THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

feet were all sadly in need of the gilding which a genuine American heiress might have supplied for the sake of becoming a Russian princess or a French duchesse.

      So Miss Mordaunt disappeared from the brilliant world where she had glittered like a star; and at about the same time, Miss Joan Carthew (who had nothing to conceal) appeared at her old quarters in Woburn Place. She went back there for two reasons; indeed, Joan had bought her experience of life too dearly to do anything without a reason. The first was because she wished to lie hid for awhile, spending no unnecessary money until the twilight of uncertainty should brighten into the dawn of inspiration and show her the next step on the ladder which she was determined to mount. The second reason was that the landlady--a quite exceptional person for a landlady--had been kind, and Joan desired to reward her.

      If the girl had not gone back to Woburn Place, her whole future might have been different. But--she did go back, and arrived in the midst of a crisis. Since Joan had vanished, some months ago, bad luck had come into the house and finally opened the door for the bailiff.

      Joan found the landlady in tears; but to explain the fulness of the girl's sympathy, the landlady must be described.

      In the first place, she was a lady; and she was young and pretty, though a widow. Her husband had been the Honourable Richard Fitzpatrick, the scapegrace son of a penniless Irish viscount. "Dishonourable Dick," as he was sometimes nicknamed behind his back, had gone to California to make his fortune, had naturally failed, but had succeeded in marrying an exceedingly pretty girl, an orphan, with ten thousand pounds of her own. He had brought her to England, had spent most of her money on the race-course, and would have spent the rest, had it not occurred to him that it would be good sport to do a little fighting in South Africa. He had volunteered, and soon after died of enteric.

      Meanwhile, the Honourable Mrs. Fitzpatrick was at a boarding-house in Woburn Place, where the landlord and landlady were so kind to her that she gladly lent them several hundred pounds, not knowing yet that she had only a few other hundreds left out of her little fortune.

      Suddenly the blow fell. Within three days Marian Fitzpatrick learned that she was a widow, that her dead husband had employed the short interval of their married life in getting rid of almost everything she had; and that, her landlord and landlady being bankrupt, she could not hope for the return of the three-hundred-pound loan she had made them.

      It was finally arranged, as the best thing to be done, that she should take over the lease of the boarding-house and try to get back what she had lost, by "running" the establishment herself.

      Mrs. Fitzpatrick had just shouldered this somewhat incongruous burden, when Joan Carthew had been attracted to the house by the brightness of the gilt lettering over the door, and the pretty, fresh curtains in the windows. Joan was nineteen, and Marian Fitzpatrick twenty-three. The two had been drawn to one another with the first meeting of their eyes. When, after a few weeks' acquaintance, the girl had been told the young widow's story, her interest and sympathy were keenly aroused, for Joan's heart was not hard except to the rich, most of whom she conceived to be less deserving, if more fortunate, than herself. Now, when she came back fresh from her triumphant campaign on the Côte d'Azur, to hear that things had gone from bad to worse, all the latent chivalry in her really generous nature was aroused.

      Joan was tall as a young goddess brought up on the heights of Olympus, instead of at a French boarding-school. Despite the hardships and wretchedness of her childhood, she was strong in body and mind and spirit, with the strength of perfect nerves and a splendid vitality. Marian Fitzpatrick, broken by disappointment, and worn by months of anxiety, was fragile and white as a lily which has been bent by savage storms, and the sight of her small, pale face and big, sad, brown eyes fired the girl with an almost fierce determination to assume the rôle of protector.

      "I've got money," she reflected, in mental defiance of the Fate with whom she had waged war since childish days, "and I can make more when this is gone. I suppose I'm a fool, but I don't care a rap. I'm going to help Marian Fitzpatrick, and perhaps make her fortune, as I mean to make my own. But just for the present, mine can wait, and hers can't."

      Aloud, she asked Marian what sum would tide her over present difficulties. Two hundred and fifty pounds, it appeared, were needed. Joan promptly volunteered to lend, on one condition, but she was cut short before she had time to name it.

      "Condition or no condition, you dear girl, I can't let you do it," sobbed Marian. "I'm perfectly sure I could never pay. I'm in a quicksand and bound to sink. Nobody can pull me out."

      "I can," said Joan; "and in doing it, I'll show you how to pay me. You just listen to what I have to say, and don't interrupt. When I get an inspiration, I tell you, it's worth hearing, and I've got one now. What I want you to do is to give up trying to manage this house. You're too young and pretty and soft-hearted for a landlady, and you haven't the talent for it, though you have plenty in other ways, and one is, to be charming. My inspiration will show you how best to utilise that talent."

      Then Joan talked on, and at first Marian was shocked and horrified; but in the end the force of the girl's extraordinary magnetism and self-confidence subdued her. She ceased to protest. She even laughed, and a stain of rose colour came back to her cheeks. It would be very awful and alarming, and perhaps wicked, to do what Joan Carthew proposed, but it would be tremendously exciting and interesting; and there was enough youthful love of mischief left in her to enjoy an adventure with a kind of fearful joy, especially when all the responsibility was shouldered by another stronger than herself.

      The first thing to do towards the carrying out of the great plan was to get some one to manage the boarding-house in Mrs. Fitzpatrick's place. This was difficult, for competent and honest managers, male or female, were not to be found at registry-offices, like cooks; but Joan was (or thought she was) equal to this emergency as well as others. She sorted out from the dismal rag-bag of her early Brighton experiences the memory of a wonderful woman who had done something to make life tolerable for her when she was the forlorn drudge of Mrs. Boyle's lodging-house at 12, Seafoam Terrace.

      This wonderful woman had been one of two sisters who kept a rival lodging-house in Seafoam Terrace. The Misses Witt owned the place, consequently it was not improbable that they were still to be found there, after these seven years; and as they had not always agreed together, it seemed possible that the younger Miss Witt (the clever and nice one, who had given occasional cakes and bulls'-eyes to Joan in those bad old days) might be prevailed upon to accept an independent position, with a salary, in London.

      Joan had always promised herself that, when she was rich and prosperous, she would sweep into the house of her bondage like a young princess, and bestow favours upon little Minnie Boyle, whom she had loved. But Lady Thorndyke had not wished her adopted daughter even to remember the sordid past; and after the death of her benefactress, the girl had not until lately been in a position to undertake the rôle of fairy princess. Even now, to be sure, she was not rich, but she swam on the tide of success, and she had at least the air of dazzling prosperity. She dressed herself in a way to make Mrs. Boyle grovel, and bought a first-class ticket, one Friday afternoon, for Brighton. She took her seat in an empty carriage, and hardly had she opened a magazine when a man got in. It was George Gallon; and if he had wished to get out again on recognising his travelling companion, there would not have been time for him to do so, as at that moment the train began to move out of the station.

      These two had not seen each other since the eventful morning when Joan had resigned her position as Mr. Gallon's secretary. She was not sure whether she were sorry or glad to see him now, but the situation had its dramatic element. George spoke stiffly, and Joan responded with malicious cordiality. Knowing nothing of her identity with Grierson Mordaunt's brilliant niece, long pent-up curiosity forced the man to ask questions as to where she had been and what she had been doing.

      "I have an interest in a London boarding-house, and am going to Brighton to try and engage a manageress," Joan deigned to reply, with a twinkle under her long eyelashes. "I forgot that you would of course have kept on the old place at Brighton. I suppose you are going down for the week-end?"

      George admitted grimly that this was the case, and as Joan would give only tantalising glimpses of her doings in the last few months,