The Thousandth Woman

ly as they returned to the tradesmen's door, and

un. "The more the merrier!" his grim humor had it. "I dare

ition of this shaft. But Cazalet did not loo

mufti; a sullen face looked out of the pantry as they passed; and through the old green door (only now it was a red one) they found another bowler hat bent

t Mr. Drinkwater shut the door as well, and added indescribably to the lighting and atmospheric effects by switching on all t

remembered them. The bookshelves contained different books, and now there were no busts on top. Certai

waste in sentimental comparisons. He tapped a pair of ma

. Blanche could not understand it, but the experienced Mr. Drinkwater smiled his allowances for a yo

igar cupboard?" that dangerous ma

let in disgust. "Did he reall

nd locked up at the time it happened. What

but Cazalet only said, "Oh, well, if you

chap from the pantry, Tom," said he; but the sullen sufferer from police ru

ard?" continued Drinkwater, in the browbeatin

s," said

here's

ange. "He would keep it on his own bunch; find his watch, and all the other things that wer

oor slammed on a petty triumph for the servant

in one mahogany door. "Man's been drinking, I should say. He'd better be careful, because I don't take to him, drunk or sober. I'm not surprised at his master not tru

ut lighted high up at one end by a little barred window of its own) and according to Cazalet a desk it had really been. His poor father ought never to have been a business man; he ought to have been a poet. Cazalet said this now as simply as he had said it to Hilton

of scarlet fever, and my mother brought me back from Hastings after she'd had me there some time, the old governor told us he'd got a place where he could disappear from the district at a moment's notice and yet be back in ano

've been there and seen it, and it's the exact

"Well, I shall never forget

the time, as a terrific secret, and I may tell

nerve to pull up the governor's floor! It only shows w

less conspicuous. Neither appeared to be taking any further interest in the cigar cupboard, or paying the slightest attention to Cazalet's reminiscences

t a hole?" said h

s Macnair how the pl

hat about some h

went out by that door into the hall, leaving one of these mahogany doors open by mistake. It was the chance of my life; in I slipped to have a look. He came back for something, saw the very doo

aid the satellite,

ne to it, had it up, too, and got through into the foundations, leaving everything much as I had found it. The place is so small tha

you covered up a sin with a crime, like half the gentlemen who go through my

. Do you remember the row I got into, Blanche, for ta

the frock!"

removing Cazalet from the scene with the two detectives. Almost without warning, as in the harlequinade of which they might have been the rascal heroes, all three disappeared d

rinkwater to Cazalet. A lot of whispering followed in the little place; it was so small that she never saw the hole until it had engulfed two of the trio; the third explorer, Mr. Drinkwater himself, had very courteously turned her out of

house by way of the servants' quarters, of course without holding any communication with th

had come over one young man in less than the course of a summer's day. He was excited at getting back, he had stumbled into a still more exciting sit

to be on a visit to the doctor or no doubt it would have been in the way all the afternoon. But there was a dog at Uplands, and as yet she had seen nothing

of the one that was really worthy of the more formidable carnivora. There was every sign of his being treated as the dangerous dog that Blanche, indeed, had heard he was; the outer bars were further protected by wire netting, which stretched like a canopy over the whole cage; but Bl

oden sanctuary, almost knocking her down, and barking horribly, but not at Blanche. She followed his infuriated eyes; and the back doorway framed a

t just in time, and the now savage dog was still butting and claw

answered. "I lef

t did yo

I can't hear my voice

verge of the drive. Here they met an elderly man in a tremendous hurry-an unstable dotard who instantly abando

"Do you hear our Roy, miss? I ha'n't heard tha

ith wise humor. But old Savage hailed from silly Suffolk, and all his life he had belied his surname, but never the alliterative libel on his native country. He took the wan

a right long time! And now here's a nice kettle of fish for you to find! But I

asked Blanche, already under Ca

he lowered his voice dramatically. "Sure, Miss Blanche. Why, I

o see anybody properly," said Blanche, a

e voice fell a sepulchral semitone. "But I see him again at the station this very afternoon, I did! I promised not to talk ab

in the face; his rheumy eyes were red as the sunset they faced; and Caz

" he whispered. "But there's hope i

dog," said Blanche, a