look of fear in her eyes.
“Why aren’t you giving this girl work to do?” he asked sharply.
“There’s nothing for her to do,” she wailed. “My dear, she is such an expense, and I don’t like her.”
“You’ll give her work to do from to-day,” he said, “and don’t let me tell you again!”
“She’ll only spy on me,” said Mrs. Groat fretfully, “and I never write letters, you know that. I haven’t written a letter for years until you made me write that note to the lawyer.”
“You’ll find work for her to do,” repeated Digby Groat. “Do you understand? Get all the accounts that we’ve had for the past two years, and let her sort them out and make a list of them. Give her your bank account. Let her compare the cheques with the counterfoils. Give her anything. Damn you! You don’t want me to tell you every day, do you?”
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it, Digby,” she said hurriedly. “You’re very hard on me, my boy. I hate this house,” she said with sudden vehemence. “I hate the people in it. I looked into her room this morning and it is like a palace. It must have cost us thousands of pounds to furnish that room, and all for a work-girl—it is sinful!”
“Never mind about that,” he said. “Find something to occupy her time for the next fortnight.”
The girl was surprised that morning when Mrs. Groat sent for her.
“I’ve one or two little tasks for you, miss—I never remember your name.”
“Eunice,” said the girl, smiling.
“I don’t like the name of Eunice,” grumbled the old woman. “The last one was Lola! A foreign girl. I was glad when she left. Haven’t you got another name?”
“Weldon is my other name,” said the girl good-humouredly, “and you can call me ‘Weldon’ or ‘Eunice’ or anything you like, Mrs. Groat.”
The old woman sniffed.
She had in front of her a big drawer packed with cheques which had come back from the bank.
“Go through these,” she said, “and do something with them. I don’t know what.”
“Perhaps you want me to fasten them to the counterfoils,” said the girl.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” said Mrs. Groat. “You don’t want to do it here, do you? Yes, you’d better do it here,” she went on hastily. “I don’t want the servants prying into my accounts.”
Eunice put the drawer on the table, gathered together the stubs of the cheque books, and with a little bottle of gum began her work, the old woman watching her.
When, for greater comfort, the girl took off the gold wrist-watch which she wore, a present from her dead father, Mrs. Groat’s greedy eyes focussed upon it and a look of animation came into the dull face.
It looked like being a long job, but Eunice was a methodical worker, and when the gong in the hall sounded for lunch, she had finished her labours.
“There, Mrs. Groat,” she said with a smile, “I think that is the lot. All your cheques are here.”
She put away the drawer and looked round for her watch, but it had disappeared. It was at that moment that Digby Groat opened the door and walked in.
“Hullo, Miss Weldon,” he said with his engaging smile. “I’ve come back for lunch. Did you hear the gong, mother? You ought to have let Miss Weldon go.”
But the girl was looking round.
“Have you lost anything?” asked Digby quickly.
“My little watch. I put it down a few minutes ago, and it seems to have vanished,” she said.
“Perhaps it is in the drawer,” stammered the old woman, avoiding her son’s eye.
Digby looked at her for a moment, then turned to Eunice.
“Will you please ask Jackson to order my car for three o’clock?” he asked gently.
He waited until the door closed behind the girl and then: “Where is that watch?” he asked.
“The watch, Digby?” quavered the old woman.
“The watch, curse you!” he said, his face black with rage.
She put her hand into her pocket reluctantly and produced it.
“It was so pretty,” she snivelled, and he snatched it from her hand.
A minute later Eunice returned.
“We have found your watch,” he said with a smile. “You had dropped it under the table.”
“I thought I’d looked there,” she said. “It is not a valuable watch, but it serves a double purpose.”
She was preparing to put it on.
“What other purpose than to tell you the time?” asked Digby.
“It hides a very ugly scar,” she said, and extended her wrist. “Look.” She pointed to a round red mark, the size of a sixpence. It looked like a recent burn.
“That’s queer,” said Digby, looking, and then he heard a strangled sound from his mother. Her face was twisted and distorted, her eyes were glaring at the girl?s wrist.
“Digby, Digby!” Her voice was a thin shriek of sound. “Oh, my God!”
And she fell across the table and before he could reach her, had dropped to the floor in an inert heap.
Digby stooped over his mother and then turned his head slowly to the frightened girl.
“It was the scar on your hand that did it,” he said slowly. “What does it mean?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE story of the scar and the queer effect it had produced on Mrs. Groat puzzled Jim almost as much as it had worried the girl. He offered his wild theory again and she laughed.
“Of course I shall leave,” she said, “but I must stay until all Mrs. Groat’s affairs are cleared up. There are heaps of letters and documents of all kinds which I have to index,” she said, “at least Mr. Groat told me there were. And it seems so unfair to run away whilst the poor old lady is so ill. As to my being the young lady of fortune, that is absurd. My parents were South Africans. Jim, you are too romantic to be a good detective.”
He indulged in the luxury of a taxi to carry her back to Grosvenor Square, and this time went with her to the house, taking his leave at the door.
Whilst they were talking on the step, the door opened and a man was shown out by Jackson. He was a short, thick-set man with an enormous brown beard.
Apparently Jackson did not see the two people on the step, at any rate he did not look toward them, but said in a loud voice:
“Mr. Groat will not be home until seven o’clock, Mr. Villa.”
“Tell him I called,” said the bearded man with a booming voice, and stepped past Jim, apparently oblivious to his existence.
“Who is the gentleman with the whiskers?” asked Jim, but the girl could give him no information.
Jim was not satisfied with the girl’s explanation of her parentage. There was an old school-friend of his in business in Cape Town, as an architect, and on his return to his office, Jim sent him a long reply-paid cablegram. He felt that he was chasing shadows, but at present there was little else to chase, and he went home to his flat a little oppressed by the hopelessness of his task.
The next day he had a message from the girl saying that she could not come out that afternoon, and the day was a blank, the more so because that afternoon he received a reply to his cable. The reply destroyed any romantic dreams he might have had as to Eunice Weldon’s association with the Danton millions. The message was explicit. Eunice May Weldon had been born at Rondebosch; on the l2th June, 1899; her parents were Henry William Weldon, musician, and Margaret May Weldon. She had been christened at the Wesleyan Chapel at Rondebosch, and both her parents were dead.
The final two lines of the cable puzzled him:
“Similar inquiries made about parentage Eunice Weldon six months ago by Selenger & Co., Brade Street Buildings.”
“Selenger & Co.,” said Jim thoughtfully. Here was a new mystery. Who else was making inquiries about the girl? He opened a Telephone Directory and looked up the name. There were several Selengers, but none of Brade Street Buildings. He put on his hat, and hailing a taxi, drove to Brade Street, which was near the Bank, and with some difficulty found Brade Street Buildings. It was a moderately large block of offices, and on the indicator at the door he discovered Selenger & Co. occupied No. 6 room on the ground floor.
The office was locked and apparently unoccupied. He sought the hall-keeper.
“No, sir,” said that man, shaking his head. “Selengers’ aren’t open. As a matter of fact, nobody’s ever there
