The House without the Door by Elizabeth Daly Read Free Book Online

woman who had a shock from which she's never recovered."
    "I don't wonder," murmured Clara.
    "But she's not the woman whose picture you can see among those clippings; she's not the Mrs. Gregson the jury saw. She has adopted a new physical personality, but in spite of it I could tell why she was acquitted against the evidence and the summing up. I'd better give you an outline of the case.
    "Curtis Gregson's family settled in Bellfield a long time ago, but they didn't preserve their presumably nice old colonial house; they tore it down during the 1870's, and built a new one which they improved into a fine old Victorian monstrosity with gables, bay windows, a cupola, and stained glass over the windows and around the front door. Here's a picture of it. Admire the pin-cushion flower-beds on the lawn, and the gabled carriage house turned into a garage. The house is painted a mustard yellow, so I'm informed, with a chocolate trim.
    "The Curtis Gregsons were quiet, stay-at-home people. Gregson played golf, and he went to all the town meetings, but he and his wife didn't patronize the club dances. He was a lawyer, in the reputable firm of Banks & Styles, and commuted to New York. Played a poorish game of bridge on the train, didn't care for poker. Colourless man, physically and otherwise—sandy-haired, clean-shaven, just under medium height, eyes light grey. Not much of a mixer, but not disliked. At the time of his death he was forty-three.
    "Mrs. Gregson was forty. She was an outlander—from a little up-state town near Utica. You won't believe me, but the name of that town is Omega."
    "Why shouldn't we believe you?" asked Clara.
    "Because it's such an extraordinary mixture of the classical and the early American. It sounds as if somebody must have misunderstood the Indians. However: the ladies of Bellfield are said to be very much of a clan, proud of their town and jealous of their privileges therein. Mrs. Gregson did her share of sitting on charity committees, and hauling flowers and eatables to the bridge drives and bazaars, but she was not haute Bellfield, and never in all the twenty years of her married life did she make intimate friends there. She seemed not to require them. The fact that she had no children may have helped to keep her out of the main current.
    "But when her catastrophe arrived, no man or woman in the place had a word to say against her, or would listen to the theory that she had poisoned her husband. They won't listen to it now.
    "Colby met her just once, about two years before the tragedy, and he won't listen to it. He met her in her own house. It was Gregson's turn to preside at some kind of golf meeting, and those meetings were always held at the club, but the club happened to be undergoing repairs. So he had the meeting at his residence, and Mrs. Gregson was on hand to greet the committee. Colby says he barely noticed her at the time, but that afterwards he remembered what she was like perfectly well. A slightly dowdy, rather nice-looking woman, with lots of wispy brown hair and red cheeks. Nothing to take the eye of Colby, a very worldly man. She had a pleasant way of talking, but nothing to say. Colby describes her as 'countrified'; he probably means provincial, but would consider the word an affectation.
    "She disappeared, and wasn't on hand when the men went into the dining-room for refreshments. Everything was laid out ready, there were no servants, and they helped themselves to whisky, sandwiches, and coffee out of an urn. He saw her once or twice afterwards in the street, but not to speak to; he says that when the news broke he couldn't have been more astounded if they'd arrested him .
    "He knew vaguely that the Gregsons had two young people living with them—relatives, he supposed; but only one of them was a relative. Miss Cecilia Warren, aged twenty-six, was a cousin of Mrs. Gregson's, also from Omega. Benton Locke, aged nineteen, was the son of one of Gregson's oldest friends. Locke's