Mrs. Burton waited until they were ascending the broad stairway to the upper floor before she “introduced” them. “The clergyman’s a Reverend Dean from South Africa, the young lady’s Miss Olga Crewe, the other gent is Colonel Hothling—they’re boarders.—This is your room, miss.”
It was indeed a gem of an apartment; the sort of room that Margaret Belman had dreamed about. It was exquisitely furnished, and, like all the other rooms at Larmes Keep (as she discovered later), was provided with its private bathroom. The walls were panelled to half their height; the ceilings heavily beamed. She guessed that beneath the parquet was the original stone-flagged floor.
Margaret looked and sighed. It was going to be very hard to refuse this post. Why she should think of refusing it at all she could not for the life of her understand.
“It’s a beautiful room,” she said.
Mrs. Burton cast an apathetic eye round the apartment.
“It’s old,” she said. “I don’t like old houses. I used to live in Brixton—”
She stopped abruptly, sniffed in a deprecating way, and jingled the keys that she carried in her hand.
“You’re suited, I suppose?”
“Suited? You mean, am I taking the appointment? I don’t know yet.”
Mrs. Burton looked round vaguely. The girl had the impression that she was trying to say something in praise of the place—something that would prejudice her in favour of accepting the appointment. Then she spoke.
“The food’s good,” she said, and Margaret smiled.
When she came back through the hall she saw the three people she had seen at tea. The Colonel was walking by himself; the clergyman and the pale-faced girl were strolling across the lawn talking to one another.
Mr. Daver was sitting at his desk, his high forehead resting on his palm, and he was biting the end of a pen as Mrs. Burton closed the door on them.
“You like the room: naturally. You will start—when? Next Monday week, I think. What a relief! You have seen Mrs. Burton.” He wagged a finger at her roguishly. “Ah! Now you know! It is impossible! Can I leave her to meet the duchess and speed the duke? Can I trust her to adjust the little quarrels that naturally arise between guests? You are right—I can’t. I must have a lady here—I must! I must!”
He nodded emphatically, his impish brown eyes fixed on hers, the bulging upper lip grotesquely curved in a delighted grin.
“My work suffers, as you see; constantly to be brought from my studies to settle such matters as the fixing of a tennis net—intolerable!”
“You write a great deal?” she managed to ask.
She felt she must postpone her decision to the last possible moment.
“A great deal. On crime. Ah, you are interested? I am preparing an encyclopaedia of crime!”
He said this impressively, dramatically.
“On crime?”
He nodded.
“It is one of my hobbies. I am a rich man and can afford hobbies. This place is a hobby. I lose four thousand a year, but I am satisfied. I pick and choose my own guests. If one bores me I tell him to go—that his room has been taken. Could I do that if they were my friends? No! They interest me; they fill the house; they give me company and amusement. When will you come?”
She hesitated.
“I think—”
“Monday week? Excellent!” He shook her hand vigorously.
“You need not be lonely. If my guests bore you, invite your own friends. Let them come as the guests of the house. Until Monday!”
She was walking down the garden path to the waiting cabman, a little dazed, more than a little undecided.
“Did you get the place, miss?” asked the friendly cabman.
“I suppose I did,” replied Margaret.
She looked back toward Larmes Keep. The lawns were empty, but near at hand she had a glimpse of a woman. Only for a second, and then she disappeared in a belt of laurel that ran parallel with the boundary wall of the property. Evidently there was a rough path through the bushes, and Mrs. Burton had sought this hiding place. Her hands covered her face as she staggered forward blindly, and the faint sound of her sobs came back to the astonished girl.
“That’s the housekeeper—she’s a bit mad,” said the cabman calmly.
II
George Ravini was not an unpleasant looking man. From his own point of view, which was naturally prejudiced, he was extremely attractive, with his crisp brown hair, his handsome Neapolitan features, his height and his poise. And when to his natural advantages were added the best suit that Savile Row could create, the most spotless of gray hats, and the malacca sword-stick on which one kid-gloved hand rested as upon the hilt of a foil, the shiniest of enamelled shoes, and the finest of gray silk socks, the picture was well framed and embellished.
Greatest embellishment of all were George Ravini’s luck rings. He was a superstitious man and addicted to charms. On the little finger of his right hand were three gold rings, and in each ring three large diamonds. The luck stones of Ravini were one of the traditions of Saffron Hill.
Most of the time he had the half-amused, half-bored smile of a man for whom life held no mysteries and could offer in experience little that was new. And the smile was justified, for George knew most of the things that were happening in London or likely to happen.
He had worked outward from a one-room house in Saffron Hill, where he first saw the light; had enlarged the narrow horizons which surrounded his childhood so that now, in place of the poverty-stricken child who had shared a bed with his father’s performing monkey, he was not only the possessor of a classy
