Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/177

 prim hand-writing was "Care Edwin James, Esq., Hedge House, Aylwin Road, Harrogate," and the detective found the place without difficulty. It was a rather desolate-looking villa, set at some distance from other houses, and it had an air of decayed gentility and "stand-offishness." The high gate was locked, and, having rung, Gaylor was obliged to wait outside in a drizzling rain for some moments. He was just about to pull the old-fashioned bell again when he saw the front door open, and a thin old woman came with mincing steps down the path. The upper half of the gate had a square of lattice, and through this he was able to form some judgment of Miss Maunsell's character (if it were Miss Maunsell who approached) before she opened the gate. She had a high, prominent forehead, tight-drawn, sallow skin, a rat-trap of a mouth, the eyes of an incipient fanatic, and sparse gray hair pulled tightly back in an uncompromising way under a cap like a half-baked bun. Used to face-reading, Gaylor made up his mind in a flash as to the right way of managing the grim old creature.

"Is this Miss Maunsell?" he asked, politely, but not gushingly. To gush at a person of her type would be to court disaster.

"It is," she replied shortly.

"I'm here on the business of Messrs. Kipling & Beecher's advertisement," announced the detective.