Free Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Crofts Page B

occasion, therefore, on which he had business in London, he adventured himself down into the narrower streets of the City and made some tentative inquiries. The result was disappointing in the extreme. “Mere note of hand alone” seemed to be an elastic term: indeed, he didn’t see what connection it had with the business in hand. At all events, Messrs. Solomon & Goldstein required a great deal more before they would make an advance. He found, in fact, that he would be unable to get one unless he supplied them with proven details about the legacy. This he could not do, having only his aunt’s word on the subject. The affair accordingly deadlocked.
    So much for Solomon & Goldstein: perhaps Abraham & Co. or Velinski Bros. would be more accommodating? George called on both: with the same result.
    He returned to Birmington realising that the matter was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. In fact, he did not see just what else he could do. These moneylenders had been in the nature of a last hope.
    Then, through some caprice of fate, he had a run of luck at cards. He not only paid off the more pressing of his smaller debts, but actually finished up with money in hand.
    For the time being his situation was eased.

Chapter VI
    Venom: In Society
    After his successes at cards, life for the time being grew easier for George Surridge. With ready money available and assured as to his ultimate security, he now drew more freely from his tiny balance, with the result that he and Nancy were able to go on longer excursions and to carry them out more comfortably. For a time indeed, there was little outwardly to mar his happiness.
    Inwardly, however, he remained dissatisfied. Except when actually in Nancy’s presence, the knowledge of the double life he was leading was a persistent, though subconscious, load on his mind. There was also the continuous fear of discovery. Both he and Nancy were extremely careful, but he could not hide from himself that up to the present they had had wonderful luck. No one other than themselves, so far as either knew, had the slightest inkling of what was going on.
    But had George been aware of some other events which were taking place simultaneously, he would have received a very rude awakening.
    Not far from the Zoo lived a tall and angular maiden lady of uncertain age, Harriet Corrin by name. She was clever, entertaining and well-to-do, and was in demand by hostesses who wished to brighten what promised to be dull parties. Her popularity on these occasions came neither from brilliant repartee nor kindliness of heart, but from a malicious wit which gave piquancy to her conversation. People asked her to their houses in the hope that her scandalous remarks would thrill their guests and bring their social efforts into the news, though always with a lurking if rather delicious fear that they themselves should prove the victims. As something of a public character, Miss Corrin knew and was well known to the Surridges.
    It happened one soaking Wednesday in late February that Miss Corrin had business in a small village named Bramford, some forty miles to the east of Birmington. It was a mildly picturesque little place. It boasted a sizeable river, a humped three-arched bridge, an inn which gave teas in a surrounding garden, and a church with a squat Norman tower. In fine weather it was not unattractive, but to-day in the streaming down-pour it looked frankly forbidding. Miss Corrin had come to interview a prospective maid, and she wished she had stayed at home.
    But these aesthetic drawbacks made Bramford just the kind of retreat which appealed to men who were taking out for the afternoon women other than their wives. On this same afternoon George and Nancy had become so tired of sitting in the car that they determined for once to break their rule and have tea, not from the tea-box, but in some inn. So much granted, where more suitable than the Magpie’s Claw in Bramford? Thus it happened that