Free Rose Trelawney by Joan Smith Page B

missing from her home since December 1, having disappeared without a trace while out for a trip to do some shopping. She was the daughter and sole offspring of Sir Rodney Grafton, heiress apparently to an estate worth close to fifty thousand pounds. Her uncle, Mr. Morley, lived with her and was her guardian, as she was an orphan. The next item nearly threw me into an apoplexy. Her late father was well known in the world of art as a collector, famed particularly for his knowledge of Italian works. “It’s me! It’s got to be me!” I shouted, pointing this bit out to Sir Ludwig.
    He grabbed the paper back, and with our heads together we read on. Mr. Grafton had traveled extensively on the Continent amassing his storehouse of paintings. “No doubt about it!” Kessler agreed.
    There was very little doubt in my own mind that I read of myself. My eyes traveled back to the first part, with the mention of fifty thousand pounds. What a happy discovery to make! I was rich! Ludwig jumped up in his excitement and ran for maps to locate Gillingham. “That place is very close to here,” he told me. “Here we have been neighbors all these years and never met.”
    “Do you know the family at all?”
    “Never heard of them. Here we are,” he said, fingering a dot on the map. “Why, it’s within a stone’s throw of Shaftesbury! That is where the driver of the stage said you might have got on.”
    “The date too is just right! December 1. It was December the second when I straggled into Wickey. Imagine! I have been within forty or fifty miles of home all this time and no one has come for me!”
    “The storm held up traffic for days. I knew it was nonsense you were in any trouble. A simple case of loss of memory. You had some accident, and in this state boarded a stage to Shaftesbury, then on towards Wickey.”
    “I wonder why I got off in the middle of the road, though?”
    “Oh—in that state of confusion you didn’t know what you were about. Miss Wickey told me you were completely distracted when you arrived at the rectory door.”
    “I had an awful feeling, though, that I didn’t want to be found. With fifty thousand pounds to lure me back, wouldn’t you think . . .”
    “Fell says it is not at all uncommon to have these unexplained fears in such cases as yours. Sometimes too the victim doesn’t want to remember. We’ll find out exactly how the situation stands in Gillingham with this Morley before we let you go back. If he is trying to hustle you into doing something you dislike . . .”
    I had to smile a little at this. I had no recollection of Mr. Morley, but no feeling either that I was the sort to bolt only because an uncle was trying to bearlead me—into some undesired marriage, I suppose was what he meant. “I am not a child, you know. I doubt my uncle is the reason I left.”
    “A young lady might well be pressured by an older relative. Fell says . . .”
    “When did you discuss me with Fell and Miss Wickey?”
    “What has that to say to anything?” he asked impatiently.
    It indicated to me a greater concern in the affairs of a stranger than seemed likely. “Let’s see what else the article has to say.”
    It was fairly long. We read it to the end in silence, my own silence due to a sinking sensation that it was not me written about at all. I didn’t feel I was Miss Grafton. Surely one’s own name would be instantly recognized. There was a little familiarity with the name, but it was not a strong enough association somehow. Miss Grafton had been educated at a ladies’ seminary in Bath. It mentioned nothing of any travels. The last line pretty well clinched my decision. She was seventeen years old. Looking to my companion, I noticed he was regarding me in a speculative way.
    “I would have taken you for a few years older,” he admitted, for he knew by my face I had decided against Miss Grafton.
    “I would have taken myself for several years older.”
    “Travel is broadening. Your air of