The Tall House Mystery (Musaicum Murder Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

the panels. "It's me, Mrs. Pratt, Alfreda Longstaff. Something has happened. Your daughter needs you." There came a muffled sort of squeak from within, but the door was not opened for quite a long minute.

      Then Mrs. Pratt stepped out. "What's that about Winnie? Where is she? What on earth has happened?" Her face looked oddly blotched as though some strapping or top dressing had been roughly pulled off.

      "Mr. Gilmour has killed Mr. Ingram, and your daughter is telling him how sorry she is for him." The tone was dry.

      There was nothing muffled about Mrs. Pratt's squeak this time. "Winnie, where are you? Wait for me! Wait!" And as though a performance were about to begin which she would not miss for worlds, she scurried in the direction of Alfreda's pointing hand. In front of Ingram's bedroom she stopped in horror. For once she had nothing to say for a full minute. Then she turned to Winnie.

      "Come, dearest, we're only in the way here. We must get Yates up, and see to our packing. The kindest thing we can do for everyone is to get away as soon as possible. Come, Winnie!"

      "I won't leave now—like this." Winnie spoke indignantly.

      Mrs. Pratt turned to Moy. Her eyes asked her questions.

      "Ingram played the part of a ghost and Gilmour fired at him a blank cartridge, as he thought—which must have been loaded. He's dead," he murmured, his eyes on the white mound to whom the "he" referred.

      Mrs. Pratt turned to Gilmour with what looked like genuine emotion.

      "Oh, you poor boy! You poor, poor boy! And, and—how awful!" She did not try to put the rest of her feelings into words.

      Winnie let her mother lead her away. They found Alfreda pacing their little sitting-room.

      "I suppose you're leaving, too?" she asked, as Winnie hurried on to her own room with her lips pressed together.

      Mrs. Pratt closed the door. "I'm so sorry for you, my dear girl," she began gently, "and so shocked—so indescribably shocked for that poor boy!"

      "We're not going to be engaged, if you refer to Lawrence Gilmour," Alfreda said composedly.

      "What?" Mrs. Pratt fairly jumped. "But surely! But this is dreadfully sudden!" she finished lamely.

      "His shooting of Mr. Ingram was dreadfully sudden," was the reply.

      "But surely, for a time, you'll let things stand over!" Mrs. Pratt was almost pleading. "It will look so dreadfully heartless, to drop him the very instant it happened."

      "I have no intention, now or ever, of getting engaged to Mr. Gilmour. I think you ought to know."

      The door opened. Winnie came in. She could not stay in any one place for long.

      "You're acting horribly!" she began.

      "I'm not acting at all." There was meaning in the look the elder girl gave the younger. Winnie seemed to pay no attention to it.

      "He needs you!" she protested instead.

      Mrs. Pratt nodded her head emphatically. Alfreda shot the mother a glance openly mocking. But she said nothing.

      "I'd go through anything with the man I loved!" came passionately from Winnie.

      "Supposing he loved you," the other girl finished dryly. "Perhaps it's just as well for you that Mr. Gilmour doesn't seem to fill that condition."

      Winnie's cheeks flamed.

      "A girl would have to have a perfect passion for notoriety to marry him after this," Alfreda went on.

      The door slammed behind Winnie. Mrs. Pratt looked half-gratefully, half-indignantly, at her visitor, who gave her one of her odd stares and went out to run lightly down into Ingram's study. She closed the door noiselessly behind her. For a second she stood sniffing the air. It smelled of...yes, of that odd tobacco Mr. Tark liked...but she had not come here to smell tobacco. She slipped over to the bureau, found its top unlocked, stood obviously listening for any sound from outside and, hearing none, opened it and with swift, deft fingers looked through it. Every scrap of paper was glanced at. It was fairly empty. She turned over the drawers. Only blank paper was in them with the exception of the bottom drawer, which was locked. She was pulling at it when she heard steps coming down the back stairs close to the library door. Instantly she slipped out of the door by which she had entered, into the lounge and on up the stairs, along a passage, and up another flight of stairs. Here she let herself into an empty bedroom, and, closing its door to with the utmost caution, sat down at a little bookcase table on which stood a telephone extension. Very quietly she gave a number. It was that of the proprietor of the Morning Wire.

      "Hello!" came a man's voice in answer to her ring. It was not the voice that she had heard on the golf links. "What is it?"

      "I want to speak to Mr. Warner."

      "Who are you? What do you want to speak to him about? I'm one of Mr. Warner's secretaries." The voice was not encouraging.

      "Will you tell Mr. Warner that the Miss Longstaff who played a game of golf with him on the links at Bispham is staying in a house at Chelsea with a Mr. Ingram who has just been killed by his friend. The friend claims that it was an accident."

      "Ingram...what is his first name, do you know?"

      "Charles."

      She heard a sound. The secretary had sprung out of bed. A couple of minutes more and Miss Longstaff heard Warner's voice saying sharply:

      "What's this about Ingram's death? And who is speaking?"

      Miss Longstaff reminded him of the game they had played together. "Now, Mr. Warner, I've really got hold of some interesting news. No other paper has it—yet. You told me that a scoop would get me a position—"

      "What is this about Ingram's death? Where did he die? How was he killed?" Warner's tone was that of a man who would hang up unless answered immediately.

      "He's been shot by the friend who shares his flat at Harrow, a man named Lawrence Gilmour. He claims it was an accident. He says he fired what he thought was a blank shot at someone pretending to be a ghost, and found that it was Mr. Ingram whom he had killed. The shot was not blank. That's Mr. Gilmour's story."

      She heard another voice speaking, the voice of the man to whom her first telephone message had gone. "Yes, Gilmour. Of the Civil Service...That much is all right, sir. But as for the rest—"

      "One moment," Warner's voice came again. "Now give me all the facts again, please. But only the ones you are sure of. First of all, where are you? And when exactly did this happen?"

      Swiftly, she had that journalistic quality, and briefly, another great gift, and, all things considered, very objectively, she told of what had just happened.

      "Now, Mr. Warner," she wound up, "suppose this could be shown to be not an accident...wouldn't it be the scoop which you said would give me a post on your paper?"

      Warner had not said quite that. "She's probably just trying it on," was his murmured comment to Ryland, his secretary, "I mean, about its not being an accident...but if there's anything in it...she struck me as being a very resourceful young woman...and unscrupulous as they're made." Warner added this last thought as though it were an added point in her favor.

      "Well?" she asked sharply, "have I the promise of a post on the paper if I can prove what I claim? That Mr. Gilmour's story can't be true?"

      "If you can prove that, Miss Longstaff, we'll give you a trial."

      "I want the offer in writing," came her answer.

      Warner, with a faint smile, told Ryland to write a note which would do until the usual contract could be sent. The draft was read her and she graciously deigned to approve.

      "It's not often a paper has such a chance offered it," she said.

      "Nor an outsider either, Miss Longstaff," Warner barked back.

      "Oh, of course. These things have always to be mutual," she murmured as cynically as an old company