Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

Cynthia's habit of having discarded clothing on the floor, and littering the dressing-table with powder, haircombings, and dirty face-tissues. According this uninviting table no more than one disgusted glance, Beulah pulled open a drawer in a large chest, and extracted from it a tangle of stockings. It was safe to assume that they all stood in need of repair, so she bundled them under her arm, and mounted yet another flight of stairs to a small room set apart for Miss Spennymoor's visits. This boasted a chair, a table, a sewing-machine, an electric iron, two ironing-boards, and an antiquated gas-stove which made up in fumes and hissing what it lacked in heating-power.
    Miss Spennymoor, who was known to her many patronesses as "a little woman who comes to me', was a small and spare spinster, who eked out a precarious livelihood by trotting cheerfully all over London to sew in other people's houses. She called herself a dressmaker, but this was a slight misnomer, only the most unexacting customers employing her in this role. She was an excellent needle-woman, but, as she herself was the first to acknowledge, an indifferent cutter. But her mending was faultless, and not merely could she alter garments to fit their wearers: she would never have dreamed of telling her clients that the task set her would take at least three weeks to perform. Above all - and this was a virtue much extolled by her patronesses - she charged very little for her services. "For," as she frequently pointed out, "I generally get my dinner, which has to be taken into account, and is a great saving. Of course, sometimes I'm unlucky, some of my ladies not having what I should call a proper meal midday, but one has to take the rough with the smooth, dear, and often there's a cup of tea in the morning, which I must say I do appreciate, not that it is a thing I would ever expect, if you understand me."
    Miss Spennymoor's life might have been thought to have been as drab as it was lonely, but she would have been greatly surprised at such a mistaken judgment. Not only were the lives of her clients a constant source of interest to her, but her own life had not been without its romance. As a much younger woman, she had been a theatrical dresser, and although she had never risen in this profession above the dressing-room inhabited by the ladies of the chorus, this period in her career was one which she looked back upon with pride and pleasure, and her album, with its faded portraits of forgotten beauties, was a solace that never failed her.
    She received the stockings from Beulah with her usual cheerfulness, for she would have thought it quite as shocking as Mrs. Haddington that she should be idle. "Well, it wouldn't be right, would it?" she said. "For she pays me for my time, and it's only to be expected I should be working while I'm here. It was lucky you caught me this morning, Miss Birtley, for I was just about to pop on my things and go to one of my ladies that lives in Hampstead. Oh, dear, what a nasty hole in the toe of this lovely stocking! More like a potato than a hole: it does seem a shame, and quite new, I should say. I never think a darned stocking is the same, do you, dear? I'll lay it by until my regular day next week, for I daresay Miss Cynthia will come in, and I wouldn't like to leave it with the needle stuck in it, as I should have to, because it wouldn't hardly be reasonable to expect Miss Cynthia to wait. Very much surprised she would be if I was to suggest such a thing, which, of course, I shouldn't dream of doing, not for a moment! I'll just be getting on with this little hole in the heel. Is it a big job Mrs. Haddington wants me to do for Miss Cynthia?"
    "I don't think so. Apparently, Andre sent home the frock she means to wear tonight with a crease across the back."
    "Tut-tut, that's very bad!" said Miss Spennymoor, shaking her grey head. "A firm like that, too! Really, one would hardly credit it, but since the War I don't know how it is but