The Studio Crime Read Online Free Page B

efforts to regain her composure, he felt an abject fool, and the amused grins he received from Christmas and Serafine did nothing to improve his state of mind.
    â€œIf your friend Mr. Frew heard us coming upstairs he’ll be thinking we’re a gang of burglars....”
    â€œHe’s probably now barricading the door,” said John, “and sharpening a scimitar on the sole of his sandal. Come to think of it, old Merewether has rather a burglarious look about him. Gentleman George on the old lay...”
    Serafine looked over the well of the stairs. Sir Marion Steen was treading lightly up, followed at one pace by Dr. Mordby, who had the solicitous enveloping air of a nurse keeping the draught off a baby. Some stairs behind them came George Merewether, alone and detached from the rest of the party, his hands in his trouser-pockets, looking at the stairs with a slight pre-occupied frown. His soft step, his detachment, something still and secret in his look gave an absurd aptitude to John’s frivolous remark.
    Taking a very small glass and a very large powder-puff from her handbag and using them with anxious care, Mrs. Wimpole sighed graciously:
    â€œYou may knock now, Mr. Newtree.”
    The great old wrought-iron knocker with which Mr. Frew had replaced the small bar of brass provided by his landlord fell even to the slightest touch with a heavy, ominous, resounding noise.
    â€œHow feudal!” said Serafine. “The draw-bridge will be lowered at half-past nine precisely.”
    â€œLike the walls of Jericho,” murmured her aunt, with some obscure association of ideas lost on her hearers. “But artists are always such original people, aren’t they? I mean,” she explained gently as Laurence looked puzzled but humble, “there’s always something peculiar about their front doors.”
    â€œThe peculiar thing about this front door,” remarked Christmas, after a short expectant pause, “is that it doesn’t open.”
    â€œQueer,” muttered Newtree, and knocked again, diffidently at first, then loudly and repeatedly.
    â€œThe whole court must have heard that,” said Serafine, but there was no sound on the other side of the door.
    Newtree turned a distressed, disappointed face over his shoulder. It seemed as if his little party were going to fall flat after all.
    â€œHe did say he was expecting us, didn’t he, Merewether?”
    â€œCertainly.”
    â€œHe must have forgotten and gone out,” said Mrs. Wimpole comfortably. “Never mind, Mr. Newtree. Let’s go back to your lovely fire.”
    She shivered slightly and drew her fur stole closer about her fine shoulders.
    â€œI second the resolution,” said Mordby with a smile, and there was a slight movement towards the stairs.
    â€œI think I’ll just knock again,” murmured Laurence. “You see”—he lowered his voice and spoke confidentially to Christmas—“there’s a light in the studio.”
    Inside the studio, as the reverberations of Newtree’s attack on the knocker died away, sounded a fine clear note, a soft silvery ping! like the plucking of a wire. In the silence behind that locked door it was a secret, unearthly sound that held them all still and breathless for a moment, looking at one another with startled eyes. Then Merewether said quietly, looking at his wrist-watch:
    â€œA clock striking the half-hour,” and there was a movement of relief.
    â€œCome,” said Dr. Mordby heartily. “Our friend has forgotten us. Let us forget him. Let us go back to warmth and light and talk and the pleasant things of life in Newtree’s studio.”
    But Sir Marion Steen opposed him.
    â€œI think,” he said in his hesitating, apologetic way, “I do really think, considering that the light’s still on, and that he was expecting us, and—and one or two other things, that we ought to get into this place somehow.