Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/178

 If Miss Maunsell felt surprise, she did not show it. "You can come in," she said. Then, being evidently economical of speech, she led the way into the house. It was old-fashioned, but uninteresting. "Gloomy as a sarcophagus," was Gaylor's mental comment as he followed the stiff figure down a narrow corridor to the back of the house. She opened the door of a moderate-sized room like a servants hall. "My sitting-room," she remarked. "We will not be disturbed, for I am the only servant. Mr. James is a paralytic. Take a seat."

Gaylor obeyed, subsiding upon a hard, high chair by a clumsy dining table. Miss Maunsell sat opposite him, on a chair of the same depressing description.

"What have you got to tell me to my advantage?" she inquired, wasting no time in getting to the point. She had the whining twang suggestive of the cockney, which is characteristic of the lower middle classes in some parts of Yorkshire; and Gaylor made up his mind that the woman had returned to her native county. She had all the hardness of the North at its worst.

"I have to tell you that if you will answer a few questions I've been sent to ask, possibly it may save you from being called as a witness in the second adjourned inquest of the Hereward case, which will come on in a fortnight's time."

"I can't leave my place here to be a witness in any case," rasped Miss Maunsell, "and I wouldn't be of