Who Pays the Piper? by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

now. She said in a clear, reserved voice,
    â€œI suppose he wanted me to know.”
    â€œShe wrote to him,” said Cathy. “She said so. She wrote and said she was coming. He must have had the letter that morning before he asked you to come up and talk about the pool. If he told you then——Susan, why did he tell you then? I don’t like it—it frightens me.”
    It didn’t frighten Susan, it displeased her. She said,
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, Cathy. If he knew she was coming he might have thought he would rather tell us himself that he had been married.”
    â€œHe didn’t tell us , he told you. Why did he do that?”
    Susan made no answer.
    All at once Cathy leaned forward and caught her wrist.
    â€œHe’s in love with you—that’s why he told you. It frightens me.”
    â€œI think you’re being silly,” said Susan. Her voice changed suddenly. “Cathy! You mustn’t say things like that!”
    â€œIt’s true.”
    Susan stood up.
    â€œThat’s all the more reason for not talking about it,” she said.

CHAPTER VIII
    That was Friday night, the night between Friday and the Saturday morning which Susan was never to forget—a soft, cloudy night, with Cathy’s dream of being in a cage set in it like a frightening picture.
    The morning came up in a mist. Cathy came down to breakfast rather paler than usual and with dark smudges under her eyes, but she said no more about her dream or about being frightened, and went off up to King’s Bourne at her usual time.
    Susan took up Mrs. O’Hara’s tray, washed up the breakfast things, made her own bed and Cathy’s, and ran down to the gate to meet the postman. He was a very nice old man called Jeremiah Hill, and he was almost as pleased as Susan when he could bring out her letter with a flourish and say, “Morning, Miss Susan—here ’tis.”
    There was a letter this morning, but not a fat one. She took it into the kitchen and read it with sparkling eyes. There was the loveliest colour in her cheeks. There wasn’t much in the letter, but there was enough good news for twenty letters. And it was short, because Bill had had only five minutes to catch the post.
    â€œGarnish has just rung up, and I’m to come and see him in his London office first thing on Monday morning. He said he’d made up his mind to let me have a go at it. Said he thought a man did his best work when he’d got his way to make, and was bound to go all out if he wants to get anywhere at all. Said that’s how it had been with him, and he expected it to be that way with me. Oh, Susan ——”
    She had got as far as that, when the telephone bell rang. The fixture was in the dining-room. She had only to push the communicating door and she could lift the receiver without really leaving the kitchen at all, which was very convenient, because you can’t always take your eye off the stove. Just now there was nothing to watch. She picked up the receiver, put it to her ear, and heard Lucas Dale say,
    â€œSusan, is that you?” His voice hurried on the words.
    She said, “Yes—what is it?”
    â€œSomething’s happened. Can you come up here at once?”
    â€œWhat is it? Cathy——”
    â€œShe’s not well. Will you come?”
    â€œWhat is it? Please tell me, Mr. Dale.”
    â€œShe is—upset. I can’t tell you on the telephone. Will you come at once?”
    She said “Yes”, and hung up the receiver. She felt cold and sick. Cathy.… No, it was stupid to feel like this. Cathy had had a bad night. Perhaps she had turned faint. Men always got frightened. It was nothing.
    She ran upstairs and told Mrs. O’Hara that she was going out. The breakfast tray was done with, and she took it away. After which she had to fetch a book from the drawing-room—“and oh dear, my knitting!”—before