Conspiracies -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction; Secret societies -- Fiction; Suspense fiction
Careful--morbidly careful, perhaps--not to attract attention needlessly
to himself, he stopped the cab at the entrance to Redburn Road, and
approached Number Five on foot. A servant-girl answered the door.
Mountjoy asked if Mrs. Vimpany was at home.
The girl made no immediate reply. She seemed to be puzzled by
Mountjoy's simple question. Her familiar manner, with its vulgar
assumption of equality in the presence of a stranger, revealed the
London-bred maid-servant of modern times. "Did you say _Mrs._ Vimpany?"
she inquired sharply.
"Yes."
"There's no such person here."
It was Mountjoy's turn to be puzzled. "Is this Mr. Vimpany's house?" he
said.
"Yes, to be sure it is."
"And yet Mrs. Vimpany doesn't live here?"
"No Mrs. Vimpany has darkened these doors," the girl declared
positively.
"Are you sure you are not making a mistake?"
"Quite sure. I have been in the doctor's service since he first took
the house."
Determined to solve the mystery, if it could be done, Mountjoy asked if
he could see the doctor. No: Mr. Vimpany had gone out.
"There's a young person comes to us," the servant continued. "I wonder
whether you mean her, when you ask for Mrs. Vimpany? The name _she_
gives is Henley."
"Is Miss Henley here, now?"
"You can't see her--she's engaged."
She was not engaged with Mrs. Vimpany, for no such person was known in
the house. She was not engaged with the doctor, for the doctor had gone
out. Mountjoy looked at the hat-stand in the passage, and discovered a
man's hat and a man's greatcoat. To whom did they belong? Certainly not
to Mr. Vimpany, who had gone out. Repellent as it was, Mr. Henley's
idea that the explanation of his daughter's conduct was to be found in
the renewed influence over her of the Irish lord, now presented itself
to Hugh's mind under a new point of view. He tried in vain to resist
the impression that had been produced on him. A sense of injury, which
he was unable to justify to himself, took possession of him. Come what
might of it, he determined to set at rest the doubts of which he was
ashamed, by communicating with Iris. His card-case proved to be empty
when he opened it; but there were letters in his pocket, addressed to
him at his hotel in London. Removing the envelope from one of these, he
handed it to the servant: "Take that to Miss Henley, and ask when I can
see her."
The girl left him in the passage, and went upstairs to the
drawing-room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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