Yellow Room Read Online Free Page B

was black dark, you see, so she fell right down them. It’s a mercy she was found at all. Old William saw the front door wide open and went in, and Lucy Norton was at the foot of the stairs, about crazy with one thing and another. He got Dr. Harrison there and they took her to the hospital. She’s in a plaster cast now,” he added, almost with gusto.
    Carol stared at him.
    “It wasn’t a ghost if it opened the front door,” she said. “If the whole town knows about it, my maids will hear it sooner or later.” She remembered Freda with a sense of helplessness. “It was a tramp, of course. Who else could it be? Unless she dreamed the whole business.”
    “Well, she sure enough broke her leg.”
    The market was still empty. She was aware that Harry was watching her with a mixture of curiosity and the deference he reserved for his summer people. She rallied herself.
    “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “We’re all fond of her. I’ll see her as soon as I can. But a tramp—!”
    “Anything missing from the place?” he inquired.
    “I haven’t really looked. I don’t think so. We never leave much.”
    He cleared his throat.
    “Might as well tell you,” he said. “There was a light in the upper corner room of yours late that night. The one that looks this way. I was driving home, and I saw it myself. Looked like a candle, only Lucy says she wasn’t in there.”
    “In the yellow room? Are you sure?”
    “Sure as I’m standing here. After half past twelve it was.”
    She gave her order finally, and went out with her head whirling. But there was no time to see Lucy Norton then, or George either. She went to the office of the telephone company, only to find that there was less than no hope. As usual, she was told there was a war on and, in effect, what was she, a patriot or not? She was able to have the electric current turned on, and at the service station to find someone to put her small car in running order.
    It seemed to her that everyone she saw looked at her with more than normal interest. Lucy’s story had evidently spread and probably grown.
    This was verified when she met the village chief of police at the corner. His name was Floyd, a big man with a sagging belt which carried the automatic he invariably wore as a badge of office, and with small shrewd deep-set eyes. He grinned as he shook hands with her.
    “Glad you’re back,” he said. “We’d heard you weren’t coming.”
    “Mother thought Gregory would like it.”
    “Bit quiet for him, I’d think. Unless Lucy Norton’s ghost gets after him.”
    He laughed, his big body shaking. She had known him all her life, and the very fact that he could laugh was a relief. She found herself smiling.
    “If there was anyone it may have been a tramp. Harry Miller says William found the front door of the house open.”
    He laughed again.
    “No tramps around here, Miss Carol. Ten miles from a railroad! What would they be doing here? They’d starve to death.”
    She left him still grinning, and went on her way. She ordered coal, she bought some candy at the drugstore as a peace offering for the two recalcitrant girls, and at last she got a local taxi, picked up part of her order at the market, and drove home. She did not go to the house at once, however. She sent the taxi on with the groceries, and herself got out at the garage and unlocked the doors. The cars were there, mounted on blocks, her small car, her mother’s limousine, and Gregory’s old abandoned roadster. They looked strange under their dust sheets, but nothing had been disturbed.
    She left the door open for the men from the service station, and went back to the drive, to find there what she had dreaded for so long.
    Colonel Richardson was waiting for her. He was standing in the roadway, his tall figure erect, the wind blowing his heavy white hair. A veteran of two wars, he was colonel to every one, and—except for his obsession about his son—universally beloved. With his smile