Free Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey Page A

you doing hiding here?” she said. “You ought to be in bed, you naughty child.”
    The girl gradually relaxed her stance against the dark window. She stepped forward beyond the curtain and gave Miss Unwin a steady, half-insolent look.
    “I’m meant to be in bed,” she said, “but I came creeping down to watch you.”
    “To watch me?”
    At the thought, Miss Unwin recollected her disguise as the lady’s-maid who had been taken on for this one night.
    She gave herself a mental shake, dropping the upright attitude of the indignant governess and assuming the pose of a servant.
    “But why should you want to come and watch me, sitting here taking the ladies’ cloaks and wraps and maybe doing a bit o’ mending?” she asked.
    The girl gave a loud laugh. “You can’t fool me,” she said cheerfully. “You look awfully like a lady’s-maid, I grant. But I know better.”
    She knows I am a governess, Miss Unwin thought, feeling a wave of shame at being caught, as it were, out of the station she had taken such pains to attain.
    “And that’s why I came creeping down, of course,” her captive went on with a touch of scorn. “I’m never going to get the chance of seeing a real female detective at work again, however long I live. So I wasn’t going to miss this.”
    Miss Unwin had had time to think now, time to adjust herself again.
    “Well,” she said, “you’re a clever one and no mistake.
    You’re the General’s granddaughter, ain’t you? What’s your name?”
    To Miss Unwin’s surprise, General Pastell’s granddaughter blushed.
    “It’s beastly Euphemia,” she said. “How any parent could be so cruel as to land a girl with Euphemia beats me. And then to go off to India half the time.”
    “So are you called Euphemia? Or something else?”
    “Well, it’s Phemy usually. But I’d be plain Jane, if I ever had my way.”
    “Well,” Miss Unwin said with a smile, “I think I had better be content with Phemy if, as I hope, we’re to become better acquainted.”
    “You mean you’ll let a fellow stay? And can I watch you trap the murderer? Do you have a weapon hidden somewhere about you? Is it a life-preserver? And what is a life-preserver? I’ve always wanted to know.”
    “Well, that’s no more than a little club, and I’m sorry to tell you that I carry nothing of the sort.”
    Miss Unwin, the memory of Captain Brackham’s threat returning to her, and the thought of an even more menacing threat that might await if the Captain was not the man she had alerted to the presence of a female detective, so-called, rather wished then that she did have somewhere about her person just such a weapon. But it was an idle regret.
    “No, Phemy,” she said, “you won’t be able to watch me strike anyone down with a life-preserver. But there is, perhaps, something you can do for me. I suspect you’re a girl who keeps her wits about her.”
    “I jolly well hope I do. You have to if you’re stuck with a name like Euphemia.”
    “Good, then. So what I want you to do is to tell me about some of the guests here tonight.”
    “So you can find out which is the wicked murderer?”
    “Yes,” Miss Unwin admitted wryly. “For that reason, more or less.”
    “Right-ho then, Fire away.”
    For a moment Miss Unwin was tempted to resume her role of governess and to point out to General Pastell’s granddaughter that there was a ladylike way of speaking. But she had more urgent matters on her mind.
    “Well, now,” she began, “what about Captain Brackham? Do you know him? Do you know anything about him?”
    “I should jolly well say I do. He’s the most terrible fellow for being fast, even though he’s got no more brains than I have in my boot. He gambles most fearfully, and you should see the way he takes his fences out hunting. I wish I had a horse like his Caspar. Only I’m not allowed to hunt till I’m fourteen.”
    “He’s fast, you say?” Miss Unwin asked, wondering how right it was to ask a child