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

father and mother were dead, and Gregson had taken him in some years before. I may say here that Miss Warren was Mrs. Gregson's only living relative; the daughter of Mrs. Gregson's father's sister. Mrs. Gregson's maiden name was Voories, and her family had christened her Vina. What do you think of that?"
    Clara said, surprised, that she didn't know what she was expected to think of it.
    "You like alliterative names? You like the name of Vina?"
    "Well, Mr. Colby's right—it's a little countrified, perhaps."
    "Don't go through life understating things out of politeness, Clara; don't, I beg of you. It's a hell of a name."
    "What does it matter what her name was, or is?"
    "It matters a lot; it gives you a slant on her background. And she never altered it, mind you; I bet that helped with the jury! You know, Mrs. Gregson's faculties have been sharpened by what she's been through, but she's really quite a dull woman."
    "That makes it all more horrible."
    "Yes, it does. Well: the aunt who married this Warren died long ago—twenty-odd years ago. Warren died in 1931, seven years before the Gregson trial.
    "There was a third dependent in the Gregson household, a widow named Stoner, Minnie Stoner, a friend of Gregson's mother's. She was a kind of lady-help, and now she lives with Mrs. Gregson. In 1938, when the tragedy happened, there was only one other person in the house, the cook, Martha Beach. I know nothing about her, except that she wasn't a young woman.
    "There's a certain peculiarity about the status of the two young people in the Gregson circle. Cecilia Warren arrived there when she was sixteen, in 1930; but nothing was done for her socially—Bellfield knew her not. She was put straight into a business college, where she learned stenography and typewriting, and as soon as she was qualified she got a job. She had several jobs, and ended in an architect's office as a kind of secretary to one of the firm, a young man named Paul Belden. He comes from Amsterdam, New York, and he and Miss Warren have known each other for years—since childhood. They're now engaged to be married."
    Clara said: "If Cecilia Warren had to earn her living, I don't think there's anything so queer about all that. You say Mrs. Gregson didn't go out much herself."
    "The peculiarity comes later—you'll see. Her existence, however, seems to have been none too merry. Young Locke arrived at the Gregson home when he was fifteen, went to high school, did very badly there, and was put to one and another job—in vain. He insisted on dancing. Dancing is the only thing that he has ever taken seriously, so far as I know, and dance he would. Gregson seems at last to have let him go his way. Locke's father was a brilliant man; by profession an accountant, but by nature a musician. He didn't work at much except music, and died penniless. The boy was brought up to sleep on the floor and live on bananas—so Colby seems to think; but he was devoted to his father.
    "Well, we now come to the celebrated night of June 5th, 1938. It was a very warm evening, unusually warm and sultry, which fact has everything—practically everything, as you will see—to do with the case. Gregson came home on his accustomed train, which arrives at Bellfield about six-thirty; Colby remembers seeing him on it. It's the express that most of the Bellfield men commute by. Cecilia Warren and Locke arrived on their local at about seven. I should mention that the Gregsons had no chauffeur, and that Mrs. Gregson taxied Gregson to and from his trains; Miss Warren and Locke walked in all weathers. The house is between a half and a quarter of a mile from the station, and is approached by a fine road that runs between elms and maples—uphill."
    "Quite a walk, on a bad winter's night," observed Harold.
    "Or even on a rainy summer morning. On that hot June evening dinner was eaten at seven-thirty; Miss Warren and Locke wouldn't have been in time for it if it had been