Miss Garside made up her mind that she would not be wearing it. It would be there, in the empty flat, thrown down carelessly no doubt upon the dressing-table.

“If I had the key of the flat, it would be quite easy to change the rings-”

A voice which was Miss Garside’s own inner voice said this very distinctly. It said,

“She will never know the difference-never. It is life and death to me, and nothing at all to her. Mine shines just as brightly. It will look as well on her hand as it has done on mine. It won’t make any difference to her at all. Why should I starve so that she may have something which makes no difference to her? If I had a key I could change the rings-”

Bell had a key. Mrs. Smollett went down into the old basement kitchen every morning at eight o’clock and took the key of No. 8 off its hook. Then she went up, let herself in, made Miss Roland an early cup of tea, and cleaned the flat. No one who had the slightest contact with Mrs. Smollett could avoid hearing all about Miss Carola Roland and her flat.

“Lovely curtains, Miss Garside. And what they must have cost! I got a niece in the upholstery, and what those brocades cost-well, it’s wicked.”

You might turn your back and take no notice, but it didn’t stop Mrs. Smollett’s tongue.

The key of No. 8 would be hanging now on its hook on the old kitchen dresser. In about twelve hours’ time Mrs. Smollett would fetch it and go upstairs and let herself in.

Anyone could fetch it now.

No, not now, because Bell would be about. But later, between half past eight and half past nine, when he would have “stepped out” to have a pint of beer and play a game of darts at the Hand and Glove. At half past eight, rain or fine, snow or fog, Bell “stepped out.” Between half past nine and ten he returned. There was a whole hour during which it would be as safe to get the key as it was to sit here and think about it. Between half past eight and half past nine-

CHAPTER 20

It was twenty-seven minutes past seven when Meade Underwood opened the door to a scared Ivy.

“Ivy, you are late! Lucky for you Mrs. Underwood isn’t back.”

Ivy’s eyes stared out of her peaked face.

“But, Miss Meade, she come in in front of me-I see her go up in the lift. Oh lor-I must hurry! Did you put on the gas for the steamer, miss?”

Ivy hurried. As it turned out, she had plenty of time. It was twenty minutes to eight before Mrs. Underwood entered the flat. She went straight to her room and shut the door. Ivy came sidling in to Meade.

“That’s a queer start, Miss Meade. I see her in front of me all the way from the corner. If it had been a bit darker, I’d have tried to get past, but I didn’t like to chance it. I thought maybe she’d go to her room and I’d have time to slip me coat off.”

Meade looked up, shaking her head.

“No, Ivy-really!”

She got a street-child grin.

“All right, all right-but my boy friend was late-we only had five minutes. And he’s very good-looking, and lots of girls after ’im, so I had to wait. But when I see Mrs. Underwood just in front of me, and Miss Roland-”

“Do you mean they were together?”

Ivy giggled.

“Not likely! Miss Roland, she was on in front-I see her white dress. She was in and gone before I come up, and Mrs. Underwood standing there in the hall waiting for the lift to come down, so I’d to wait too-see? Kept back in the porch till I see the lift come down and Mrs. Underwood go up. Wonder where she went to though.”

Meade looked up with a faint smile.

“Perhaps you’d like to ask her, Ivy,” she said.

At half past eight Bell “stepped out”, punctual to the minute as he always was, and with the consciousness of a good day’s work behind him. As he came into the hall from the basement stair, the front door was shutting. Someone had just gone out, but he couldn’t see who it was, for they were already on the other side of that closing door. But when he got out on the steps he could just distinguish the figure of a man disappearing in the direction of the right-hand gate. There were the two gates, one to the right and one to the left as you came out of the house, and the gravel sweep and shrubbery between.

The man went off to the right, and Bell took the left-hand gate, which was nearer the town. Just as he got to it he heard a car start up, and saw it coming sliding past him down the slope of the road. He was to be very much pressed about this brief appearance of a man in the darkness, but all that he could ever say about it was that he took the man who had started the car to be the man he had seen going away from the house in the direction of the right-hand gate, but as to identifying him- “Well, I ask you!”

Bell took his way to the Hand and Glove, where he met his brother-in-law Mr. William Barker and played a friendly game of darts. Mary Bell had been Mary Barker in the days when Bell had bought a wedding ring in old Mr. Jackson’s shop. William Barker was now a widower like himself, living with his daughter Ada and her husband, a master butcher and a very warm man. From the bottom of his heart Bell pitied poor William. “Can’t call his soul his own ’cept of an evening when he steps out to the Hand-and she’d stop him doing that if it didn’t take him out of the way of an evening.” But then Bell had no use for his niece Ada. Purse-proud was what he called her in his own mind, and uppity-“a purse-proud female with uppity notions.”

In the intervals of play and refreshment they discussed Ada and her notions. It was a very great relief to Mr. Barker and enabled him to support a comfortable but enslaved existence in which his daughter made him wear a stiff white collar every day-“And if it was possible to wear two on Sundays, she’d make me do that.”

“Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take an ell-that’s women all over,” said Bell.

Mr. Barker gloomed.

“Her mother was just such another. Ah-she was a good wife was Annie, but a terrible one for keeping things up before the neighbours. That’s where Ada gets it from. I remember Annie giving me a pair of blue vases for me birthday-saved out of the housekeeping money. Very showy they was on the parlour mantelpiece, with gilt ’andles and bunches of flowers painted on the front. And when I took and said to her how I’d rather she’d put good food in my stomach than blue vases on the parlour shelf, she up and told me they was my present and I had ought to be ashamed of myself not to be grateful about it.” Mr. Barker took a pull at his beer. “Ah,” he said-“that’s where Ada gets it from. We had words about them vases, but she got the better of me.”

“Women always do,” said Bell with a twinkle in his eye.

Mr. Barker heaved a reminiscent sigh.

“ Ada ’s very like her,” he said.

At half past nine Bell took his way back to Vandeleur House. At ten he shut the outside door and adjourned to the basement, where he had a final look round before going to bed. Everything was neat and clean, everything was in order. On the old kitchen dresser eight keys hung in a row, each from its own brass hook. They were all there. Miss Underwood had brought back Mrs. Spooner’s key. She must have come down with it whilst he was out. All the keys were there. Bell went to bed, and slept until his alarm-clock went off at half past six on Thursday morning.

In due course all except three of the inhabitants of Vandeleur House went to bed, and some of them slept. Those who did not go to bed were Miss Carola Roland, Mrs. Willard, and Miss Garside. Mr. Willard did not go to bed either-at least not to his own bed in his own flat. But, as it turned out afterwards, he was not in Vandeleur House at all, which is one of the reasons why Mrs. Willard sat up all night.

Meade Underwood went to bed and to sleep. She went to bed because she wanted to be alone, and she slept because she was too exhausted to stay awake. It was a troubled sleep, vexed by dreams which cast a shadow on her thoughts but never came to sight.