Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/66



house to which he had been directed was in a side street, one of a whole row of flat houses, all with brownstone stoops, all four stories in height—walk-up flats—most of them fallen upon parlous times from their previous fairly high estate—if a flat house can he presumed to have had a high estate in some mysterious past.

With his motor chugging at the door and his heart chugging within him Val rang the bell labeled “Pomeroy” and was rewarded almost immediately by a ticking at the lock of the door that suggested to him that he could enter if he pushed the door while the ticking was in progress.

He pushed the door and ascended the steps that presented themselves to him at the right of the hallway. Two flights above him he noticed a lightening of the encircling gloom of the hall. This he took, and rightly, to be due to the fact that somebody had opened the door to see who was coming. He gained the door and confronted a neat old woman who looked at him inquiringly.

“I’m looking for Miss Jessica Pomeroy’s apartment,” he said.

“This is her apartment,” said the old woman. “Who wants to see Miss Pomeroy?” Rh