“Your secretary, Pearson?” he said.
James Paradine’s fine black eyebrows rose.
“You didn’t know that he was a cousin? A distant one, but kin is kin. No, it’s all in the family, and I propose to deal with it in the family. That is why I am including you.”
Elliot stiffened noticeably.
“I’m afraid I can’t claim-” he began, and was met with a curt,
“That’s enough about that! Don’t ride your high horse with me! You’ll do as I say, and for the simple reason that we’ve got to get the prints back, and I suppose you don’t want a scandal any more than I do. As to punishment, you needn’t be afraid. It will be-adequate.”
There was a silence. Elliot stood there. It seemed to him that he had been standing there for a long time. He thought, “What’s behind all this-what is he up to-what does he know?” He said,
“Aren’t you rather jumping to conclusions, sir? After all, the case must have been here in the house for a couple of hours. Aren’t you rather pinning it on the family? What about the servants?”
James Paradine leaned back. He laid his hands to-gether fingertip to fingertip and rested them upon his knee. He said in a quiet, ordinary tone,
“I’m afraid not, my dear Elliot. You see, I know who took the prints.”
Chapter 2
Grace Paradine came out of her room and stood hesitating for a moment with her hand on the knob of the door. It was a very white hand, and it wore a very fine ruby ring. The passage upon which she had emerged was lighted from end to end and thickly carpeted with an old-fashioned but most expensive carpet, a riot of crimson, cobalt, and green. Mr. James Paradine liked his colours bright. The fashions of his youth admitted of no improvement. They had been there when he was a boy, and as far as he was concerned, there they would remain. If anything wore out, it must be replaced without any variation from this standard. His only concessions to modernity were of a practical nature. The house bristled with telephones, blazed with electric light, and was most comfortably warmed from a furnace in the basement.
Miss Paradine withdrew her hand and moved a step away from the door. Standing thus under the bright unshaded ceiling light, she appeared a fine, ample figure of a woman-not handsome, but sufficiently imposing in a black dinner-gown and light fur wrap. There was a diamond star at her breast, and a pearl dog-collar with diamond slides about her throat. Her dark hair, which was scarcely touched with grey, swept in broad waves from a central parting to a graceful knot low down on her neck. Her hair and her hands had been her two beauties. In her late fifties they still served her well. For the rest, she had widely opened brown eyes and a full face with some effect of heaviness in repose. She was James Paradine’s sister, and had kept his house for the twenty years which had elapsed since the death of his wife. As she looked back down the passage now her expression was one of frowning intensity. It was obvious that she was waiting and listening.
And then, with an almost startling suddenness, her face changed. The frown, the tension, the heaviness were gone. A wide and charming smile took their place. She turned quite round and moved to meet the girl who was coming out of a room at the end of the passage. The girl came on slowly-slowly and without an answering smile. She was tall and pretty, a graceful creature with dark hair curling on her neck, and the very white skin and dark blue eyes which sometimes go with it. When the black lashes shadowed the blue as they were doing now the eyes themselves might very well have passed for black. It was only when they were widely opened or when they took a sudden upward glance that you could see how really blue they were-as blue as sapphires, as blue as deep-sea water. She was Grace Paradine’s adopted daughter, Phyllida Wray, and she was twenty-three years old.
She came along the passage in a long white dress. She wore the string of pearls which had been her twenty-first birthday present-fine pearls, very carefully matched. They were her only ornament. The pretty hands were ringless. The nails had been lacquered to a bright holly-red.
Grace Paradine put a hand on her shoulder and turned her round.
“You look very nice, my darling. But you’re pale-”
The black lashes flicked up and down again, the blue of the eyes showed bright. It was all too quick to be sure whether there was anger under the brightness. She said in a perfectly expressionless voice,
“Am I, Aunt Grace?”
Miss Paradine had that tender, charming smile.
“Why, yes, my darling-you are.” She laughed a little and let her hand slide caressingly down the bare arm to the scarlet fingertips. “Just between ourselves, you know, I think you might have put a little less on here, and given yourself some roses for our New Year’s party.”
“But Christmas roses are white.” Phyllida said the words in an odd, half laughing voice.
She began to walk towards the head of the stairs, Miss Paradine beside her. Phyllida had disengaged herself. They went down together with the width of the stair between them. Grace Paradine kept a hand on the heavy mahogany rail. She said,
“It was terrible, their keeping you on duty over Christmas.”
“I volunteered.”
Miss Paradine said nothing for a moment. Then she smiled.
“Well, my darling, it’s lovely to have you now. How long can you stay?”
Phyllida said, “I don’t know.”
“But-”
The girl stood still, threw her a look which might have meant appeal, and said in a hurry,
“I can have a week if I like, but I don’t know that I want it. I think I’m better working.” A note of rebellion came into her voice. ”Don’t look like that-I didn’t say it to hurt you. It’s just-well, you know-”
Miss Paradine had stopped too. Her hand tightened on the bannister. She was making an effort. She made it very successfully. Her voice was full of sympathy as she said,
“I know. You mustn’t force yourself, but after all this is your home, Phyl. There’s something in that, isn’t there? He can’t spoil that or take it away from you. It was yours before he came, and it will be yours long after we have all forgotten him.”
Phyllida moved abruptly. Something in the words had pricked her and pricked her sharply. She said in a strained undertone,
“I don’t want to talk about it. Please, Aunt Grace.”
Miss Paradine looked distressed.
“My darling, no, of course not. How stupid of me. We won’t look back. It’s a New Year for us both, and you’re home for a holiday. Do you remember how we used to plan every moment of the holidays when you were a schoolgirl? They were never half long enough for all the things we wanted to do. Well, tonight of course it’s all family-Frank and Irene, and Brenda. They’ve made up the quarrel and she’s staying with them, but I don’t know how long it will last. Lydia is with them too.” She laughed a little. “Prettier than ever and just as provoking. Then there’ll be Mark, and Dicky, and Albert Pearson. I don’t like ten very much for a table, but it can’t be helped.”
They were descending the stairs again. Phyllida said in a relieved voice,
“What is Lydia doing?”
“I really don’t know-she talks such a lot of nonsense. She’s somebody’s secretary, I believe. You had better ask her. I do hope she’ll be careful tonight. James never did like her very much, and nonsense is a thing he just doesn’t understand. I’ve put her as far away from him as possible, but she has such a carrying voice.”
They crossed the hall and came into the drawing-room, where two young men stood warming themselves before the fire. Both were Paradines, nephews of old James Paradine. They were cousins, not brothers, and they bore no resemblance either to one another or to their uncle. Mark, the elder, was thirty-five-a tall, dark man with strong features and an air of gloom. Dicky several years younger-slight, fair, with ingenuous blue eyes and an unfailing flow of good spirits.