The shadows of the long English twilight rose from the hills; the smoke
of the evening fires lifted lazily from the chimney pots of a little
town as the train stopped at Stoketon. Andy, stepping out at the
station, stood staring about a moment, looking, listening, as if
expectant. An old castle showed on a hill; in another quarter, a church
from which chimes sounded softly. He looked from one of these to the
other, and then glanced toward a third prominent structure, the nature
of which he could not determine. He seemed expecting some sudden change
in one of them. The moving off of the train recalled him. The girls who
had shared the compartment with him had alighted there, too, and were
instructing the porters where to take their luggage. The men moved off,
leaving Roberta’s black, week-end box on the platform alone.
Andy sat down and watched it; but concern over it had ceased. It was
left on the platform, unclaimed and uncalled for, when the last porter
lit the lamps and placed them on the switches and in the signal
positions. Evidently the stubby train was to return that night; but not
soon. The last porter closed the station and started away.
“Which are the inns to which ladies might go alone?” Andy asked the man.
“Not very timid ladies,” he particularized.
The first three hostelries suggested gave Andy only blanks; but at the
fourth, which he reached when at last the twilight had gone into the
soft autumn night, he studied the register of guests with greater care.
Roberta’s name did not appear; but another name was written by a hand
which, though disguised, could have been hers. He sent up his card to
Miss Constance Everett in room eighteen. She was stopping there, it
appeared, with an English aunt, and she had gone to her room early with
the aunt who had a headache.
Andy looked about as he waited. The place was perfect for the planning
of catastrophe--an ancient inn with dim, paneled walls, ceiling beamed
and smoked by sweet wood fires, a sleepy, unsuspicious guest house,
offering always its old flagon of cherry cordial to greet each visitor,
and holding other traditions unchanged to charm old ladies traveling.
Miss Everett did not respond to the knock on her door; her aunt also
seemed asleep. Did the gentleman, who undoubtedly was a close friend, if
not a connection, wish Miss Everett awakened?
“Please,” Andy requested; but before the servant left the hall, he
recalled caution. “No, do not disturb her; let no one disturb her. Give
me a room, please.”
As he followed his guide, he noted carefully the position of room
eighteen. He went down again, and, denying his need for supper, stepped
out to smoke in the garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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