Miss Loveapple returned to England on the fourteenth of September.
As she sat in the train on her way from Paris to Calais, her gloom contrasted sharply with the radiant mood in which she had started her holiday. Her confident bearing had gone, and—like a gallant, gilded frigate, battered by a gale—she bore the marks of her recent ordeal in her deteriorated appearance.
The day was close, but she wore her camel-hair coat to conceal the dilapidation of the black satin suit. It could not hide the ladders in her stockings, but she had sunk to a level where she ceased to worry over personal trifles. Her pale face and heavy eyes betrayed a thumping head, while a strip of plaster covered a superficial cut on her forehead.
Far worse than her physical plight was her bewilderment of spirit. She had suffered disappointment—an unnerving episode—financial loss. But what hurt most was the knowledge that, for the first time in her life, her luck had utterly deserted her.
She could not understand its failure. As she looked at the dun fields and advertisement boards flashing past the window, she tried to localise the source of her bad fortune.
'It began in London,' she decided, 'when I left my attaché-case behind me and had to borrow Lady Pontypool's jewel-case.'
But the solution did not satisfy her, since it failed to account for a holiday which was substandard in every particular. A bad start had been followed by a nightmare train journey and the complication of personal entanglements.
She told herself that since she had been so careless as to expose the coronet on the jewel-case, the crooks were bound to try and snatch it. It was an unpleasant episode, but—granted that it was inevitable—it would have been far better if it happened that day up at the Kleine Scheidegg. She would have been spared the sordid horror of the Paris adventure and it would not have involved a change of her plans.
Cook would have arranged for her return from Grindelwald, so that she could have arrived in London, on the evening of the thirteenth of September, in time to keep her appointment with Major Brand. By now, however, Mr Lemon would have concluded the sale of her furniture and she had wasted a golden opportunity to prove the triumph of the personal element.
'I did my best,' she thought. 'I left nothing to chance. I even risked losing my train, to buy white heather.'
Her eyes narrowed as she traced back the convolutions of her fortune. The mischief was due to the fact that, during her last days in Switzerland, she had been protected unconsciously by a bodyguard of women. By postponing the attack to her Paris visit, these good people had upset her time-table at the final minute, and thus ruined her carefully-planned schedule.
If she had met them for the first time in Grindelwald, at the hotel, they would have remained strangers. That night in the Calais-Interlaken express had been the beginning of a general intimacy for which Viva had been responsible. Had Viva been absent—and unable to display her unselfish disposition—the Furses would have passed her carriage, when they made their tour of the train, in search of a corner seat.
Viva's presence there was accounted for by the fact that she had attached herself to Miss Loveapple, whom, she professed to regard as a lucky mascot. Yet, in the ordinary course of events, they should not have met, since Miss Loveapple's seat was booked in the Pullman coach, while Viva was in the end carriage. Their encounter was the result of her own last-minute rush to catch the train.
Miss Loveapple unwound the last loops of the coil. 'Can you beat that?' she asked herself. 'My bad luck started with the white heather.'
To her surprise, she began to laugh. Then she noticed that the train was getting near the coast. The bushes straining in the wind and the sway of the telegraph wires indicated a rough crossing. As she watched the gulls swooping overhead and the drift of blown sand, her thoughts flew ahead to No. 19 Madeira Crescent, N.W.
It was strange to think that it was hers no longer. She did not regret it but she was perplexed by minor worries. While she resolved to write to Mrs Brand—requesting the return of her attaché-case—she wondered whether she could ask for David's and Scottie's toys to be included in the parcel. They were chiefly rubber articles—the worse for teeth—and were left in the pets' playrooms at the top of the London house.
'Perhaps not,' she decided reluctantly, as she thought of Buckingham's criticism. 'They might fancy I was peculiar.'
While she frowned over her problem, the sinister element had already been routed from the atmosphere of No. 19 Madeira Crescent by the invasion of youth. The Brand family had taken possession of their new house. A tribe of children yelled like savages in their excitement as they galloped up and down stairs, exploring their domain from basement to attic.
When they reached the top storey and discovered the large rooms—fitted with rubber flooring, dangling rope-ladders and other devices for the exercise of two confined animals—they took instant possession of their kingdom. The eldest boy shouted the news to his mother, who was in the hall. He had heard his parents discuss Miss Loveapple—but not by name—so his gratitude was expressed in a libel.
'Mum, the blessed spinster lady has left us her children's toys.'
Unconscious of the wreck of her reputation, Miss Loveapple boarded the Channel steamer. Her mood was still bleak, although the salty air revived her as she leaned over the side of the boat and watched the bubbles of foam below. The sky was clouded, but, at intervals, gleams of light burst through and picked out green patches amid the rolling sea.
Swaying with every lurch of the vessel, she suddenly recalled the young man who had made an appointment to demonstrate his vacuum-cleaner early that morning. By then, the poor fellow had suffered a disappointment. It was an unpleasant reminder that she had let him down, because, in spite of his nonchalance, she was sure that he was one of life's failures. Although in the altered circumstances she could not have bought a vacuum cleaner, she could have paid him for his services.
'I wish I could send him something to compensate for the loss of his time,' she thought. 'But I don't know what I did with his card.'
She need not have worried, for the address she had lost was merely a fiction invented by Mr Henry Watkins, for business purposes. Besides, at the present time, Mr Clarence Club had changed his living-quarters. Instead of tenanting the darkish flat, he was lodged again at the expense of the Government.
He had enough to occupy his mind to the exclusion of Miss Loveapple's carpets. It was difficult to think of a really satisfactory motive to explain why he was hiding inside certain locked premises and why he had attacked the staircase banister so savagely with a kitchen poker.
Once again he had been lucky to avoid the mess of a dead policeman. The constable—whose shadow on the wall had so wilfully deceived him—was prepared for attack and had ducked in time to avoid it. But what bothered poor Clarence was the terrible dent in the solid mahogany of the stair rail, because the police appeared to regard it as evidence of murderous intention...
Miss Loveapple knew nothing of this, but in her turn she forgot Club as she watched the white cliffs of Dover grow clearer. She actually felt a stir of patriotic fervour when her foot touched English soil again. When she was among the first to pass through the customs unchallenged, her spirits rose at this proof of preferential treatment.
Her start gave her time to get a cup of tea and a ham-sandwich from a trolley. As she had eaten only the usual Continental breakfast, the refreshment revived her. By the time her train steamed out of Dover station, her head had ceased to ache and she was soothed to a state of dreamy contentment as she looked out at the flying landscape.
She noticed that the country had felt the first nip of frost, for there were golden boughs pendant amid the dark foliage of the trees. The orchards were heaped with piles of small red apples. In further evidence of autumn, the hedges were festooned with old-man's-beard which reminded her of Harvest Festival at Highfield and the unholy competition to decorate the pulpit.
Suddenly her spirits soared as she realised that she was going back to all she held dear—her well-ordered life, the comfort of her home, the beauty of her garden, the trifling stir but tremendous importance of village life. Those whom she loved would be waiting to welcome her. She was glad that she was returning directly to the Pond House instead of breaking her journey at London. In spite of her financial disappointment, money was not the first factor...
While her mistress thought of her, Elsie was in a state of happy excitement. But even as she prepared for Miss Loveapple's reception, she felt cold whenever she thought of her own lucky escape. To-day she could not understand what flare of sudden madness had compelled her to disobey orders and start out to travel up to the London house.
It was only by the merest chance that she did not get into the train which was waiting when she reached the Station. As she heard the peremptory hoot of a car on the road behind her, she turned her head and saw Miss Pitt making frantic signals to her. For a moment she was tempted to rush on to the platform, but her training prevailed and she returned sullenly to the car.
After Miss Pitt had explained Miss Love-apple's change of plan a lump arose in her throat, so that she could not thank her for her intervention.
'I wouldn't have half copped it when she found out,' she said.
'And you'd have deserved it,' commented Miss Pitt. 'What made you do such a silly thing?'
Elsie shook her head bashfully.
'It was something come over me. I couldn't abide her staying alone at that blinking London house.'
When Miss Pitt had driven away, she regretted her uneducated expressions, especially as David was not present to accept their responsibility. She did not know that Miss Pitt had never liked her better than when she stood and gaped, while her face changed from red to white, in proof of the intensity of her emotions.
That afternoon, in the safety of the Pond House, she arranged an artistic bowl of nasturtiums for Miss Loveapple's toilet table, while she tried to drum an idea into the heads of David and Scottie by constant repetition.
'Mistress is coming home to-day.'
Miss Loveapple was very happy to be coming home. Every minute the train was bringing her so much nearer to her front door. There was only one cloud on the future, and that was the prospect of her interview with Buckingham. She was certain that he would keep his word and subject her to another distressing discussion.
While she was in Switzerland, he had been a disturbing influence, dislocating her set ideas and trying to scoop her out of her happy routine. Even now, while she was slipping back into her rut, she had a sense of friction as though she were not fitting into the proper grooves.
'So futile of him to come,' she thought. 'He knows I shall refuse him.'
At that moment the sun burst through the clouds, drenching the sombre landscape with golden light. As she stared at the transformed fields, the rigid mould of her mind suddenly cracked apart, to admit a new and startling idea.
'Other people get married. I am not unique...Why shouldn't I?'
The change of view involved such a violent mental wrench that it affected her almost as a physical shock. Her face grew scarlet and her eyes glared in the fierceness of her opposition to the threat of recantation. She had grown so used to being Miss Loveapple. She knew Miss Loveapple intimately and she liked her very much.
But now some powerful submerged instinct was urging her to exchange Miss Loveapple for a stranger. Mrs Buckingham was the unknown element and her mystery held a challenge to the future.
Miss Loveapple accepted this new test of her character. As she had made a good job of all she undertook, she was certain that her marriage would be a success. As an inducement, it would involve plans and readjustments. She would have to build on a new wing to the Pond House and help to establish Buckingham in a congenial career.
But on one point she was definite: Her future husband must change his Christian name. There was only one 'David'—a blue Persian cat. To avoid confusion, she would endow him with her favourite name of 'Hubert' in return for his gift of 'Flora.'
As the idea of marriage continued to expand, she was carried away on a tidal wave of excitement, so that she never noticed when fields and hedges were replaced by masonry. She gave a start of surprise as the train steamed under the domed room of Victoria Station. Again she strode along the platform, her face radiant with happiness. She left the yard and crossed the road to Victoria Street, while she rehearsed the announcement of her engagement to the rector's wife.
'You won't save a tea on me much longer. I'm going to qualify for your blessed Mothers' Meeting.'
Suddenly, just as she was entering a tea-shop, she was rent by a pang of home-hunger. She felt that she could not endure another minute spent away from her precious Pond House. There was an earlier train back to Highfield, but it involved a rush to make the connections, so that she had ruled it out of her programme.
Glancing at her watch, she discovered that there still remained a narrow margin of time in which to catch the train. Unfortunately, however, she could not decide on the quickest form of transport. She had heard that traffic blocks were avoided on the Underground; but if she returned to the station and descended to the District Railway she would have to walk up the hill from the Embankment.
The minutes were passing while she stood in irresolution. After letting empty taxis pass her, they all whirled by with their flags down. She was beginning to think that she had wasted too much time and had better discard the idea in favour of a leisurely tea, when a Charing Cross bus swung around the corner.
She regarded it as a hopeless proposition, for it appeared to be full already, while a group of people waited at its stopping-place, farther down the street. At that moment, however, a policeman held up his hand and it stopped level with Miss Loveapple.
As a passenger took advantage of the stop to jump out, she leaped up the steps and sank into his vacant seat.
It seemed an omen for the future—a formal restoration to her rightful plane of good fortune. Thrilled and elated, she beamed around her as she impulsively took every one into her confidence.
'There! That's the first bit of luck I've had this trip.'
THE END
Miss Loveapple awoke with a smile. She had slept well; her digestion was good—her conscience clear; and she had not an enemy in the world.
There was nothing to warn her that, within the next hour, she would be selected as a victim to be murdered.
As she threw aside the sheets and sat up in bed, she looked beautiful. Just as every dog has his day, every woman has her hour. Since Miss Loveapple's dress allowance was shaved to the limit, she triumphed when she was in undress.
Her low sleeveless nightdress revealed the whiteness of her skin which had not been exposed to the sun. Her fair hair fell over her shoulders in thick plaits. As she stretched out her arms in a yawn, she seemed to be welcoming the gift of life.
It was a blue windy day in late summer. The sun shone brightly upon her toilet table, striking through the cut-glass trinket set in rainbow gleams. She could hear the welcome rattle of china which told her that the maid was mounting the stairs with her early tea and the Times.
Birds were singing in the beech-tree which shaded her window, as though to celebrate good news. It had come, the night before, by the last post, in a letter from a London house agent. He had told her of an unexpected chance to let her town house, which would enable her to take a rare holiday abroad.
'Switzerland,' she said aloud. 'Mountains. You lucky me.'
Miss Loveapple believed in her luck. She was positive that Providence had drawn up a schedule of beneficent events for her special benefit. If any sceptic doubted that she was under the direct protection of an unseen Patron, she could offer proof of her claim.
To begin with, out of millions of hopeful gamblers, she, alone, was chosen to draw a certain horse in an Irish Sweep and consequently to realise the supreme ambition of her life.
In addition to this spectacular slice of good fortune, she could produce a long list of minor examples of her luck. Royalty died after she had bought a black hat, to justify an extravagance. On the nerve-racking occasion when she had forgotten to provide cakes for her At Home day, it rained heavily, spoiling the hay harvest, but keeping every visitor away.
Little things like that.
Each year, when her vegetable marrows or her gladioli received the coveted blue ticket—First Prize—at the local flower show, she would inhale the hot mashed-grass and fruit-laden atmosphere of the tent, as though it were incense compounded for her.
'My luck again,' she would declare to her disappointed competitors. 'Not your fault. Too bad—when you tried so hard.'
And then her hearty laughter would ring out, for she was genuine rather than tactful.
She was fortunate even over the circumstances in which she was orphaned. Her parents thoughtfully went on living until she was twenty-one and had finished her education and received proper dental attention. She was therefore spared the restrictions imposed upon a minor when they both died of epidemic influenza, just as the Local Authorities had passed the plans of a new by-pass road.
As these involved the sacrifice of the old family home, she received, in compensation, a sum higher than she could have hoped to get had the property come into the open market.
She was on the fringe of the leisured class and had a small private income; so she bought a well-built and comfortable residence—Pond House—which was too large and ambitious for her needs, and settled down to life in a select residential village in Kent.
Soon she was accepted as a fixture, together with her maid, her cat, her dog and everything that was hers. She was popular, for she entered into the social spirit of the community; and although she was younger than the majority of the residents, gardening and housework gave her the exercise she might have missed.
Yet, while she was friendly to all, she was intimate with none. In spite of her breezy good-nature, no one asked her personal questions, or called her by her Christian name. It was doubtful whether any one knew it, for she remained Miss Loveapple, of the Pond House.
On the sole occasion when she burst her sheath of reserve, it was a voluntary impulse. The revelation took place on a warm, wild All Hallows E'en, when a few ladies came to tea with her. Among them was a visitor from London, who brought with her a passport to popularity—a planchette.
She was a dark, skinny woman with the remnants of beauty and a suggestion of parched passion still lingering in her eyes. She wore an artistic gown of nasturtium-hued velvet and a long string of amber beads. Her personality was magnetic, so that the other women were excited to confidences as they sat in the firelight.
The windows of the drawing-room were open to the blue October twilight. Fallen beech-leaves rustled as the wind whirled them over the lawn, covering the violet-border. Witches and wonders were abroad.
'Ask the thingummy if I will get married,' invited a masculine-looking woman wistfully.
The planchette, although plainly anxious to please, had its record for accurate prediction to consider. It hesitated for a little time before it advised her 'not to give up hope.'
The inquirer, whose name was Miss Pitt, laughed in proof of sporting spirit.
'Optimistic beggar,' she said. 'But tactless. The standard of face value in the Spirit World seems much the same as ours.'
It was then that Miss Loveapple asked her question. 'I don't believe in it,' she declared positively. 'But—shall I get my wish?'
The London lady looked at her fine legs—generously displayed in the firelight—her admirable colouring and the firm moulding of her face. When she attempted to convey her own impression to the super-sensitive planchette, it proved instantly responsive.
'Yes,' it wrote firmly. Taking a chance, it added: 'Soon.'
'Wish I could bank on that,' said Miss Loveapple.
'Someone you know, or still a stranger?' hinted the London lady.
'My wish?' Miss Loveapple laughed heartily. 'It isn't a husband...No. I want to have three houses. One town, one country and one seaside.'
As the others stared at her, she spoke breathlessly in her excitement.
'I can't explain it, but it's been my great ambition ever since I can remember. Mother used to tell me about the Royal residences, so perhaps they set me going. Do you know I was furious when I heard that the family had given up Osborne House. Somehow it seemed to break the sequence, like losing a quin or quad...If ever I get hold of a lump sum, I shall have my three houses...Sounds mad, doesn't it?'
'Merely border-line,' said Miss Pitt generously.
All Hallows E'en...The wind blew down the chimney and burst through the window, in gusts of moist earthy air, faintly perfumed with violets. A slip of a moon—panic-stricken—dodged wildly amid the celestial traffic of racing clouds. Spirits drifted like mist from opening graves. The living mingled with the dead...
Not long afterwards, Miss Loveapple drew her horse in the Sweep. After her windfall had been duly pared, she received the sum of four thousand odd pounds. This was promptly put back into circulation by her purchase of two more houses—one in London and a bungalow on the south coast.
While her action was locally criticised, no one was authorised to offer advice. Only her lawyer hinted at the disadvantages.
'This property will prove a white elephant. Besides Rates, Insurance and upkeep, you have all these monthly instalments to pay on your furniture. You will be definitely crippled.'
'No,' said Miss Loveapple, 'my income will be as much as it is now. I've figured it all out. But I shall not cut my Charity list. That might be unlucky. My only worry is whether I am anti-social, having all these empty rooms when people are overcrowded in slums.'
Apparently she came to some working agreement with her conscience, for her three houses made her completely happy. She was now free from the restrictions of environment. Whenever she was bored with the landscape, she could exchange it for the spectacle of waves rolling over the beach. If she grew tired of looking at the wallpaper in her London bedroom, she had only to return to the Pond House.
But far stronger than the satisfaction obtained by scenic change, was the inflation of her sense of ownership. Whenever she moved, she opened her own front door—trod on her own carpet—broke her own china. The knowledge filled her with a consciousness of dormant power and placed her in the small company of maiden queens, dictators and hospital matrons.
At the same time, it endowed her with definite spinster status. Although the news of her engagement would create no real surprise—since she was of eligible age—no one in the village expected her to get married.
On the day when she was chosen for future newspaper publicity—consequent to a nasty experience in order to qualify as 'the victim'—Miss Loveapple was still on the right side of thirty. Those whose taste had not been impaired by the rationed beauty of the Screen would have considered her attractive. Fair-haired, with good features and colouring, she could have posed for a poster of a Britannia who had dieted sufficiently to compromise with modern dress.
On this special morning, after she had reminded herself of the luck of the London offer, she went over the list of her static blessings.
'I am well and strong. I don't owe a cent. The sun is shining. And I have my three houses.'
On the chair beside her, the blue Persian cat, David, lay asleep in his basket, clasping his Woolworth furry toy in his great paws. He was not a year old, but was so enormous that he resembled a lion-cub, while spoiling had kept him in the kitten class.
As Miss Loveapple beamed maternally at him, the maid entered the room, followed by the Aberdeen terrier, Scottie. Elsie was about the same age as her mistress, but she looked older. She was supposed to be delicate, so she did all the lady-like jobs—cleaning silver and arranging flowers—while Miss Loveapple scrubbed and polished.
'Good-morning madam,' she said, speaking in a low, muffled voice. 'I hope you slept well. Here's your young gentleman come to see you.'
Miss Loveapple assisted Scottie to scramble onto the low divan-bed before she spoke.
'I am going to London to-morrow, Elsie.'
'Yes, madam.'
Elsie laid down the tray carefully on the bed-table, poured out a cup of tea, placed a cigarette between her mistress' lips and struck a match to light it. Then she took David from his basket and cuddled him so that his great sleepy head drooped on her shoulder.
'David says,' she remarked, speaking in a loud, coarse voice to prove that she had assumed David's identity, 'David says he doesn't want his mistress to go away from the nice cool country. He says it doesn't make sense to go up to that blinking hot London.'
'Then you can tell David,' said Miss Loveapple, 'that if his mistress doesn't snap at her chance to make some money, there might be no cool country for him and no nice Elsie either.'
Elsie still looked resentful as she nursed the cat in silence while her mistress fed Scottie with biscuits.
Presently Miss Loveapple asked her maid a direct question.
'What have you got against London, Elsie?'
Elsie's pale face grew red. 'Because—Oh, madam, I always feel it's unlucky.'
'Unlucky?' Miss Loveapple's voice was sharp. 'Why?'
'I mean—if you'll excuse the liberty—it was coming the way it did, with gambling and breaking the law.'
It was characteristic of that household that Elsie should refer to luck. But the fact remained that if Miss Loveapple had not acquired a London address, at that moment she would have been secure in her Zone of Safety.
During the early hours, Miss Loveapple never forgot that she was mistress of three houses. Later on, she might become supplementary Staff and cheerfully do the heavier work for which Elsie was less adapted by nature; but she always made her toilet at leisure and breakfasted in dignity.
When she came down the shallow stairs, she wore a full-skirted house-coat, pale yellow in colour and patterned with brilliant flowers. It enhanced her natural opulence and suggested prosperity allied with bounty. As the sun—shining through the window behind her—gilded her hair to the semblance of a halo, she might have been a seasonal goddess, bearing her largesse of floral trophies, but also open to a deal with the market gardener.
As usual, she paused on the half-way landing, in order to appreciate the beauty of the property to which she was most attached. Although it had cost more to furnish her London house, she had sunk most money in the Pond House, by installing central heating and remaking the garden.
It was a pleasant Georgian building, panelled in white wood and spaciously but wastefully planned, with broad landings and superfluous steps. There were only two reception-rooms and three bedrooms, but all were large and finely proportioned. None of her houses contained an official maid's-room to mitigate her standard of perfection. She and Elsie chose their sleeping-quarters—and changed them again—according to season and caprice.
Everything looked especially pleasant that sunny morning. The parquet-flooring of the hall advertised her own 'elbow grease.' A vase of second-crop pale-blue delphiniums was reflected in a mirror on the wall. Humming a tuneless melody, Miss Love-apple strolled into the dining-room, which, owing to its superior dimensions—was also the living-room.
The drawing-room looked out on to the front lawn, which was shaded with beech-trees. Here there were only a few flowers—violets under the windows and bulbs planted in the grass. The dining-room, however, ran the entire length of the house and had windows at either end.
In accordance with the general colour scheme, its furnishings were white, relieved with pale green—an extravagant choice which was criticised locally. It had vindicated her by remaining fresh and clean, although even she attributed this to her own labour, rather than luck.
As she crossed to the table, where her breakfast was keeping hot in a chafing-dish, she stared approvingly at the carpet.
'It certainly paid me to get a vacuum,' she reflected. 'I ought to have one in London, too. If I budget strictly over my holiday, perhaps the rent will run to one.'
She cut a piece of bread and threw out crumbs for the birds on the front lawn before she walked to the back windows, to admire the garden. She had transformed it from a gloomy wilderness to its former old-world charm. The pond—which lent its name to the house—had degenerated to a stagnant pool, enclosed with a low railing and shadowed by willow-bushes. Advised by the local builder, and even doing some of the work herself, the hollow had been filled in and the water enclosed in sunken shallow tanks planted with lily-pads. Here, too, was her herb-garden, her famous rose-patch, her perennial-border and the vegetables which won so many prizes.
As she gazed through the window, she sniffed the appetising odour of bacon which Elsie was frying for her own breakfast. The maid was unable to share her mistress' grilled kidneys, owing to a dislike of 'insides'—a disability which Miss Loveapple quoted with a queer pride as proof of Elsie's refinement.
Reminded of her appetite, she sat down at the table and made a large meal, beginning with cereal and ending with toast and honey. When she had finished, she lit a cigarette...
By a strange coincidence, her action synchronized with that of a young man who lay in bed in a darkish London flat. He drained his cracked cup and began to smoke as a prelude to business.
His appearance was typical of the average young man who recognises the value of a good appearance and has conformed to the rules. His voice had the clipped Public School accent—which can be imitated by any one with an ear for vowels and—when dressed—he wore an old school tie, such as can be acquired at its source, or bought in a shop.
His teeth were good, his hair well brushed, his smile pleasant. Certainly his face betrayed nothing of the dark intention in his heart as he stretched out his arm for the Telephone Directory, which lay on the battered bamboo table beside his bed.
It was the red-covered volume and it opened at the 'L' section. Flicking over the pages with fingers which had been recently manicured, he skimmed through the legion of 'Longs.' Occasionally he paused to note a name and then to reject it, but his selections were not so casual as they appeared. Underneath this weeding-out process was a definite purpose.
Although his motive was entirely impersonal, and remote from malevolence, the lady of his choice had to possess certain qualifications before he could be definitely interested. She had to be not only a spinster or widow, but unprotected by any male relative. She had to be of sufficient importance to invite a visit from a burglar, yet not so wealthy as to keep an inconvenient staff of servants. It was essential, too, that she lived in a select but unfashionable locality which was discreetly lit and not over-patrolled by policemen.
In his impatience, he probably passed over some ideal candidates for immortality, as he exhausted the 'Longs' and 'Lords,' on his way to the 'Loves.'
Suddenly his attention was arrested by an uncommon name—'Loveapple.' The prefix was 'Miss,' which encouraged him to notice the address.
No. 19, Madeira Crescent was somewhere in northwest London. It suggested a picture of a solid house, left stranded by the receded tide of fashion, with an imposing flight of steps and a lot of damp fallen leaves on the pavement.
'I'll O.K. her,' he decided indolently. 'Tomorrow will do.'
At that moment, Miss Loveapple felt vaguely depressed and worried. Although she had no knowledge that she had been invited as guest-of-honour to a murder-party, she began to dislike the idea of letting her London house.
The basic idea underlying the acquisition of her three houses was the sense of personal ownership. They must be vacant, swept and garnished, ready for her occupation, whenever she wanted change of scene.
Already she had lowered her standard by letting her bungalow regularly for the summer months. In one way she was rather proud of the fact that it was always in keen demand. It was the result of a definite policy—the installation of a refrigerator and the lavish use of white enamel-paint.
But while it was true that she did not care for the south coast during the holiday season, she always felt guilty about the transaction. She had exploited something which was intensely personal—her seaside house. It was almost as though she had profited in a White Paint Traffic.
Apart from her sense of shame, she vaguely felt that those convenient people who so cheerfully overpaid her for temporary accommodation were bound to leave some shred of their personality behind them. The atmosphere of the bungalow was no longer pure undiluted 'Loveapple,' but a compound of 'Brown, Smith and Robinson.'