Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/211

 not suitable wear for use among the spiders and dust of the old Pomeroy home; secondarily, because Val had no dinner jacket with him.

Val regaled himself with a fine old southern dinner, running the gauntlet of waffles with real honey, fried chicken as only a Virginia chef can negotiate it, sweet potatoes, a salad for which the chef was famous, and coffee that was percolated on the table, in front of his eyes, until it was of just the desired amber shade. This he mixed with cream that had seen a cow recently. All in all, it was a meal to remember, not because of its complexity and its frills—it had few of those, and it was as simple a meal as one could wish—but because of the thorough wizardry of the cooking and the punctilious efficiency of the service.

Val pondered a little on the presence of Teck with Jessica when he last saw her, but he dismissed the matter as being, at the moment, inconsequential. There was a score to settle with Teck, and he intended to attend to the settling thereof himself, but there was nothing to worry about to-night. He was with Jessica, to be sure, but Val knew now that Jessica hated him and loathed him, whereas his own, Val’s, star was in the ascendant, as he jubilantly admitted to himself. Jessica was in no danger from the man to-night, Val decided. Surely she would not ask him to stay to dinner; he would leave early, and that evening the field would be open for Val and Jessica to pay that visit to the old Pomeroy house.

He planned all this, laying it out to his satisfaction; he decided on what he would say to Jessica and what she would say to him; he plotted out the exact setting of the stage when he finally found the treasure; her words of gratitude, which he would wave aside lightly,