The Dower House Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

upon an old acquaintance. He also greatly admired the way in which her colour suddenly brightened as she spoke. The edge of the precipice seemed nearer than ever before as he pressed her hand and replied that she could rely on him to carry out her wishes.

Chapter IV
    â€œWell, Mr. Berry?” said Amabel Grey. She shook hands with him, and then immediately began to ask him questions, her voice hurried and her colour becomingly heightened. “Have you arranged it? You know, I asked you to wire, and you didn’t. You’re not going to tell me that there’s any difficulty, are you? I’ve been counting on you to settle everything before Mr. Forsham sails. It’s to-morrow he sails, isn’t it?”
    Mr. Berry had kept hold of Amabel’s hand. He patted it now, and she drew it gently away.
    â€œMy dear lady, what a lot of questions! Sit down, and I’ll answer them one at a time.”
    Amabel moved to the fire, and stood there holding her foot to the warmth.
    â€œI don’t want to sit; I want to hear what’s been happening since I saw you. The country week-end is like a desert island, you know; one is simply marooned until Monday. And when there was no wire from you this morning”—she began to warm the other foot—“well, I just had to come up. Is it settled? Will he have me?”
    â€œGently, gently,” said Mr. Berry. He sat down, turned over some papers, and picked up a typewritten sheet. Then, swinging round with it in his hand, he smiled benignantly, and said, “There’s no need to look anxious—no need at all. I saw Mr. Forsham on Saturday, and the tenancy is yours if you will subscribe to his conditions.”
    â€œOh, Mr. Berry, you don’t know how pleased I am.”
    Mr. Berry tapped the paper in his hand.
    â€œDon’t be pleased until you have heard the conditions. Frankly, my dear lady, I don’t like them, and I can’t advise you to accept them. I am speaking, you understand, in a double capacity, as your friend as well as your lawyer.”
    â€œWhat are the conditions?”
    It was so like George Forsham to set up a neat, typewritten list of them. How little people changed. How little or how much had Julian changed? She crossed the room, and sat down in the armchair beside Mr. Berry’s table. “What are these dreadful conditions?” she said, and smiled a little.
    â€œWell, I don’t like them, and I’ve had no hand in them. Mr. Forsham sat down and typed them out himself, without so much as asking my opinion of them. That’s what I call taking the bread out of an honest lawyer’s mouth, eh?”
    â€œBut the conditions—what are they?”
    â€œI’m coming to them. I just wanted you to know that I had no hand in them. Now, let’s see, here’s the first,—only you’ll understand, please, that I’m giving you the sense of it in my own words. I really can’t get my tongue round the fellow’s quasi-legal twaddle. Defend me from the law of the layman! This is what it comes to in plain English:
    â€œOne. You’re to stay in the house for six months, unless he changes his mind and wants you to go sooner.
    â€œTwo. During the six months you’re not to be away from the house for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch.
    â€œThree. You’re to get two hundred pounds down—and a fine struggle I had with him over that. I wouldn’t give way because I knew you wanted the money. But I put it to him at last that it was that or nothing, and that if he wouldn’t take my personal guarantee, I’d just throw up the whole business and leave him to manage his own haunted houses. He was stuffy, very stuffy; but he gave way.”
    Amabel nodded and smiled. There was comedy in this reversal of the ordinary procedure—the lawyer translating his client’s legal verbosities into plain English. Mr. Berry gave a chuckle, turned a leaf