Some Must Watch - Ethel Lina White (best book club books .TXT) 📗

and muscular, with an

ugly, underhung face. She did not wear uniform, and her afternoon skirt

was protected by an apron of red and black Welsh flannel.

 

“I heard you running down all them steep steps,” she said. “You’re free

to use the front.”

 

“Yes I know” replied Helen. “But back-stairs remind me of my granny’s

house. The servants and the children were never allowed to go up the

front way, because of wearing out the carpet.”.

 

“Go on,” remarked Mrs. Oates politely.

 

“Yes, indeed, and it was the same with the jam. Pots and pots of it, but

the strawberry and raspberry were only for the elders. All the children

had to eat was rhubarb, or ginger-and-marrow… How cruel we

grown-ups were then.”

 

“Not you. You should say ‘them grown-ups.’”

 

“‘Them grown-ups,’” repeated Helen meekly, accepting the correction.

“I’ve come to invite myself to tea, as your husband is away.”

 

“And you’re welcome.” Mrs. Oates rose to get down fresh china from the

Welsh dresser. “I see as how you know the tricks of the trade. You want

a brown pot to draw the flavor from the leaves. I’ll get out the

drawingroom cake for you.”

 

“Shop-cake? Not on your life. I want kitchen doughcake… You don’t

know how all this appeals to me, Mrs. Oates. I was thinking of this,

about an hour ago, in very different circumstances.”

 

She looked around her with appreciative eyes. The kitchen was a huge

room, with an uneven floor, and corners where shadows collected. There

was no white enamel, no glass-fronted cabinet, no refrigerator; yet the

shabby hearth-rug and broken basket-chairs looked homely and comfortable

in the glow from the range.

 

“What an enormous cavern,” said Helen. “It must make a lot of work for

you and your husband.”

 

“Oh, it don’t worry Oates.” Mrs. Oates’ voice was bitter.

 

“All the more places for him to muck up, and me to cleanup after him.”’

 

“It looks fine. All the same, Miss Warren would have a fit if she saw

there were no shutters.”

 

As she spoke, Helen glanced at the small windows, sethigh up in the

walls. They were on a level with the garden, and through the

mud-speckled glass, she could see a faint stir of darkness, as the

bushes moved in the wind.

 

“It’s only just turned dark,” said Mrs. Oates. “They can wait till I’ve

finished my tea.” “But don’t you feel nervous, down here all by

yourself?”

 

“D’you mean him?” Mrs. Oates’ voice was scornful.

 

“No, miss I’ve seen too many work-shy men to be scared of anything in

trousers. If he tried any of his funny business on me, I’d soon sock him

in the jaw.”

 

“But there is a murderer,” Helen reminded her.

 

“He’s not likely to trouble us. It’s like the Irish Sweep; someone wins

it, but it’s never you and never me.”

 

They were consoling words and made Helen feel safe and comfortable as

she crunched her toast. The grandfather clock ticked pleasantly and the

ginger cat purred on the best patch of rug.

 

Suddenly she felt in the mood for a thrill.

 

“I wish you would tell me about the murders,” she said. Mrs. Oates

stared at her in surprise.

 

“Why, they was in all the newspapers,” she said. “Can’t you read?”

 

“I naturally keep up with all the important things,” Helen explained.

“But I’ve never been interested in crime. Only; when it’s a local

murder, it seems slack to know nothing about it.”

 

“That’s right,” agreed Mrs. Oates, as she relaxed to gossip. “Well, the

first girl was murdered in town. She did a dancing-turn, with no clothes

on, at one of the Halls, but she was out of a job. She was in a public,

and had one over the eight. They seen her go out of the bar, just before

time. When the rest come out, she was lying in the gutter, dead. Her

face was as black as that bit of coal.”

 

Helen shuddered. “The second murder was committed in the town, too,

wasn’t it?” she asked. “Yes. She was a housemaid, poor thing. It was her

evening out, and when her master came out into the garden, to give the

dog its run, he found her all doubled up, on the drive, choked, like the

other. And no one heard a whisper, though it was quite close to the

drawingroom windows. So she must have been took by surprise.”

 

“I know,” nodded Helen. “There were shrubs on the lawn, that looked like

people. And suddenly, a shrub leaped on her.” Mrs Oates stared at her,

and then began to count on her fingers.

 

“Where was I? Let me see. One, two, three. Yes, the third was in a

public-house, and it put everyone in a proper scare, because he’d come

out into the country. The young lady in the bar had just popped into the

kitchen, to swill a few glasses under the tap, and they found her there,

two minutes after, choked with her own tea-cloth. There was people in

the bar. But no one heard a sound. He must have crept in through the

back-door, and jumped on her form behind.”

 

Helen listed with a sense of unreality. She told herself that these

things had never really happened. And yet they toned in too well with

the dam darkness of the valley, where trees crept up to windows, until

it was possible to imagine confused faces peering down into the kitchen.

Suddenly she felt sated with secondary horrors.

 

“Don’t tell my any more,” she implored.

 

But Mrs Oates was wound up to a finish.

 

“The last,” she said, “was five miles from here, as the crow flies. A

pure young girl, about your own age. She was a nursery governess in some

big family, but she was home for her holiday and she was going to a

dance. She was up in her bedroom, and drawing her beautiful party-frock

over head, when he fined the job for her. Twisted the lovely satin

frock all round her neck, as it ate right into her throat, and wrapped

it all over her face, so that she never saw another mortal thing on

earth. Looking at herself in the glass, she was, and that was her last

sight, which shows these beauty competitions don’t get you far.”

 

Helen did her best to resist the surge of her imagination, by picking on

the weak spots in the tale.

 

“If she was looking at herself in the glass, she’d see him too, and be

warned. And if her dress was over her head how could she see herself?

Besides her arms would protect her throat.”

 

All the same, she could not help making a mental picture of the scene.

Because her own possession were so few, perhaps, she had a keen sense of

property, and always exercised a proprietary right over her room,

even if someone else paid the rent.

 

She imagined that the murdered governess occupied a bedroom much like

her own at the Summit—brightly-lit and well-furnished. It was cluttered

with girlish treasures, symbolic of the cross-roads—childish relics and

womanhood’s trophies, of restaurant souvenirs. Hockeysticks jostled with

futuristic, long-bodied dolls; photographs of school-groups stood beside

the latest boy. Powder, vanishing-cream—and the distorted satin shape on

the carpet.

 

“How did he get in?” Helen asked, desperately anxious to prove that

this, horror could not be true.

 

“Quite easy,” Mrs Oates told her. “He climbed up the front porch, just

under her bedroom window.”

 

“But how could he tell she would be there alone?”

 

“Ah, but he’s a luny, and they know everything. He’s after girls.

Believe me, or believe me not, if there was a girl anywhere about, he’d

smell her out.”

 

Helen glanced apprehensively at the window. She could barely distinguish

glistening twigs tossing amidst dim undergrowth.

 

“Have you locked the, back door?” she asked.

 

“I locked it hours ago. I always do when Oates is away.”

 

“Isn’t he rather late getting back?”

 

“Nothing to make a song about.” Mrs. Oates glanced at the clock, which

told her its customary lie. “The rain will turn them steep lanes to

glue, and the car’s that old, Oates says he has to get out and carry it

up the hills.”

 

“Will he carry the new nurse too?”

 

Mrs. Oates, however, resented Helen’s attempt to introduce a lighter

note.

 

“I’m not worrying about her,” she replied, with dignity. “I could trust

Oates alone with the very highest in the land.”

 

“I’m sure you could.” Helen glanced again at the greyness outside the

window. “Suppose we put the shutters up and make things look more

cheerful?”

 

“What’s the good of locking up?” grumbled Mrs. Oates, as she rose

reluctantly. “If he’s a mind to come in, he’ll find a way… Still,

it’s got to be done.” But Helen enjoyed the task of barring the

windows. It gave her a sense of victory over the invading night. When

the short red curtains were drawn over the panes, the kitchen presented

the picture of a delightful domestic interior.

 

“There’s another window in the scullery,” remarked Mrs Oates, opening a

door at the far end of the kitchen.

 

On the other side loomed the blackness of a coal-mine. Then Mrs. Oates

found the switch and snapped on the light, revealing a bare clean room,

with blue-washed walls, a mangle, copper, and plate-racks.

 

“What a mercy this basement is wired,” said Helen.

 

“Most of it’s as dark as a lover’s lane,” Mrs. Oates told her. “There’s

only a light in the passage, and switches in the storeroom and pantry.

Oates did say as how he’d finish the job properly, and that’s as far as

he’ll ever get. He’s only got one wife to work for him, poor man.”

 

“What a labyrinth,” cried Helen, as she opened the scullery door and

gazed down the vista of the passage, dimly lit by’ one small

electric-bulb, swinging from the ceiling, halfway down its length. The

light revealed a section of stone-slabbed floor and hinted at darker

recesses lost in obscurity.

 

On either side were closed doors, dingy with shabby brown paint. To

Helen’s imagination they looked grim andsepulchral as sealed tombs.

 

“Don’t you always feel a closed door is mysterious?” she asked. “You

wonder what lies on the other side.”

 

“I’ll make a guess,” said Mrs. Oates. “A side of bacon and a string of

Spanish onions, and if you open the store room door, you’ll find I’m not

far out. Come along. That’s all here.”.

 

“No,” Helen declared. “After your nice little bedtime tales, I shan’t

sleep until I’ve opened every door and satisfied myself that no one’s

hiding inside.”

 

“And what would a shrimp like you do if you found the murderer?”

 

“Go for him, before I’d time to think. When you feel angry, you can’t

feel frightened.”

 

In spite of Mrs. Oates’ laughter, Helen insisted on fetch ing a candle

from the scullery and exploring the basement. Mrs. Oates lagged behind

her, as she made an exhaustive search of the pantry, storeroom, larder,

boot-closet, and the other offices.

 

At the end of the passage, she turned into a darker alley, where the

coal-cellars and wood-house were located. She flashed her light over

each recess, stooping behind dusty sacks and creeping into corners.

 

“What d’you expect to find?” asked Mrs. Oates. “A nice young man?”

 

Her grin faded, however, as Helen paused before a locked door.

 

“There’s one place as you, nor no one else, will ever get into,” she

said grimly. “If the luny gets inside there, I’ll say good luck to