Death at the Opera Read Free Page B

loquacious. Miss Ferris pronounced herself delighted with the room, and her aunt, having drawn her attention to the printed notice fixed above the mantelpiece, left her to unpack. Miss Ferris committed the contents of the notice to memory—they dealt exclusively with times of meals and rules concerning the occupation of the bathroom—unpacked, wrote a post card to her landlady at Hillmaston, announcing her safe arrival, and went down to tea.
    After tea she went for a stroll along the esplanade, and encountered Hurstwood, of the Sixth Form. He saluted her, and Miss Ferris bowed and smiled nervously. She went in deadly terror of all the upper forms, because she never taught them. Hurstwood was wearing a boater and his school blazer. She was surprised at the boater. Most young men went bareheaded in the summer. She could not know that Hurstwood’s father, a man of peculiar theories, believed that a straw hat protected the brain.
    Dinner was at seven. She would have enjoyed it but for the fact that a handsome man of early middle age sat opposite her at table, and every time she looked up she caught his eye. The first time this happened she blushed and looked down at her plate. The second time, the man said:
    â€œIsn’t the fish always so nice here?”
    The third time he said:
    â€œDon’t you think the air here makes you hungry?”
    After dinner Miss Ferris asked her aunt whether her seat at table could not be changed. Her aunt, humouring her, changed it and put her at a larger table, with a married couple and their three children. Miss Ferris, who had a genuine liking for children, was pleased with this new arrangement, although her aunt began by apologising for it. The middle-aged man, whose name was Helm, did not come into contact with Miss Ferris again for more than three weeks, but towards the middle of the fourth week of her stay they became acquainted under romantic circumstances in the form of an attempted burglary.
    She had gone to bed later than usual one night, because she had been to the theatre, where a good repertory company were doing a play which had had a successful run in London, and which she thought she would enjoy. She did enjoy it, and after she had retired to bed she continued to think over the story and to visualise herself in the character of the heroine.
    Thus, at a quarter to twelve, she was completely wide awake, and was suddenly conscious of the sound of a cough which seemed to come from the balcony outside her bedroom window. She was not particularly alarmed, for her physical courage was of a reasonably high order, and she raised herself in bed and listened. There was no further sound of coughing, but she thought that she could distinguish a slight scraping noise.
    Curiously enough, the thought of burglars did not immediately occur to her, but her sense of duty caused her to get out of bed and proceed cautiously to the window. She peered out, but could see nothing, and the scraping noise continued. She could hear it distinctly. This time she did think of burglars. Like most teachers who take any of the games—and she sometimes coached netball with the junior forms to relieve the Physical Training Mistress—she always carried a whistle in her handbag.
    She moved quietly towards the dressing-table, where her handbag lay, and was about to open it when there came three quiet but distinct taps upon her bedroom door. Miss Ferris started with surprise, but she put down the handbag, pulled her dressing-gown about her and opened the door. A man pushed past her without ceremony, opened her window wide, climbed on to the balcony, and apparently, from the sounds, dropped into the garden below. Miss Ferris took the whistle from her handbag, leaned out of the wide-open window and blew three shrill blasts. There was a rush of feet, a warning shout, and the sound of a motor-horn from the front of the house. Below Miss Ferris’s eye-level a dark object appeared. Miss Ferris