FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   >>  
but just kept right on upstairs. When I turned into the second floor, I heard Ellen say, 'Mrs. Markham will receive you.' I didn't pay no attention to that at the time. It was only one of twenty little things I remembered. Stayed in the back of my head, waitin' to tie up with something else. "Come Tuesday--week ago to-day and my afternoon off. I was comin' home early, about nine o'clock. I've got front door privileges, but I generally use the servants' entrance just the same. Right ahead of me, a green automobile with one of those limousine bodies drove up to the front door. It's dark down in the area by the servants' entrance. I stopped like I was huntin' through my skirt for my key, and looked. Out of the automobile come a man. He turned around to speak to the chauffeur and I got the light on his face. _Who_ do you suppose it was? Robert H. Norcross!" "The railroad king?" Rosalie pursed her lips and nodded wisely. "How did you know? You've never seen him before." "Ain't it my business to know the faces of everybody? What do I read the personals in the magazines for? You'd know Theodore Roosevelt if you saw him first time, wouldn't you? But I made surer than that. Next day I matched the number of his automobile with the automobile register. That number belongs to Robert H. Norcross." Dr. Blake whistled. "Playing for big game!" he said. "That was what struck me," said Rosalie, "and while it wasn't impossible that this Mr. Norcross might have a straight interest in the spirit world--well, when you see big medium and big money together, it looks like big _fake_. And there was the man with the notes who read the financial pages--he jumped back into my mind. "The servants' entrance comes out through the kitchen onto the second floor. When I come into the hall, Ellen was waiting for me. She was tiptoeing and whispering. "'Mrs. Markham,' she says, 'wanted that I should tell you she has sitters unexpected. There's some of her devil doin's going on downstairs to-night. She wanted me to catch you when you came in and ask you to go very quiet to your room.' "While I went upstairs, I listened hard. Just before I came out on the landing of the servants' hall, I heard a bell ring, away down below. Just a little ring--b-r-r. Now, you know if there's one thing more 'n another that I've got, it's ears--and ears that remember, too. I hadn't been a day in that house when I knew every bell in it and who was ringi
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   >>  



Top keywords:

servants

 

automobile

 

entrance

 
Norcross
 
upstairs
 

turned

 
Robert
 

wanted

 

Rosalie

 

number


Markham
 

whistled

 

Playing

 

financial

 

straight

 
spirit
 

medium

 

interest

 

impossible

 
struck

listened

 
landing
 

remember

 

whispering

 

tiptoeing

 

waiting

 

kitchen

 
downstairs
 

sitters

 

unexpected


jumped

 

afternoon

 

privileges

 

generally

 

limousine

 

bodies

 

Tuesday

 

attention

 

receive

 

twenty


waitin

 

things

 

remembered

 

Stayed

 

personals

 

magazines

 
Theodore
 

business

 

Roosevelt

 

matched