Murders in, Volume 2 by Elizabeth Daly Read Free Book Online Page A

suddenly gave him the “psychic” look that Gamadge had missed before.
    â€œYou really ought to write up your story of the lost Byron. I’m sure I could get it printed for you in End Pieces ,” he said.
    Mr. Vauregard looked wistful. “I wish I dared.”
    John the butler brought in a big silver tray and coffee service. When he had placed it beside Miss Vauregard’s sofa, her uncle said: “I hope Miss Smith will come down, John?”
    â€œYes, Sir. I asked her, and she is coming.”
    Miss Vauregard indicated a chair beside the table for Gamadge, who brought the Byrons with him, and laid them on a stand at his elbow.
    â€œThe young lady who is staying with me has had a sad time of it. I should warn you,” said the old gentleman. “She has been obliged for some years to support herself as a governess—in Poland, of all tragic places. She is an English girl, with all the courage of her race; but she is now what I think you call a refugee.”
    Gamadge murmured something, sympathetically.
    â€œShe finds herself alone in a new world,” continued Mr. Vauregard, who seemed to be enjoying his own fabrications very much, “and she is dazed and still shaken by her experiences. Her escape has been in the nature of a miracle. She is shy of strangers, and she cannot yet face crowds. I hope to persuade her—gradually, of course—”
    He broke off, rose, went to the door, and came back with a young woman whose hand was on his arm. She was tall, slender, and pale, with a wide, high forehead, a pointed face, and large blue eyes. She wore no vestige of make-up. Her fair hair was dressed in curls on the top of her head, a coiffure which made her long neck seem longer. The short, gentian-blue and white dress which Miss Vauregard had chosen for her became her very well, but Gamadge thought that the cornflower silk in which she had arrived from nowhere would have made her seem even more wraithlike, and far more delicately bred.
    â€œHere is our kind Robina, my dear,” said Mr. Vauregard, with touching gentleness. “And this is Mr. Gamadge. Mr. Gamadge, my ward, Miss Smith.”

CHAPTER FIVE
Miss Smith
    M ISS SMITH BOWED FORMALLY to Gamadge, and sat down beside Miss Vauregard on the davenport. That lady had described her as very pretty; the description did not do her justice. She was almost beautiful, and she had a beautiful voice.
    â€œI have everything I need, thanks to you, Miss Vauregard,” she was saying.
    â€œBut you will want dinner gowns, Lydia.” Mr. Vauregard accepted a cup of coffee from his niece. “Simple dinner gowns. We shall be going away—we must get out of the city. You will want to dress; my niece will find you something.”
    Miss Smith said gravely that she had not worn a dinner gown for years. “I am accustomed to nursery tea, you know. I never dined when I was in a situation.”
    Gamadge, feeling as if he were struggling through a Jane Austen tea party, and listening avidly to every intonation of Miss Smith’s voice, told himself that so far as he was concerned, she might well be English. His ear could not catch the fault, if there were any, in her accent.
    â€œWell, my dear child, all that is over now,” protested Mr. Vauregard.
    â€œBut when I am stronger, of course I must earn my living again,” said Miss Smith, looking down at her coffee cup. “That is settled.”
    â€œTime enough to talk of that when you are stronger.” Mr. Vauregard, glancing at the three Byrons at Gamadge’s elbow, went on: “I was telling Mr. Gamadge that little story about my grandmother and Mrs. Dykinck.”
    Miss Smith said that it was amusing.
    â€œWe are not a reading family; but now that I have time,” said Mr. Vauregard, “and a trained taste to choose for me, and a voice like yours to listen to, my dear, I shall be asking to hear some Byron myself.”
    Gamadge put down his cup,