Show the th blue blu circle C arc I 1 by ELIZABETH JORDAN C by the century ca C service CHAPTER X continued 17 deoul made us ell feel creepy for a few weeks she ehe admitted 1 11 I know she ehe was on grandfathers gerves nerves slie almost got on mine its a wonder she did not make us imagine all sorts of things As it was we had bad it a servant on guard every night you know inside the house yes and outside too and they never heard beard or saw anything hart said bald he saw a man stealing along our driveway late one night but he ran as soon as he be knew he was discovered and hart could not dot catch him jenks saw two others several times and all they reported dr absolutely all verity started to descend the staircase then recalling his request she stopped but if you still care to go over the house she added 1 I shall be glad to take you youre sure you have time quite where shall we begin just where we are I 1 know my own room so we bother about that and ive seen mr campbells suite and the room doctor morris has also I 1 know where yours Is what other rooms are on this floor she told him as they walked down the corridor toward the left wing there was as an upper library and reading room which ap one used she threw open the door and showed it to him there were also two empty rooms and a bath running along the front of the house there was mrs pardeep Par dees bedroom and bath and a rather elaborate guest suite occupied by madame of which one hip big room was assigned to wanda and her nurse verity opened the doors of some of these and pointed out the locations of all renshaw soon had bad a mental map of the lie second floor are there any long windows and balconies anywhere he be wanted to know again she shook her head the third floor to which they hey presently ascended held a well equipped billiard ard room which according to verity no one ever entered a gymnasium over Ren shaws room which no one ever used and several empty bedrooms bedro ottis and bathrooms it also held in the rear the servants quarters like everything else in the house these were well lighted and modern as to their fittings they included a large sitting room with comfortable chairs rending reading lamps and tables an open fire ond and a supply of books newspapers and magit one understands why your staff is so BO well satisfied he remarked as ho he glanced in they dont seem so well satisfied lately veritas Ver itys smooth brow puckered even jenks has changed a little and jumes seemed almost sullen yesterday I 1 do hope we arent going to have trouble with them now of all times possibly its the night watching they object to 1 I suppose so and yet on the other hand leona gives them the most amazing fees we have begged her not to for of course she cant afford it but she Is used to doing everything on a superb scale and she Is not able to change tier her ideas any servants anywhere would be glad to do what she asks for what she gives them and after this of course they wont have to watch possibly the matter with them perhaps they see their fat fees departing possibly but I 1 dont think so they know her well enough by this time to realize that she will keep on subsidizing them on one excuse or another its the way leoel Is made she Is the most generous woman in the world yet hereafter site she and wanda and irma may have to live on OD a petty three thousand a year site she added the last words ns as if she were thinking aloud you know about her she asked suddenly doctor stanley told me a good deal then you know who she really Is and wanda no he be did not tell me that hat theres no reason why I 1 should know 1 I have asked her to leave wanda here with me to be educated in america I 1 know she Is trying to whip herself up to the point of doing it but it will be very hard for her wanda Is all she has left you know he nodded yes yea 1 1 understood that but I 1 hope you will keep the be child he added more warmly than he be had ever spoken to her it would be vastly comfortini COM fOrtinS to think of his ale little friend as safe in this girls care they ascended to the fourth floor and an dispassionately surveyed an enormous attic given up op to td the largest collection of trunks renshaw kenshaw had ever seen outside of a railroad station verity nodded toward half a dozen huge foreign bull built t boxes that occupied a conspicuous place in the foreground those are leonls she said they hold everything she has poor darling aside from the precious memoirs As they returned to the second floor she described to him the plan of the first farst with which however he was fairly familiar back of the living room dining room and two studies were a huge kitchen a butlers pantry and twin storerooms store rooms which mrs pardoe had so ardently desired to fill with sugar would yon like to go down and go I 1 through brough them verity rather listlessly suggested renshaw looked at her with sudden compunction no he said eald youre tired I 1 should have remembered that and not dragged you all over the house oh im not tired in a gallant effort to prove that she was not tired she gave him her first really spontaneous smile and your room Is all right T you have no complaint to make she added jestingly N nt 4 a complaint except that I 1 like L fe few dozen towels a day and they are forgotten verity looked surprised forgotten I 1 she echoed are you yon serious why that sound like annie I 1 she literally festoons fes my bathroom with towels her eyes fell on the closet door but if she does forget she ended there are always heaps in this closet at least ashes supposed to it keep them here she opened the door and entered the closet ns as she bloke renshaw paused on its threshold for a moment and if you want a dozen towels hr here they are then casualty casually followed her this was waa the third time he be had bad been warmly commended to that particular closet he might as well see what was in it IL what he be saw was that it was a windowless closet the size find and shape of his long and narrow bathroom but lined with shelves filled with linen there wits a really fine supply of linen on exhibition such a display as any housewife might be proud of verity contemplating it with her back to him tossed him a complacent sentence if acu icu u want dozens of towels here they are any time you find your supply short she broke off with a gasp why did you do that 1 I I 1 ills his voice came to her out of the sudden blackness alackness that encompassed them the door slammed shut after me just this instant and by jove he had bad turned and was twisting the doorknob at first easily then fiercely now he leaned against the heavy oak exerting all his strength to push it outward it did not yield with it the girls words word were breathless he had had time to think why nothing at all he said bald in matter of fact tones the door slammed Bla romed with such force that it stuck fast ill III have it open in a moment 1 ohl oh I 1 he be heard her exhale her breath on the word she was wai reu cured but only momentarily he himself was not reassured at all in nil his hand the doorknob was turning round and round without resistance it did not catch and retract the lock yet the knob had opened the door of at course it was possible that the inner knob had got out of order and that no one had discovered it about the only way one was likely to discover it was by vainly trying to open the closed door from the he inside all that hint might happen all that was easily understood but why had the door closed it had been half way open at right angles with te ie threshold and hla his hand had not touched it there was no draft in the hall to hiwing it to moreover only on tie wings of an incipient cyclone could u draft be home borne to close a door with the violent slain that had accompanied the closing upon them of title this door the motive power of the slam elam was a strong human push lie ie was convinced of that yet who could have administered the push no one had been in the hall no one that Is that lie he had seen when lie he entered the closet and for that moment stood on its threshold the open door itself had cut off from his vision anyone or anything that hat might suddenly have come along the hall As ne thought he worked over the knob twisting it this way and that way trylba various combinations pushing against the door quietly but with all his strength hoping against hope that the mechanism would catch and turn unless it did catch and turn they were prisoners all the time he realized that it would not catch and turn and he had nothing in hla his pockets to work with not even a small penk penknife nire ile he redoubled his ett enorma en orta orts the knob whirled smoothly round and round perspiration broke out upon his brow this was a devilish situation for the girl to be in I 1 the closet was as mack black as on ari underground dungeon and so small that though she had stepped away from him to give him room to work he could hear her quick breath ing find and the soft rustle of her garments gan uenta as she moved that wing was the loneliest spot in the house even if they made the biggest kind of racket it might be long before anyone heard them probably no one would miss them or begin to look for them till ten tea time lime possibly not till dinner time it was now three at the most that meant a wait of hours and in the interval he would have to tell the girl the truth he would have to tell her the truth at once she was plucky she was trying to keep steady but he realized that she was fighting an incipient panic yes devilish was the right word for the situation it was so absolutely the he right word and it fitted so perfectly into the pattern of certain other episodes at taano ker that a cold conviction settled over him of course the little accident was waa not tin an accident st at all though it could so easily be made to seem one the shutting of that door had been a malicious action as deliberately malicious as the actions that had bad so eo disturbed his nights from this conclusion to the next was wag a short step and he took it its as he patiently experimented with the useless knob it was unquestionably anotol r malicious outbreak from that same sam malicious source veritas Ver itys voice came to him out atit of the blackness cant you open it not yet yel lie he spoke with robust and even in her growing panic the girl took in the he complete change in the quality of his voice Ren shaws voice had been one of the things to which she objected in him it was in itself an agreeable even a musical but it spoke with an odd flatness as if its possessor were out of key with the harmonies of life now it vibrated with a vital quality the she had never heard in it before she appreciated the change but it did not deceive her she knew he had put on the tone for her as he might have put on a reassuring tone in speaking to wanda it if he had found the child lost and frightened what Is in wrong to Is it really only stuck or ts Is it locked she spoke quite naturally rally insensibly she had bad been calmed and encouraged by his matter ot of the knob turns turna without retracting the bolt boll he explained the matter la in det detail aill glad to divert her mind by con venation while be worked TO DO DID |