“Mine’s Thomson,” replied the clerk. “Without a ‘p.’ ”
He always mentioned that, believing it improved it.
“Well, Mr. Thomson without a p—by the way, you don’t look too blooming yourself!—would you mind facing the kitchen and bringing a little cold water and a towel? Perhaps we might try your method before mine. Only we won’t dash it at her, we’ll just—No, whoa! Wait a moment!”
As she bent down the unconscious form fluttered, and suddenly Jessie opened her eyes.
“Take it easy,” said Lydia, laying her hand gently on Jessie’s shoulder and restraining a movement to rise. “Everything’s all right, and we’ve plenty of time.”
Jessie stared back at her muzzily, closed her eyes again, and opened them again.
“Did I go off?” she murmured.
“Right off,” answered Lydia. “And then we found this house.”
“But how——?”
“My brother carried you. I wouldn’t talk for a bit.”
“No, it was my foot——”
“Your foot?” Lydia stooped and examined it.
Then she turned to Thomson. “Yes, get some water, please, but hot, not cold. No, both. There’s hot water in the kettle, and damn the tea!”
As she spoke, David came down the stairs. He shook his head in response to her quick, inquiring glance.
“Nobody?” she asked.
“Not a soul,” he answered.
She glanced at him again, reading something in his tone. “He’s more worried since he came down than he was when he went up,” she decided. But his expression brightened as he saw Jessie.
“Oh, splendid!” he exclaimed. “How are you feeling?”
Jessie turned her head rather feebly, with a little smile.
“Just a bit funny, but quite all right,” she replied.
“Yes, you told me you were all right last time,” he smiled back. “I hope it’s true this time.”
“No, not this time, either,” interposed Lydia. “She’s twisted her ankle. Hurry up, Mr. Thomson. And, look here, don’t damn the tea, after all, make it!”
With a ridiculous sensation that he was being heroic, Thomson found his way into the kitchen. So far, he had to admit, he had not done much. He had neither suggested this expedition nor led it. When the attractive blonde had fallen into the ditch he had not been the one to lug her out or to carry her to the house. True, he had been the first to strike the house. He had nearly struck it in the literal sense. But inside the house he had merely stood about and opened one door.
Now, however, his imagination became abruptly alive, spurring him to translate it into reality. Often, in his imagination, he came upon a lady aviator who had had a crash, and after lifting her gently from the wreckage, he carried her to a small empty cottage, made her tea, and married her. It was the tea touch here that recalled him to his pedestal. He was not the kind of man who rushed quickly and egotistically into the limelight—like, perhaps, Lydia Carrington’s brother.... Nice chap, the brother, but just a bit too fond of his own voice.... No, Robert Thomson was one of those quiet, modest, dependable fellows, who gradually impressed themselves on a company—on such a girl, say, as Lydia Carrington—through sterling qualities. Your David Carringtons searched upper floors looking for people they knew they would not find, but your Robert Thomsons went into the kitchen and made the needed cup of tea ... and picked up the bread-knife from the floor....
At least—did they?
On the point of picking up the bread-knife, Thomson suddenly paused. A new aspect of himself had come to him daringly, startlingly, assisted by his rising temperature. He was no longer merely the quiet, dependable fellow who could make a cup of tea and keep the boat steady while others rushed about. Behind his unassuming manner lurked the detective brain, working silently and unsuspected!
This bread-knife, for instance. Just a knife on a floor, eh? Perhaps! On the other hand, perhaps not! The house was empty, but somebody had recently been in this kitchen; that was obvious from the boiling kettle; and if the somebody did not come back—and so far nobody had—there would be a reason for it. Maybe a dark, threatening reason, forming not only an immediate personal menace to the people within these walls, but a matter of wider interest to the public prosecutor.
Therefore, decided Thomson, any fingerprints on the bread-knife must not be erased. If you lifted the bread-knife at all, it must be lifted with a handkerchief, and before doing so you must note the exact position of the bread-knife, the direction in which it is pointing, the side which has the sharp edge ... and whether anything is on the sharp edge....
He became conscious of some one in the kitchen doorway behind him. He leapt round.
“Hurry up, old chap,” said David. “We’re still waiting for that water.”
“Eh? Yes! I’m just getting it,” exclaimed Thomson, jerked momentarily off his pedestal. “I—I was having a look at that knife.”
David glanced at him curiously, and then at the knife.
“What about the knife?” he asked.
“Nothing,” answered Thomson.
David crossed to the kettle, found a pan, and poured some water into it.
“I’ll take this in,” he said, “and you can get on with the tea.”
Humiliation revived the clerk.
“They want some cold, too,” he murmured, and rushed to a tap.
While Thomson filled a pail, David found a cloth and a sponge, and added them to his pan. Then he took the pail from Thomson and prepared to return. At the door, however, he paused.
“I wouldn’t touch that knife,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to,” retorted Thomson.
“Why not?” asked David. “Have you found anything?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“I see. Just wise precaution. Well, you’re right. I did find something while I was ferreting about upstairs.”
“What?”
“A locked door. Of course, it mightn’t mean anything, only when I knocked I couldn’t get any reply.”
“People often lock doors when they go away,” replied Thomson.
“Yes, but they don’t leave other people behind the doors,” answered David. He almost laughed at the clerk’s startled expression. “Don’t worry, the noise I heard might have been a mouse. By the way, when you come in with the tea don’t mention our mouse. Let the tea do its work.”
Lydia had removed Jessie’s stocking when David returned with the water.
“Have you two men been playing bridge?” she inquired. “I thought you were never coming!”
“Sorry,” said David. “I say, that foot looks swollen!”
“It is swollen,” came the rejoinder. “What’s the betting we all spend Christmas here.”
“Oh, but I’ll be all right!” exclaimed Jessie. “Anyhow, you wouldn’t have to stay here for me!”
“You don’t really think we’d all troop off and leave you here alone, do you?” asked Lydia. “But I wasn’t only thinking of that. Look out of the