House in Charlton Crescent Read Online Free

friend, Dr. Spencer, when, one night as I was drinking my milk, I became conscious of a very curious taste. It set me thinking. I put the glass down, meaning to make inquiries, and went on with my reading. Half an hour later, when the milk had got cold, my pet Persian cat, climbing about as she does sometimes, got on the table by my side and lapped up some of it before I noticed what she was doing. A very short time afterwards she was violently sick and lay writhing about in awful pain. I thought at first that she was going to die, but in the end got her round again. Since then I have taken no more hot milk. It goes down the drain, and I feel better. My indigestion is a thing of the past.”
    â€œAnd that is all?” Bruce Cardyn questioned.
    â€œIs it not enough?” Lady Anne parried.
    â€œIt ought to be,” Cardyn assented. “But, Lady Anne, have you no idea who is your would-be assassin?”
    Lady Anne shook her head.
    â€œNone! Of course I do not say that my fancy has not strayed from one to another, and have said to myself—‘it could not be so-and-so, it could not be so-and-so,’ but of real knowledge, or even suspicion, I have none.”
    â€œI see.”
    There was a long pause. Cardyn sat with his eyes apparently studying the pattern of the carpet. At last he raised them and gave Lady Anne one long, penetrating look.
    â€œHas anyone in the house any motive for desiring your death?”
    â€œEvery one of them,” Lady Anne said slowly, a momentary moisture clouding her glasses. “Every servant in my employ comes in for a legacy at my death, small or large according to their time of service. This is well known and one which might have provided a motive.”
    â€œExactly,” Cardyn acquiesced. “And if the motive seems inadequate, one must remember for what exceedingly small sums murders have been committed in the past. Now will you tell me exactly of whom your household consists? First the servants?” He took out his note-book and waited.
    Lady Anne’s pale eyes gave him one swift look and then glanced obliquely away.
    â€œTo begin with there are Soames, the butler, and my maid, Pirnie. Both of them have been with me—with us—for many years. Pirnie came as quite a young girl, soon after my marriage. Then there are two housemaids, a kitchen-maid, and the cook-housekeeper, who has been here some years, a young footman under Soames, and a boy. That is all the indoor staff except that both the girls have maids—Miss Fyvert and Miss Balmaine, I mean. Outside we have a head gardener with a couple of men under him, and a chauffeur. But those, as I say, are out of count.”
    â€œI cannot at present put anyone out of count,” Bruce Cardyn dissented, as he wrote a few lines rapidly in his note-book. “Now the members of your family, Lady Anne, please.”
    â€œThey are soon told.”
    For a moment the detective fancied that Lady Anne’s stern lips quivered; then he told himself that he must be mistaken as she went on in the same clear voice:
    â€œThere are my two nieces, Dorothy and Maureen Fyvert. They have made their home with me for the most part since their mother’s death two years ago. Maureen is a child of twelve, usually at a boarding-school at Torquay, but at present at home on account of an outbreak of measles. Dorothy is twenty, and a very good girl. Then there is Margaret Balmaine, my husband’s granddaughter.”
    She was not looking at the detective now or she would have seen his interested expression change to one of utter amazement.
    â€œMiss Margaret Balmaine!” he repeated, but even as he spoke the veil of inscrutability dropped over his features once more, and he became again the impassive-looking detective.
    â€œHas Miss Balmaine, too, been here for some time?”
    â€œNo, she is a comparatively recent comer,” Lady Anne said quietly. “She has not been here quite three