That Affair at Elizabeth Part 8

"Miss Lawrence's maid. She just sat there on the stairs and glowered and grinned and chewed her nails and never said a word. She gave me the creeps. I could swear she knew all about it and was glad of it."

I repressed a chuckle of satisfaction. Here was better luck than I had expected.

"How was Miss Lawrence dressed when you saw her?" I asked.

"All in rustly white. I judged it was her wedding-dress."

"And you say she seemed quite as usual?"

"Yes, sir; only, of course, excited, as any woman would be-though calm, too, and with a sort of deep glow in her eyes when she looked at you. I can't describe it, sir; but I remember thinking that the man who was to get her was a mighty lucky fellow. Did you know her, sir?"

"No," I said; "I've never seen her."

"Ah," he added, closing his eyes for an instant, "if you'd seen her then, you'd never forget it. I never will. I never saw another woman to touch her!" and he turned away to his work, with the vision he had conjured up evidently still before him.

As I started along the hall, I saw through the open front door a mail-carrier coming up the walk. I hastened to meet him-this was another fortunate chance.

"How many deliveries do you make a day out here?" I asked, as he came up the steps with a bundle of letters in his hand-I could guess the belated congratulations which were among them!

"Only two-morning and afternoon," he answered.

"What time in the morning?"

"About nine o'clock, usually."

"It was about that time this morning?"

"Yes, sir; maybe ten minutes after nine."

"Who took the mail?"

"I put it in the box here in the vestibule, as I always do," he said, and suited the action to the word.

I watched him as he walked away. So it had not been a letter which had caused Miss Lawrence's sudden panic. That reduced the possibilities to two. Either she had received a visitor or a telegram. I must endeavour to--

A voice at my elbow aroused me.

"Mrs. Lawrence wishes to see you, sir," it said.

I turned, to find standing beside me the woman who had brought the note to Mrs. Lawrence in the library-the woman whose att.i.tude of malignant triumph had so startled me. I blessed the chance which made it possible for me to question her alone.

"Very well," I said. "Are you Mrs. Lawrence's maid?"

"No, sir; I'm Miss Marcia's maid."

"Ah!" I said, and permitted myself to look at her more closely. She was a woman apparently somewhat over thirty. She had very black hair and eyes, and her face, while not actually repellent, had in it a certain fierceness and hardness far from attractive. A fiery and emotional nature was evident in every line of it-a sinister nature, too, it seemed to me-and I remembered her as I had seen her standing in the library door, exulting in another's misery. I pictured her as the decorator had described her, sitting on the stair, grinning and biting her nails in a kind of infernal triumph. Why should Miss Lawrence have chosen such a woman to attend her? As I looked at her, I saw the folly of attempting to win her confidence-the whip was the only weapon that could touch her-and it must be wielded mercilessly.

"Mrs. Lawrence wishes to see you," she said again, and I fancied there was defiance in the eyes she turned upon me for the merest instant.

"In a moment. Was it you who found the note your mistress left for Mr. Curtiss?"

"Yes, sir," and she glanced at me again, this time with a quick suspicion.

"It was on her dressing-table, I believe?"

"Yes, sir."

"How did you happen to find it?"

"I just happened to see it, sir."

"It was lying in plain sight?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not concealed in any way-nothing lying over it?"

She hesitated an instant, and shot me another quick glance before she answered.

"I believe not, sir," she said at last.

"Of course it wouldn't be concealed," I said rea.s.suringly. "Miss Lawrence probably left it where she thought it would be most quickly seen, don't you think so?"

"Yes, sir; I suppose so."

"And her dressing-table was a very conspicuous place?"

"Yes, sir; very conspicuous."

"In that case," I said slowly, "it seems most peculiar that the letter wasn't discovered at once."

She flushed hotly under my gaze and opened her lips to reply, but thought better of it and started hastily up the stair. I followed her in silence; but I had much to think about. What connection had she with Miss Lawrence's disappearance? What connection could she have? Miss Lawrence would scarcely make a confidante of her maid, more especially of such a maid as this! At the stairhead I held her back for a final question.

"When did you see your mistress last?"

"When she left her room to go downstairs to look at the decorations," she answered, so docilely that I was inclined to believe her former defiance wholly my imagination.

"You remained behind in the room?"

"Yes, sir."

"And she did not return?"

"No, sir."

"Then how do you explain the presence of the letter on the dresser?"

She flushed again, more hotly than before; she realised that I had caught her in a lie.