The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(169)

                Loveday entered a large, luxuriously furnished room, and naturally made her way straight to the chief point of attraction in it—the iron safe fitted into the wall that separated the dressing-room from the bedroom.

                It was a safe of the ordinary description, fitted with a strong iron door and Chubb lock. And across this door was written with chalk in characters that seemed defiant in their size and boldness, the words: “To be let, unfurnished.”

                Loveday spent about five minutes in front of this safe, all her attention concentrated upon the big, bold writing.

                She took from her pocket-book a narrow strip of tracing-paper and compared the writing on it, letter by letter, with that on the safe door. This done she turned to Mrs. Williams and professed herself ready to follow her to the room below.



                             Mrs. Williams looked surprised. Her opinion of Miss Brooke’s professional capabilities suffered considerable diminution.

                “The gentlemen detectives,” she said, “spent over an hour in this room; they paced the floor, they measured the candles, they—”

                “Mrs. Williams,” interrupted Loveday, “I am quite ready to look at the room below.” Her manner had changed from gossiping friendliness to that of the business woman hard at work at her profession.

                Without another word, Mrs. Williams led the way to the little room which had proved itself to be the “weak point” of the house.

                They entered it by the door which opened into a passage leading to the back-stairs of the house. Loveday found the room exactly what it had been described to her by Mr. Dyer. It needed no second glance at the window to see the ease with which anyone could open it from the outside, and swing themselves into the room, when once the brass catch had been unfastened.

                Loveday wasted no time here. In fact, much to Mrs. Williams’s surprise and disappointment, she merely walked across the room, in at one door and out at the opposite one, which opened into the large inner hall of the house.

                Here, however, she paused to ask a question:

                “Is that chair always placed exactly in that position?” she said, pointing to an oak chair that stood immediately outside the room they had just quitted.

                The housekeeper answered in the affirmative. It was a warm corner. “My lady” was particular that everyone who came to the house on messages should have a comfortable place to wait in.

                “I shall be glad if you will show me to my room now,” said Loveday, a little abruptly; “and will you kindly send up to me a county trade directory, if, that is, you have such a thing in the house?”

                Mrs. Williams, with an air of offended dignity, led the way to the bedroom quarters once more. The worthy housekeeper felt as if her own dignity had, in some sort, been injured by the want of interest Miss Brooke had evinced in the rooms which, at the present moment, she considered the “show” rooms of the house.



                             “Shall I send someone to help you unpack?” she asked, a little stiffly, at the door of Loveday’s room.

                “No, thank you; there will not be much unpacking to do. I must leave here by the first up-train to-morrow morning.”

                “To-morrow morning! Why, I have told everyone you will be here at least a fortnight!”

                “Ah, then you must explain that I have been suddenly summoned home by telegram. I’m sure I can trust you to make excuses for me. Do not, however, make them before supper-time. I shall like to sit down to that meal with you. I suppose I shall see Stephanie then?”