Bath Belles Read Free Page A

but I assumed that the reason one eight-room house was going for seven thousand guineas and another for four must have to do with location. As there was nothing “with gas”under five, I decided to ask six and judge by my first customer’s face if he thought me insane or a flat.
    With no candles shrinking to alert us to the hours’passing, we stayed up till midnight. The gaslight was remarkable, turning night to day. Mama and I repaired a rent made in the saloon draperies when they were torn from their tracks, while we all discussed the vandalization of the house.
    “It seems like spite, plain and simple,”Mama said. “I don’t believe a single thing was stolen. The silver candlesticks are still here, and a very fine silver tea service. You’ll want to take that home, Belle.”She went on to name other easily removable objects that hadn’t been pilfered.
    “Graham’s jewelry box has in it everything I remember seeing him wear, too,”I agreed. “Except his diamond stickpin, and the lawyer said he will be sending over a package tomorrow with the items he was wearing when ...” I swallowed down a lump, and Mama spoke up to rescue me.
    “That is an odd sort of thief,”she opined.
    “It was just hooligans. I’m grateful they didn’t do more mischief while they were about it—break dishes and mirrors and windows, I mean.”
    “How do you think they got in?”Esther asked idly. “You had to unlock the door, Belle, and there were no windows broken, were there?”
    I jumped up in alarm to double-check. “I didn’t notice any!”
    “There were none broken. They were all closed and locked. He must have had a key,”Mama announced. She was a good housekeeper and noticed such things. I stopped in my tracks.
    “He might have gotten in through the cellar,”Esther suggested. Comforting thought!
    There was nothing for it but to take a candle to the cellar and check. I was thankful we did, despite the frightening trip into the black bowels, for there, where it was not easily seen, was a window wide open to the elements, both criminal and climatic. The wrongdoer had obviously crept in there and gone up the stairs and into the pantry. There was no lock on the pantry door. We locked the basement window, propped a chair under the handle of the pantry door, and returned to the saloon, carrying two dusty bottles of wine from Graham’s well-stocked cellar.
    “It’s odd Graham would have left that window unlocked when everything else was closed properly,”Mama said.
    “Especially as it exposed his wine cellar to the cold,”I agreed. Graham was a bit of a fanatic about his wine.
    “What I wonder is how the thief ever discovered it,”Esther mused.
    “Very true,”Mama nodded. “The back yard has no easy access from the street. There is that pretty bit of iron fence enclosing the yard. Fairly high, and with a spiked top. It is certainly odd.”
    “Officer Harrow is right,”I said. “London is full of thieves.”He was supposed to have dropped around earlier, but I doubted we’d ever see him.
    “Yet after the whole two years, nothing much is missing, so far as we can see,”Mania pointed out, frowning over the drapery, her needle poised for action. “It certainly is odd.”
    So it was, and we were fortunate no other marauder had discovered the secret. We agreed we must keep all doors and windows locked when we were out of the house and left it at that.
    When we finally went upstairs to bed I found it impossible to occupy the master bedroom, which had been chosen as mine. Graham had done it up in dusky blue and white, according to my wishes. The canopy and drapes were blue, the carpet and walls white with some blue and gold ornaments. His things were laid out there as if he might walk in the door any moment and smile at me. I could almost imagine him coming. I felt the old excitement, aggravated now by a shivering chill. So tall, so handsome—or so he seemed to me. He had the loveliest chestnut hair, just touched