She returned to the dining room, then, suddenly alarmed, she made a complete search of the downstairs part of the house.
Could it be possible that her father had gone to work without so much as putting his head in the kitchen...? He knew that Muriell was cooking another egg and sausage. He had specifically asked her to do this. He certainly wouldn’t have left the house without an explanation. Even if there had been some sudden emergency at the office he would have let her know. But there hadn’t been any emergency at the office because the telephone hadn’t rung. There was an extension in the kitchen and Muriell would certainly have heard the bell if there had been a phone call.
Something must have happened which caused her father to go upstairs, then. Could it be that Nancy had been taken ill?
Muriell hurried up the stairs, trying to be silent but so intent upon speed that her feet made noise, and when she tried the knob of the bedroom she was in a little too much of a hurry and the latch gave a distinct click.
Nancy Gilman wakened, looked at Muriell standing tense in the doorway and said, “Well, what is it?”
“Father,” Muriell said.
Nancy glanced over at the empty twin bed with the bedclothes thrown back. “He left an hour ago,” she said irritably. And then, suddenly catching herself, smiled and said, “What’s the matter, child? Is he late for breakfast again?”
“No, it’s all right,” Muriell said. “I put on another egg for him and... well, I wanted to tell him it was getting cold.”
For a moment there was just a flicker of annoyance on Nancy Gilman’s face, then she raised herself to one elbow, punched a second pillow into submission, piled it on the first, smiled at Muriell and said, “You’re so considerate.” And then, after a distinct interval, added, “Of your father, my dear.”
Her smile was enigmatic. She dropped her head back to the pillow and closed her eyes.
There was no other place her father could possibly be unless he had gone to the attic.
A sudden disquieting thought entered Muriell’s mind. Recently her father had been rather upset. He had told her only two nights before, “Muriell, if you should ever be confronted with any emergency in connection with my affairs, remember that I don’t want the police. Do you understand? I don’t want the police.”
Muriell had looked at him in surprise and had tried to question him as to what he meant, but his answers after that were smilingly evasive. All he had wanted to impress upon her was that he didn’t want the police and he had managed to impress that upon her very thoroughly.
So Muriell, with a vision of sudden suicides, of bodies hanging by the neck from the rafters, literally flew up the stairs to the attic.
The big place was filled with the usual assortment of old boxes, trunks, an old dress form and a couple of antiquated rocking chairs. There was a smell about the place, the aroma of unpainted wood, that warm atmosphere of quiet, secluded detachment from the rest of the house which is somehow the property of old attics.
On the lower floors of the house life could go on with the constantly increasing tempo of modern civilization. But up here in the attic, removed from the rest of the house, occupied with the insignia of bygone days, there was an atmosphere of calm tranquillity as though the rapid pace of modern civilization had slowed serenely to a halt.
Something about the attic reassured Muriell. She walked around under the eaves just to make certain that no one was up there. By the time she descended the stairs she was in a much calmer frame of mind.
At the foot of the attic stairs she encountered her stepsister, Glamis Barlow, fairly bristling with indignation.
It was entirely in keeping with the character of Glamis that her sleeping garments would be of a clinging, almost transparent material, the upper garment extending only a few inches below the hips, the lower garment so brief as to be all but invisible. Her honey-blond hair framed blazing blue eyes.
“What in the world are you doing prowling around the attic at this time of the night?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Glamis,” Muriell said. “I... I was looking...”
“Well?” Glamis asked as Muriell hesitated.
“I had to go up there for something,” Muriell said. “I tried to be quiet.”
“You sounded like a team of horses up there. You were right over my room.”
“I’m sorry.”
Abruptly Glamis laughed and said, “Forgive me, Muriell. I’m a beast at this time in the morning. Is there coffee downstairs?”
Muriell nodded.
“I’m terrible until I’ve had my coffee,” she said. “I’ll come down and have a cup and then go back and go to sleep. You’re all finished up in the attic?”
“Yes,” Muriell said. “Don’t bother, Glamis. I’ll bring you a cup. You want it black?”
Glamis nodded.
“I’m sorry I wakened you. I was getting breakfast for Dad.”
“In the attic?” Glamis laughed.
Muriell gave her a gentle pat. “Go get back into bed, honey, and I’ll bring you up some coffee.”
“It’s all right, honey,” Glamis said, “but Hartley Elliott is spending the night here and I know he needs his sleep.”
“He is!” Muriell exclaimed.
“Yes, dear. He’s in the Rose Room. We got in at a terrible hour this morning and came up to sit for a while on the porch. When he tried to start his car it seems he’d left the ignition on and the battery was run down.
“So I told him he could spend the night.”
“Does Nancy know?” Muriell asked.
“Of course not, silly! Nancy was asleep. Did you expect me to waken her to tell her I’d invited a house guest? I’m twenty, you know, and if you’re thinking of the proprieties—”
Abruptly Glamis broke off, then a smile bent the corners of her mouth. “Aren’t I the old savage bearcat in the morning?”
Muriell patted her again. “I’ll bring you coffee, honey. Get under the covers. You’re all but nude.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Glamis said, smoothing her palms over the sheer gossamer of her garments. Then she laughed, and her bare feet moved silently down the carpeted corridor.
Muriell went downstairs, convinced now that for some reason her father must have gone to the office without coming out to say good-by. He must have thought of something that he had neglected to do; perhaps some important appointment that he had forgotten about.
Muriell was quite cheerful as she poured coffee from the electric percolator and put a couple of pieces of thin dry toast on the tray for Glamis to nibble on. Glamis was a creature of curves and she wanted to keep those curves at their seductive best. In the evening she’d overlook a calorie or two but in the morning her breakfast consisted of very thin, very crisp toast and black coffee.
Glamis was snuggled up in bed and duly grateful. “Oh, you dear,” she said. “You thought to bring some toast!”
“Hungry?” Muriell asked.
“Starved,” she said. “I always wake up with a tremendous appetite. If I let myself go I could really go to town on breakfast.”
She propped herself up in bed, ground out her cigarette in the ashtray, reached for the coffee cup, looked at Muriell, said, “I don’t know how you do it, Muriell.”
“Do what?”
“Keep that bodily machine of yours functioning so smoothly. You’re just radiating calm, competent energy. I’m a clod until after I get my coffee, then it takes me half an hour to get human.”
She broke off a piece of toast, bit into it and sipped the coffee.
Abruptly she pushed the rest of the toast and the coffee cup away from her on the table, smiled at Muriell and dropped her head on the pillow. “Thanks, darling,” she said. “I’m good for a couple of hours now.”