Free Miss Silver Comes To Stay by Patricia Wentworth Page B

the room brightly and warmly lit—the writing-table facing her—the hand which held the curtain back.
    As the light fell on her face, James Lessiter came from behind the heavy red drapery, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. She stepped in, shutting it behind her. The curtains fell again in their accustomed folds. Outside among the bushes someone moved, came up the two steps, and stood there pressed close against the glass, all without a sound.
    James stared in astonishment and some admiration.
    “My dear Rietta!”
    Her colour was bright and high, her breath a little uneven. The room was very warm. She let the raincoat slip down upon a chair. He exclaimed,
    “What have you done to your hand?”
    She looked down, startled, and saw the blood running from a scratch on her wrist.
    “I must have done it coming through the wood—I didn’t know.”
    He offered his handkerchief, and she took it.
    “It’s nothing at all—I didn’t know I’d done it. I ought to have a handkerchief somewhere, but one has no pockets.”
    She wore the dark red dress she had worn last night. There was a small triangular tear near the hem.
    “There must have been brambles in the wood—I didn’t notice.”
    He laughed.
    “In such a hurry?”
    “Yes.”
    She came round the table to the hearth behind it and stood there. He had been burning papers. The grate was full. Heat came from it, but no glow. It was strange to be here in this room with James. Everything in it was familiar. Here they had kissed, agonized, quarrelled, parted. Here they met again. Nothing in the room had changed—the massive table; the old-fashioned carpet; the wallpaper with its sombre metallic gleams; the family portraits, rather forbidding. A handsome half-length of Mrs. Lessiter with an ostrich-feather fan over the mantelpiece, and on the black marble shelf below, the heavy ormolu clock. Two on either side of it, the golden Florentine figures which she had always loved. They represented the four Seasons—Spring, with a garland trailing across her slim body—a naked Summer—Autumn, crowned with vine-leaves and holding up a bunch of grapes—Winter, catching a wisp of drapery about her. Even now she could think them lovely. Some things perished, but others endured. The room was hot, but everything in her shivered with cold. She looked at him and said gravely,
    “Carr has found out.”
    James leaned back against the writing-table, handsome, sure of himself, not exactly smiling but with a definite hint of amusement.
    “That sounds intriguing. What has Carr found out?”
    “That you ran away with his wife.”
    He raised his eyebrows slightly.
    “Didn’t he know?”
    “Of course he didn’t. Nor did you until last night at Catherine’s.”
    He reached into his pocket for a gold cigarette-case, opened it, selected a cigarette, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, held out the case to her.
    “My dear Rietta, forgive me.”
    She shook her head.
    “I don’t smoke.”
    “Quite right!” The case went back into his pocket, he struck a match. “It would be quite out of character—” he drew at his cigarette, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and added— “Pallas Athene!”
    She was suddenly, sharply angry. Colour burned in her cheeks. Her voice hardened.
    “I’ve come to warn you. It was a frightful shock—I don’t know what he might do.”
    “Really? May I ask why?”
    “Do you have to ask? I didn’t like Marjory very much, but she was quite young—only twenty-four when she died. You took her away from her husband and her home, you left her penniless in France. She had to sell nearly everything she had in order to struggle back. She travelled in bitter weather without a coat, and died two days later of pneumonia. Carr didn’t know the name of the man she’d gone off with, but he found your photograph in the back of her powder-compact. He saw a reproduction of the same photograph with your name under it in a picture-paper this