(1929) The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

tactfully over the gaucherie of the pearls that Monty would give to any girl who took his fancy. By this time she had placed Joan: knew something of her upbringing, guessed pretty well the extent of her intelligence, and marvelled a little that a man of the unknown Mr. Newton’s position should have allowed his sister to come through the world without the benefit of a reasonably good education.
    “Come up to your room, my dear,” said Joan. “We’ve got a perfectly topping little suite for you, and I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s at the front of the house, and if you can get used to the milkmen yowling about the streets before they’re aired, you’ll have a perfectly topping time.”
    When Mirabelle inspected the apartment she was enchanted. It fulfilled Joan’s vague description. Here was luxury beyond her wildest dreams. She admired the silver bed and the thick blue carpet, the silken panelled walls, the exquisite fittings, and stood in rapture before the entrance of a little bathroom, with its silver and glass, its shaded lights and marble walls.
    “I’ll have a cup of tea sent up to you, my dear. You’ll want to rest after your horrible day at that perfectly terrible factory, and I wonder you can stand Oberzohn, though they tell me he’s quite a nice man…”
    She seemed anxious to go, and Mirabelle was no less desirous of being alone.
    “Come down when you feel like it,” said Joan at parting, and ran down the stairs, reaching the hall in time to meet Mr. Newton, who was handing his hat and gloves to his valet.
    “Well, is she here?”
    “She’s here all right,” said Joan, who was not at all embarrassed by the presence of the footman. “Monty, isn’t she a bit of a fool? She couldn’t say boo to a goose. What is the general scheme?”
    He was brushing his hair delicately in the mirror above the hall-stand.
    “What’s what scheme?” he asked, after the servant had gone, as he strolled into the drawing-room before her.
    “Bringing her here—is she sitting into a game?”
    “Don’t be stupid,” said Monty without heat, as he dropped wearily to a low divan and drew a silken cushion-behind him. “Nor inquisitive,” he added. “You haven’t scared her, have you?”
    “I like that!” she said indignantly.
    She was one of those ladies who speak more volubly and with the most assurance when there is a mirror in view, and she had her eyes fixed upon herself all the time she was talking, patting a strand of hair here and there, twisting her head this way and that to get a better effect, and never once looking at the man until he drew attention to himself.
    “Scared! I’ll bet she’s never been to such a beautiful house in her life! What is she, Monty? A typist or something? I don’t understand her.”
    “She’s a lady,” said Monty offensively. “That’s the type that’ll always seem like a foreign language to you.”
    She lifted one shoulder delicately.
    “I don’t pretend to be a lady, and what I am, you’ve made me,” she said, and the reproach was mechanical. He had heard it before, not only from her, but from others similarly placed. “I don’t think it’s very kind to throw my education up in my face, considering the money I’ve made for you.”
    “And for yourself.” He yawned. “Get me some tea.”
    “You might say ‘please’ now and again,” she said resentfully, and he smiled as he took up the evening paper, paying her no more attention, until she had rung the bell with a vicious jerk and the silver tray came in and was deposited on a table near him.
    “Where are you going to-night?”
    His interest in her movements was unusual, and she was flattered.
    “You know very well, Monty, where I’m going to-night,” she said reproachfully. “You promised to take me, too. I think you’d look wonderful as a Crusader—one of them—those old knights in armour.”
    He nodded, but not to her comment.
    “I remember, of course—the Arts Ball.”
    His