Red Shadow by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

about?”
    â€œHim,” said Amelia. “Him that put the trouble on Miss Laura and stole her away, with his registries, and his banks, instead of a lawful address like any honest gentleman would have.”
    â€œBasil Stevens—” said Jim Mackenzie slowly.
    â€œI never seen him before. Mr Basil Stevens was the name on the card, and when I took it to Miss Laura, she looks at it and she says, ‘But I hardly know him—’ just like that she says it. And in two days they was married—and in a registry office, which I wouldn’t have believed if the Archbishop of Canterbury had taken his Bible oath on it—no, I wouldn’t. And whath’ever Miss Wimborough’s a-going to say when she hears, I don’t know, but ’eaven help me when she does, for she’ll be neither to hold nor to bind.”
    Jim Mackenzie kept his grey face turned towards her.
    â€œShe’s— married —” he said again.
    â€œI wouldn’t go and see it,” said Amelia—“not if she’d begged and prayed me, I wouldn’t. And she only says, just like she might have said she was a-going to the post, ‘I’m a-going to marry Mr Stevens,’ she says. And ’eaven knows why I didn’t drop.”
    â€œYou didn’t— see her married?”
    â€œI couldn’t have brung myself to it. But it’s no good you a-building on that, for when I’d had my cry out and put her room to rights, I went round to the registry and ast the clerk, I couldn’t have faced Miss Wimborough if I hadn’t a-made sure—and ’eaven knows how I’m a-going to face her now. But married they was and gone away in a private car, so the clerk could tell me.”
    â€œWhy?” said Jim Mackenzie. “Oh, God! Why?”
    He was not speaking to Amelia, but she had an answer for him.
    â€œI don’t know no more than the babe in h’arms, except that it was something to do with money, sir.”
    â€œMoney?” he said. “ Money? ”
    Amelia sniffed, the sniff of a superior being in grief.
    â€œIt’s a ’orrible thing for money to come between two loving ’earts—but something to do with money it was, for I ’eard what he said with my own lawful ears.” She sniffed again, deprecatingly this time. “I’d scorn to listen at a door, but I was a-folding up Miss Jenny’s dress—’er bridesmaid’s dress what she’d been a-trying on, and skipped out of the other door when Mr Stevens come in. Well, there I was, in the bedroom, a-shaking of it out and a-folding of it up, and I ’eard him say a gentleman’s name, as plain as plain I ’eard it—Mr Bertram Hallingdon—and there’s been enough about him in the papers since to make me sure that I didn’t make no mistake.”
    Jim Mackenzie stared at her.
    â€œBertram Hallingdon?”
    â€œHim that’s died and left a mint of money. Well, I ’eard that Stevens say, ‘Mr Bertram Hallingdon’, and I ’eard him say, ‘He’s dead.’ And I ’eard him say, ‘You’re his heiress.’ And I didn’t ’ear no more, because it wasn’t my business—and I shouldn’t have stayed all these years with Miss Wimborough if I didn’t know how to mind my own business and let other folk mind theirs.” She went on talking. There were words and there were sniffs, and sometimes there was a sob.
    But Jim Mackenzie was not listening. He scarcely knew there was anything to listen to. He sat sunk down in his chair with an elbow on the arm of it and the hand across his eyes. Amelia’s plaintive voice went by him, and her many words. He had gone into the secret place which belonged to Laura. It was a place in which he had always found her waiting for him. It was lighted by her eyes and sweetened by her smile. It was romance, and home, and his very heart. When he