That is understood?"

The girl's eyes narrowed and for an instant her lips compressed, but she replied quietly:

"Of course. I appreciate the interest you take in me, Mrs. Atterbury, and I am grateful for it. I shall do my best to please you."

A few details followed.

"Then we will consider the matter settled." The women glanced at the jeweled watch on her wrist. "How long will it take you to pack?"

"You mean you wish me to go with you at once?" The girl's face had whitened until the scar stood out in cruel clarity upon her cheek. "I had thought of taking a few days to prepare—"

"Anything you need can be purchased tomorrow." There was a hardened note of dominance in the cold voice which brooked no denial. "I am a person of quick decisions, as you will discover, Betty—that is your name, isn't it? I came to take you home with me if I found you suitable, but I cannot keep my car waiting long in this storm."

Betty rose submissively.

"I have no trunk, only two bags. It will take me only a few minutes to pack, if you will excuse me."

Mrs. Atterbury sat immovable until the sound of the girl's footsteps had died away upon the creaking stairs far overhead. Then she rose and gliding swiftly to the mantel, glanced over the cards and notes of her predecessors. Tossing them aside contemptuously, her eyes fell upon an open desk between the windows. A sheet of note-paper half covered with writing lay upon it and picking it up she scanned it deliberately, nodding in evident satisfaction.

"'Reverend Doctor Slade,'" she repeated aloud. "Greenville, Iowa."

A quarter of an hour later, two figures emerged from the dingy vestibule and descended to the waiting car, the girl cringing in her thin black cloak against the icy blast which swirled about them, the older woman erect as if the very elements themselves could not compel her to bow her head.

With her foot upon the step the girl hesitated and her eyes swept the bleak snowy darkness in swift terror, like a trapped animal. The look was gone as quickly as it had come, however, and into her face crept a trace of the sinister, resolute triumph which had crossed it while she waited behind the curtains of her window for the entrance of this woman in whose hands she had placed herself.

In silence she seated herself beside her new employer, the footman closed the door with a snap and they glided swiftly away through the snow-muffled streets. Few words were spoken during the brief journey, and they were mere commonplaces, but beneath the casual banality ran an undercurrent of sharp tension almost tangible enough to be felt. It was as if, unconsciously, they were adversaries, pausing by tacit consent to take breath for a second encounter. The girl lay back relaxed with half-closed eyes, the woman sat with her veiled face averted, and each seemed buried in her own thoughts, yet each was aware of the sly, furtive glances of mutual speculative appraisal which passed between them.

The droning wind arose to a shrieking gale when they turned into the North Drive, the merging strands of electric light breaking into widely detached clusters as compact rows of brick and stone gave place to exclusive residences, each sequestered within its private park. The whistles of the river boats rose eerily above the blast of the storm and the girl shuddered and drew the straggling fur collar more closely about her throat.

"You must have warmer clothing." The woman spoke without turning her head. "You will need one or two dinner frocks also. That can be arranged tomorrow, and I will supply them, as you are disposing of your mourning at my request. We are home at last."

The car swerved from the broad avenue and turning in between two high gate-posts, followed a short winding drive to a brilliantly lighted porte-cochère. Light streamed, too, from the opened doorway, upon the threshold of which stood a thick-set man in the conventional black of a butler.

"Welch," Mrs. Atterbury spoke with curt authority, "Miss Shaw will take Miss Harly's place. Show her to her room, please." Turning, she added to her companion: "We dine at seven. You need not change."

The butler bowed obsequiously, but his beady eyes surveyed the girl deliberately from head to foot in a coolly impudent stare before he picked up her bags and started for the staircase.

The hall was square and of spacious dimensions, with a gallery encircling the second floor landing, from which rare tapestries were hung. The leaping flames of the hearth played upon their soft, mellow hues and glancing off in darting rays from the brass andirons, turned the dull brown of the leather wall paneling into burnished gold.

Betty Shaw mechanically noted the general effect as she followed her surly guide. There was little surprise and no curiosity in her gaze, which had flown straight to the door opposite the hearth. As she reached the foot of the stairs this door was flung violently open, and a man sprang forward, confronting her employer.

"Good God, where have you been?" he demanded, his voice grating harshly with anxiety. "'Ranza has been trying to locate you all the afternoon. She saw him, but he has broken! He's going to—"

No countering exclamation from the woman had interrupted him, yet he paused with a strangling gasp, as if a hand had been laid suddenly upon his throat.

Betty glanced over her shoulder. Mrs. Atterbury stood silently drawn up to her full height regarding the intruder with eyes which blazed from a face that might well have given pause. The impassivity which had masked it was gone, the brows were drawn and knotted and the lips curled back in a distortion of silent rage so that her strong, white teeth gleamed menacingly in the firelight. The girl caught one swift glimpse of the man who cringed in the doorway, then turned and fairly fled up the stair.

The hall was dimly lighted but a rosy glow came from an opened door around a turning, and approaching, Betty found herself in a veritable bower of a room, spacious but cozy, with flowered chintz draperies and soft, rose-shaded lamps.

"If you want the maid, Miss, there's the bell." Welch had deposited her bags beside the dressing-table, and was again surveying her with his curiously intent, lowering gaze. "Should you be liking a cup of tea, now,—"

"Thank you. I shall require nothing before dinner." Her quiet tone was in itself a dismissal, yet the man still lingered as if on the point of further speech. Before her steady eyes, however, his own shifted and fell, and turning, he shambled from the room.

Betty waited until his stealthy, cat-like footsteps had passed well down the hall, then closed her door softly and began a minute examination of her apartment. It faced the side of the house, with two long French windows opening on a narrow balcony. A door in each wall led presumably to connecting rooms, but upon examination the first proved to be fastened, evidently by a bolt on the farther side, for the keyhole was plugged with a hard substance resembling sealing wax. The opposite door disclosed a well-appointed bathroom, with no opening other than a ventilator, high up in the wall.

Completing her simple preparations for dinner, the girl sank in a low chair before the glowing coals in the English grate and chin in hand, lost herself in a reverie. The eager, childishly trustful expression had vanished when she found herself alone and in its place had crept a hardened, crafty look which robbed her face of its youthful charm. The scar leaped again into prominence, and seemed to throb as if its clutching fingers were tightening in a relentless grip, and in her somber eyes abiding passion brooded.

The silver tones of a gong echoing up from below aroused her and she sprang to her feet, her clenched hands pressed to her burning temples. For an instant she stood swaying in the intensity of some all but overmastering emotion. Then her hands fell to her sides, revealing again the mask of disingenuousness.

But behind it there lurked, not wholly concealed, an air of joyous triumph, and she glanced exultantly about her as if out of all the world, the shelter of this roof had been her goal, and in winning her way into the household she had brought some deep-laid plan to consummation.

While she hesitated at the stair's foot, Mrs. Atterbury's voice summoned her to the drawing-room, where she found beside her employer a sallow little woman, dull-eyed and slender to the point of angularity, who was presented as Madame Cimmino. As Betty responded timidly to the conventional greeting another figure came forward from a shadowed corner and paused, smiling and urbane.

"Betty, this is an old friend, Mr. Wolvert." An odd smile twisted Mrs. Atterbury's attenuated lips. "Don't make love to Miss Shaw, Jack. She seeks sanctuary with me from the world, the flesh and the devil."

"Dear lady!" He raised a deprecating hand before extending it to the shrinking girl. "You malign me! Let me assure you of your immunity from evil here, Miss Shaw. Our hostess tolerates no serpents in her garden, as you will find."

The man's tone was smooth and unctuous, but there was an undercurrent deeper than mere mockery in the careless words, and Mrs. Atterbury's eyes glittered dangerously, although she shrugged in cold distaste.

"Shall we go in? Cook times her soufflés to the instant and she is the only mortal before whom I quail. Come, Speranza."

Madame Cimmino laid her hand lightly on Jack Wolvert's arm as she passed him, but his gaze was riveted upon the girl, and followed her slim figure curiously until the curtains fell behind her.

"She is attractive, this new little one, eh?" Madame Cimmino had halted in the doorway and there was a hard ring in her voice. "It is an added charm, perhaps, that brand upon her face!"

"Don't be absurd, 'Ranza." The man frowned impatiently. "There's something queer about that girl, something oddly reminiscent. I could almost swear I had seen her before, or at least heard her voice."

During the simple but perfectly served meal, Betty unobtrusively studied the two guests seated at either hand. Madame Cimmino was evidently of Latin birth, although her quick, impulsive speech was interlarded with ejaculations in many tongues. Huge opal hoops dragged at the lobes of her ears and her brown, clawlike hands were loaded with rings which glistened barbarically in her ceaseless gesturing. She ignored the newcomer as far as courtesy permitted, snubbed Wolvert with a proprietary air, which failed to carry weight before his bland equanimity, but showed an anxious almost fawning deference to her hostess.

Wolvert made a half-playful attempt to draw out the little companion, but finding no encouragement in her shy, monosyllabic replies, he devoted himself to his dinner, and Betty found opportunity to observe him at her leisure. He was a man of approximately forty, lean and wiry with olive skin and curiously light eyes in grotesque contrast with his crisply curling, black hair and small, military mustache. The man's whole personality seemed oddly at variance. His hands were slender and shapely, with the tapering, sensitive fingers of an artist, yet the high Slavic cheekbones, spreading nostrils and heavy jaw belied a finer sensibility, and his face in repose was saturnine.

Regarding him, Betty could scarcely bring herself to believe that he was the same man who had burst upon the scene at the moment of her arrival with his impassioned outcry. The inexplicable words still rang in her ears. "'Ranza," was evidently Madame Speranza Cimmino, but why had she tried so frantically to ascertain Mrs. Atterbury's whereabouts during the long afternoon? Who was the man she had seen, and what was the meaning of the phrase that he had broken?

Dinner concluded, they returned to the drawing-room, and after a brief desultory conversation Betty was dismissed, to her infinite relief. Wolvert sprang forward gallantly to open the door for her departure and stood staring after her until she disappeared around the turning at the stair's head, the same puzzled, questioning look in his eyes with which he had regarded her at their meeting.

Her light extinguished, Betty lay motionless and seemingly relaxed, but her sleepless eyes were fixed as though they would pierce the darkness, and her ears strained for the slightest sound. The storm swirled unabated outside the windows, and the tall clock on the stairs droned out the hours at all but interminable intervals.

Midnight came, and with it the hum of a high-powered motor on the drive. A subdued murmur of voices floated up to her from the hall, the front door closed with a thud and the motor snorted its way through the piling snowdrifts to the gate. A few minutes later there was a faint silken rustle of skirts past her door, then the cat-like tread of Welch as he went his final rounds and darkness and utter silence reigned supreme.

One o'clock struck, then two, and as the echo of the second stroke died away, Betty threw back the covers, and slipping from bed stole to her dressing bag. She fumbled for a moment and then a tiny, thread-like ray of light leaped from her hand. With the electric torch carefully shielded, she enveloped herself in a dark kimona, thrust her feet into soft felt slippers, and unbolting her door, crept silently out into the hall. The gleaming strand of light wavered, then steadied and moved slowly along to the turning into the gallery. Its pale afterglow lingered like a nimbus for a minute and then vanished, and darkness descended once more about the sleeping house.

CHAPTER II.

The Silent Intruder.

The storm ceased with the coming of day, and when Betty awoke a glistening expanse of diamond-encrusted snow met her gaze between the parted curtains of her window. Softened by sleep, her face was flushed and girlishly winsome as she lay with the cruel scar pressed deep into her pillow, her bewildered eyes roving the unfamiliar room. Then, with returning consciousness, the shadow descended once more and her expression perceptibly hardened.

Rising, she walked to the window and flung the curtains wide. The view of park and clustering, frost-spangled cedars was intersected sharply with vertical bars of iron and she gave a little involuntary gasp of dismayed surprise at the discovery that the narrow balcony beyond her windows was stoutly enclosed, like a huge cage.

The same trapped look of terror which had leaped to the girl's eyes on the previous day when she faltered at the door of the limousine returned anew, but she steeled herself against the sudden tide of emotion which all but overwhelmed her and moved resolutely to her mirror. The birthmark flamed back angrily at her, but she touched it almost caressingly as if the knowledge of it gave her strength, and an enigmatic smile wreathed her lips.

She breakfasted alone in the sunny morning room, attended by Welch, whose scrutiny of her at her arrival seemed to have satisfied him, for his bearing was that of a mere well-trained automaton. Betty observed him surreptitiously as he moved about the room, his heavy-jowled face and massive bulk incongruous with the light, springing, silent tread and his shifting eyes obsequiously lowered.

"If you please, miss," he coughed apologetically, as she rose, "Mrs. Atterbury will see you in the library."

Betty submissively followed him to a door at the left of the entrance hall. A voice bade her enter and she found her employer seated at an official-looking desk, already deeply engrossed in her correspondence. Her dress was severely plain, her hair coiffed low over the lobeless ears and to the girl's shy morning greeting she turned a face waxen in its pallor but inscrutable as on their first meeting.

"You are not late, my dear," she responded to Betty's contrite query. "I rose unusually early and have been sorting my mail in order to show you just what your task will be."

She motioned to a chair by the desk, and Betty eyed with inward misgiving the formidable heap of unopened envelopes which still remained.

"Any letters which may be marked with a small cross in the corner, like this, for instance," Mrs. Atterbury held one out for inspection, "you may put aside. The rest you are to open and read, dividing them into two separate piles, business and purely social, for me to glance over later. Begging letters, even from personal friends for charity subscriptions, belong in the financial stack. Do you think you can manage now with these?"

"Yes, Mrs. Atterbury. Do you wish me to reply to them?"

"At my dictation. I will come back in an hour and we can go over them together." Mrs. Atterbury rose. "My seamstress will be here this afternoon to measure you for some new frocks."

When the door had closed behind her, Betty applied herself to her task. The social letters were few and formal in tone without intimate detail. Four of the remainder bore crosses and these she laid obediently aside. The others were palpably business communications and from their tenor it would have appeared that Mrs. Atterbury's financial interests were amazingly varied, and of a magnitude which even the luxury of her environment had not conveyed.

Mines, oil wells, railroads, stock companies and enterprises of every sort were represented in the heterogeneous collection, from the latest invention to live stock on the hoof. One letter, evidently concerning the latter, made Betty pause with a puzzled frown. It began without any form of address and was unsigned, its few lines being hurriedly scrawled, but unmistakably legible, although they conveyed no sense to the girl.

"Five thousand sheep no go," she read. "Bulls instead. Pink wash fed. Clearing den. Tail comet yellow."

In bewilderment she took up the envelope; the superscription was in the same irregular hand, and it was postmarked Laramie, Wyoming.

The desk telephone rang as she laid it aside, and hesitatingly she picked up the receiver.

"Marcia!" It was unmistakably the voice of Wolvert, but the bantering derisive note was gone, and stark fear rasped in every syllable. "Some one has squealed! He's got the dope and it's all—"

"I beg your pardon." Betty's tones were cool and steady, but her heart stood still, for her quick ear had caught the rustle of a skirt just behind her. "This is Mrs. Atterbury's secretary. To whom did you wish to speak?"

There was a smothered exclamation at the other end of the wire, and Mrs. Atterbury snatched the receiver from the girl's hand.

"What is it?" she demanded in a voice which she strove in vain to control.

"I-I don't know," Betty murmured. "The person spoke so quickly I could not distinguish a word." "Mrs. Atterbury speaking.... Oh, the market has broken? Well, sell the shares I hold in that company at whatever price you can obtain, do you understand? At whatever price! There will be no panic, tell your partner not to lose his head. It must be made clear that I will trade no more in that stock.... It will be enough, it must be. Remember, I look to you to settle the matter absolutely. Let me have an accounting by tonight."

She hung up the receiver and turned with a shrug but Betty saw that her lips were white.

"My broker," she remarked, with studied carelessness. "Conscientious man, but not resourceful. By the way, my dear, I neglected to tell you that you need never answer this telephone. It is my own private wire. Call me if it rings when I am at home, but pay no attention to it if I am not here."

"I am sorry—" began Betty, but the other silenced her.

"It is of no consequence. We will take up the letters now. You did not find them difficult?"

"No-o," Betty responded hesitatingly. "There is one, however, which I could not understand at all. It seems to be a business matter, but the wording doesn't make any sense; it's something about sheep."

"Sheep?" Mrs. Atterbury's level tones sharpened. "Where is the envelope? Was there no cross upon it?"

"No. At least I didn't see any, and I am quite sure I looked carefully. This is the one."

"Idiot!" The ejaculation was clearly not intended for the girl, as Mrs. Atterbury looked vainly for the distinguishing mark, and filliped the envelope angrily aside. "Give me the letter, please."

She glanced over it rapidly, without comment or change of expression and put it on the little heap of private letters.

"We will get rid of the social ones first—" she was beginning, when Betty suddenly interrupted her.

"There is a motor car coming up the drive."

"Ah, it is Mme. Cimmino." Mrs. Atterbury arose, her glance following the trim little electric brougham as it lurched over the hillocks of snow. "She will probably stay to lunch, and that means the letters will have to be held over until tomorrow. Amuse yourself as well as you can, my dear. You'll find plenty of books here and there is a phonograph in the corner."

But Betty did not turn to the well-filled bookcases which lined the walls. Instead she sat with the strange letter spread out before her, reading and re-reading it as if to memorize every word. That it was a code of some sort she did not doubt, and without the key it would seem a hopeless task to attempt to decipher it, yet the young girl pored over it as eagerly as though its possible solution contained a message of vital import to herself as well as her employer.

Welch brought her lunch upon a tray and the afternoon was well advanced before the summons came for her to go to the sewing room. She spent the intervening hours in a searching examination of the library itself, but it yielded nothing of seeming interest or import to her. There was no sign of Mme. Cimmino, but her car had not left the drive and a subdued murmur as of several voices came from behind the tightly-closed door of the drawing-room as the girl passed. Welch ushered her to a large sunny room at the top of the house where she found Mrs. Atterbury deep in consultation with a faded little woman of indeterminate age who fluttered nervously on being presented.

"Miss Pope knows what you require, I think," observed Mrs. Atterbury. "Everything must be as simple as possible, you know."

Miss Pope nodded, her mouth full of pins which she was sticking with mathematical precision into the little flat cushion that hung from her belt. When the last was in place, she took up her tape measure.

"Now, miss, if you please."

Betty stood patiently, marvelling at the odd tremulousness of the withered hands which fumbled about her. Could it be merely nerves, or was the worn, pallid, little creature under the spell of some emotion too strong to be wholly controlled?

Mrs. Atterbury had strolled to the window with a fashion book and the seamstress dropped to her knees before Betty to measure the skirt length. Glancing down, the girl met the tired eyes of the older woman and found them fixed on hers with a mute insistent appeal in their depths.

Involuntarily she started, and Miss Pope, with a warning gesture, turned over the pincushion at her belt. Upon the under side worked out in rough irregular letters formed by the pin heads, Betty read the words, "Go away."

Her eyes sought those of the seamstress once more in puzzled questioning, but the woman, after a vehement nod, evaded her glance, and her quivering fingers plucked at the pins until the strange message was obliterated.

"Have you finished?" Mrs. Atterbury's calm tones cut the pregnant silence.

"Yes, ma'am. I will come tomorrow for the lining fitting." The seamstress barely breathed the words, as she scrambled to her feet, but there seemed a shade of significance as she added: "I-I hope the young lady will be satisfied."

"I shall be," Mrs. Atterbury responded with good-humored but unmistakable emphasis. A faint flush mounted in Miss Pope's wan cheeks and she did not glance again toward Betty, even as she bowed herself out.

"My dear, I shall not need you again this afternoon. Would you care to go out for a little while?"

Betty's eyes eagerly turned to the window were sufficient answer.

"You will find several paths leading around the grounds if you don't mind the snow, but do not go beyond the gate." Mrs. Atterbury smiled, but she watched the girl's face keenly. "You look pale, and the fresh air will do you good. We must not keep you cooped up in the house too much, but I do not want you to go about the city aimlessly until you learn your way."

"I will not leave the grounds," promised Betty.

"One thing more," Mrs. Atterbury paused at the door. "Don't go near the garage, for Demon may be unleashed. He is the watch dog and underfed to keep him savage. Be sure you come in at dusk."

When Betty, as warmly clad as her meagre wardrobe would allow, slipped out at the side door, the pale wintry sun was already sinking in the West and the still air nipped her sharply, bringing a tingling glow to her cheeks. She set out jauntily down the first path which led among the cedars, her footsteps ringing on the hard packed snow and the frosty vapor of her breath floating like a veil before her.

The events of the past twenty-four hours, culminating in the inexplicable attitude of the seamstress, had wrought upon her nerves and the sense of freedom and solitude was grateful, illusive though she knew it to be. No doubt of Miss Pope's good will or sanity came to her, but she wondered what part the faded little creature was called upon to play in the strange scene of which she herself had become a supernumerary.

What crisis had arisen in the mysterious affairs of her new employer and why were her friends, Mme. Cimmino and the man Wolvert, so deeply concerned for her? The voice of the latter over the telephone that morning had revealed a frenzy of emotion which his debonair assurance on the previous evening had utterly belied. Then his impetuous outburst at the moment of her arrival returned to her mind. Who was the mysterious "he?" The frantic telephone message of a few hours before had concerned the same man. Who could he be, and through him what menace threatened the quiet woman with the inscrutable face to whom her services were bound?

So engrossed was Betty in her maze of thought, that she had followed the path unheedingly and only paused when she found her way blocked by a square granite post. She had reached the entrance gates beyond which she might not stray. For a moment she lingered, her eyes turned wistfully down the broad, bleak avenue, a mad, incomprehensible impulse to escape surging up within her, as if tangible bonds held her to her voluntarily assumed duty, and danger lurked for her in the house behind the cedars. The next minute she had turned resolutely and started to retrace her steps.

The early dusk was already descending and Betty quickened her pace lest she prolong the hour of freedom beyond the time allotted her. Midway, the path entered a thick clump of trees, and all at once she became aware of the rapid thud of feet on the snow behind her. Someone was running toward the house.

The thought that she was being pursued flashed into her mind, but she banished it, and turning hastily aside, concealed herself behind a screen of tangled evergreens. Scarcely had she done so, when a man appeared around a turn in the path, and passed her with almost incredible speed.

The single fleeting glimpse she obtained of his gray, set face, however, had sufficed for recognition. It was Wolvert, and some unnameable terror sped with him through the eerie gloom.

Betty shivered and looked blindly about her for another way out of the grove. She dared not enter the house on the heels of this visitor, nor from the same direction in which he had come, lest she seem to have been spying upon him, and she desired above all else to reach her own room unobserved.

At length she discerned a break in the trees at her right and approaching found a second path branching off in a curve which promised to lead around the house. Mrs. Atterbury's warning had passed from her memory and only when the low square bulk of the garage loomed up before her and a rumbling growl assailed her ears, did she remember the presence of the dog.

She hesitated, a new and very tangible fright gripping her, but it was too late to turn back. Even as she paused, the growl changed to a deep, full-throated cry, and a huge shape bounded toward her out of the shadows. To attempt escape would only betray her fear to the brute intelligence and precipitate an attack upon her. Betty knew and understood canine nature and she realized that her safety depended on coolness now.

Motionless, she waited until the dog was almost upon her, and then held out her hand, palm uppermost. The great beast halted in his tracks, his slavering jaws agape and every hair bristling on his neck.

"Demon! Good Demon!" she called softly. "Steady, old boy. Come here."

Slowly the fire died out of his gleaming eyes and he approached warily, step by step, while her own eyes held his unwaveringly. He sniffed at her hand, gazed up at her in mute question and reading confidence and mastery in her face, dropped obediently in the snow at her feet.

The wave of relief which swept over her was checked by a fresh disquieting thought. Was the dog merely guarding her until his keeper appeared to relieve him of his charge? The slightest movement on her part might bring him up with a spring at her throat, but to wait until help came would mean the discovery of her disobedience.

Chance solved the problem for her before many minutes had passed. A shrill whistle sounded from the direction of the garage, and the dog, lifting his head, gave tongue in response. The whistle was repeated, followed by a hoarse, blasphemous command. Demon rose reluctantly, brushed against her knee in friendly farewell, and loped away in the fast-gathering darkness.

"Oh, Demon!" The girl breathed a sobbing little cry after him. "Remember me well, the sound of my voice and the scent of me. Sometime I may need you!"

Then ashamed of the momentary, hysterical weakness, Betty turned and fairly flew to the house. Slipping in at the side door by which she had left, she reached her room, breathless, but unobserved, and sank into a chair.

The house was oddly silent. No sound of voices had met her ears, but a narrow streak of light had shone from under the library door as she passed, and her overwrought imagination pictured for her a tense, constrained group within. In spite of Mrs. Atterbury's specious explanation, Betty knew beyond question whose voice had come to her over the telephone, and no mere financial crisis could have brought to Wolvert's face the look which she had seen upon it when he unwittingly crossed her path among the trees.

A half-hour went slowly by and then the whirring of the electric brougham broke the stillness and droned diminishingly into the distance. Mme. Cimmino had evidently taken her belated departure. Had Wolvert accompanied her? Betty shrank from encountering him at dinner and the effort to meet his forced banter serenely, conscious of what lay beneath it seemed beyond her power.

When she obeyed the gong's summons, however, she found the table laid only for two, and Mrs. Atterbury already in her place.

"You enjoyed your walk, my dear?" The latter raised imperturbable eyes to greet the girl. "You did not find it too cold?"

"Oh, no, the air was wonderfully bracing," Betty replied at random, scarcely aware of what she was saying. "I very nearly lost my way, though. There are so many paths and the trees quite hide the house."

"Yes. I purchased the property mainly because of the privacy and seclusion it promised. I am not a hermit," Mrs. Atterbury added, with the shadow of a smile, "but the rush and turmoil of an active social existence bore me. You will, perhaps, find it rather monotonous here, Betty, but there will be more tasks for you to do when you have settled down and learned your way about the city. I shall have many errands for you."

"I am glad," Betty responded with nervous eagerness. "The thought of the city doesn't frighten me any more, now that I feel anchored, Mrs. Atterbury, and I want to do anything I can. You know I have been idle all day and it does not seem as if I were earning my salary."

Mrs. Atterbury scrutinized the girl's face, and her own relaxed for an instant and sagged into deeply graven lines of utter weariness and exhaustion. The necessity for rigid self-command had faltered before Betty's seemingly innocent candor; the mask had slipped momentarily and from beneath it peered a shadow of the anxiety and dread which had beset her unexpected guest of the afternoon.

With the next breath, however, she had herself again in hand.

"You will not complain of that tomorrow." Her voice was amusedly tolerant. "We shall have a double amount of correspondence to attend to, remember, and I will positively be at home to no one until it is finished. I think I shall retire almost immediately after dinner, my dear, for I have a slight headache."

The warmth of the house after the sharp, nipping atmosphere outdoors brought an early drowsiness to Betty, who went directly to her room after the meal. In spite of the puzzling events of the day, and the air of mystery which seemed to envelop the household, a lassitude stole over her and her heavy eyelids drooped and fell.

The dropping of coals in the tiny grate awakened her and she started up to find that it was close on to midnight. Stumbling softly to the door she opened it and listened, but the silence was unbroken.

Disrobing, she laid her dressing gown and slippers ready to hand, extinguished the lamp and crept into bed. Her first deep sleep was over and Betty lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness. A vague sensation of suspense set her brain a-tingle and she felt as if she were waiting with every nerve taut for something which she could not name.

Gradually, however, the feeling was dispelled and she was sinking into an uneasy slumber when all at once she started up in bed with a shivering gasp, her heart leaping wildly and the very hair upon her brow seeming to stir and rise as though an unseen hand were lifting it. A sudden, muffled crash had pierced her consciousness and the very air seemed to quiver with the jar of impact, although no further sound broke the stillness. Betty listened with bated breath for a moment, then rose, impelled by an impulse stronger than her power to combat.

Throwing her gown about her, she snatched the electric torch from the drawer of her dressing-table and made her way to the door. Impenetrable darkness greeted her as before, but it seemed to her overwrought fancy that a shuddering tension filled the air and the ticking of the tall clock beat like a tocsin upon her brain.

As one in a trance she moved mechanically to the stairs and down, the thread of light which played from her hand guiding her cautious footsteps. The doors of the library and drawing-room were closed, but that of the dining-room was opened wide and a frigid draft blew through it, whipping the gown about her bare ankles.

Betty flashed her light upon the aperture and the outline of the heavily carved dining table leaped into view, while all about it on the floor lay fragments of something which scintillated in the shaft of radiance like scattered diamonds.

Slowly she approached the door, the darting rays from her torch piercing the sinister darkness, the very breath hushed in her throat. On the threshold she paused and stood transfixed.

The dining table had been slewed to one side, chairs were overturned, draperies pulled from their rings and the great glass punch bowl lay shattered on the floor.