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"You are going out?" she asked. "I am going to see Miss Letty Shaw," he answered. He took a taxicab to the flats, and found a handful of curious people still gazing up at the third floor. The parlourmaid who answered his summons was absolutely certain that Miss Shaw would not see him. He persuaded her, after some difficulty, to take in his letter while he waited in the hall.
The house was all fastened up, there were shutters to the windows on the ground floor; the garden was tried next, but there was no litter anywhere such as might have been caused by a hasty removal. Clearly if the house was closed up it was only for a day or two, as the parlourmaid had told the policeman. At the end of an hour Berrington was not a whit wiser than before.
Ringing the bell of one of the houses in Endsleigh Gardens, Mr. Tertius was presently confronted by a trim parlourmaid, whose smile was ample proof that the caller was well-known to her. "Is the Professor in, Mary?" asked Mr. Tertius. "And if he is, is he engaged?"
The parlourmaid managed to whisper to her without attracting attention. The servants had been frightened by the invasion of that wild girl in a muddy skirt and with wisps of damp hair sticking to her pale cheeks. But they had seen her before. This was not the first occasion, nor yet the last. Directly she could slip away from her guests Mrs Fyne ran upstairs.
They were handsome plants of venerable age, which Mason, the parlourmaid, watered twice a week, sponging their leaves with milk before she replaced them in their pots. It was a typical early Victorian residence, inhabited by a spinster lady of early Victorian type and her four henchwomen Heap the cook, Mary the housemaid, Mason the parlourmaid, and Jane the tweeny.
Helene, in the person of Nina Brun, an Anglicised French parlourmaid a part which she fills to perfection was to obtain wax impressions of the most valuable pieces and to make the exchange when the counterfeits reached her.
"Ah, perhaps that is more important than it seems," Berrington muttered. "Anything to-day?" "Nothing to-day, sir. Oh, yes, there is. The parlourmaid reported to the man who is doing day duty here this week that the house would be closed till Saturday, and that the police were to keep an eye on the place at night. Looks as if they've gone, sir." Berrington swore quietly and under his breath.
Then, after he had shaken hands with Janet and Tom, they all stood together on the hearthrug waiting, so Radmore supposed, for the parlourmaid to come in and announce dinner. But instead of that happening, the door opened and Timmy appeared. "Will you come into the dining-room? Everything's ready now."
Audrey exclaimed impulsively in English. "Do let's!" When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage had come down, Madame Piriac caught Audrey to her and kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid the glinting confusion of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings and bevelled glass. "I am so content that you came, my little one!" murmured Madame Piriac.
When Godfrey had lived in Old Place, there had been a good cook, a capable parlourmaid, and a well-trained housemaid, as well as a bright-faced "tweenie" there, and life had rolled along as if on wheels. It was very different now. She wondered if Betty or Timmy had told the others of Radmore's coming visit.
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