Four square Jane
is what makes it so difficult. As likely as not she will be one of
them.”
“Would you trust them all with your life?” she asked mischievously,
and then going on: “I think I know your Four Square woman. Mind,” she
raised her hand, “I’m not going to say that I shall discover her
here.”
“I hope to goodness you don’t,” said Joe heartily.
“Or if I do find her I’m going to denounce her. Perhaps you can tell
me something else about her.”
Mr. Lewinstein shook his head.
“The only thing I know is that when she’s made a haul, she usually
leaves behind a mark.”
“That I know,” said the girl nodding. “She does that in order that
suspicion shall not fall upon the servants.”
The girl thought a moment, tapping her teeth with a pencil, then she
said:
“Whatever I do, Mr. Lewinstein, you must not regard as remarkable. I
have set my mind on capturing Four Square Jane, and starting my career
in England with a big flourish of silver trumpets.” She smiled so
charmingly that Mrs. Lewinstein in the doorway raised her eyebrows.
“It is time you were going, Joseph,” she said severely. “What am I to
do with this young woman?”
“Let somebody show her her room,” said the temporarily flustered Mr.
Lewinstein, and hurried out to the waiting car.
Mrs. Lewinstein rang the bell. She had no interest in detectives,
especially pretty detectives of twenty-three.
Adchester Manor House was a large establishment, but it was packed to
its utmost capacity to accommodate the guests who arrived that night.
All Mrs. Lewinstein had said--that these pretty women and amusing men
had been lured into Buckinghamshire with a lively hope of favours to
come--might be true. Joe Lewinstein was not only a power in the City,
with the control of four great corporations, but the Lewinstein
interests stretched from Colorado to Vladivostock.
It was a particularly brilliant party which sat down to dinner that
night, and if Mr. Lewinstein swelled a little with pride, that pride
was certainly justified. On his right sat Lady Ovingham, a thin woman
with the prettiness that consists chiefly in huge appealing eyes and
an almost alarming pallor of skin. Her appearance greatly belied her
character, for she was an unusually able business woman, and had
partnered Mr. Lewinstein in some of his safer speculations. An arm
covered from wrist to elbow with diamond bracelets testified to the
success of these ventures in finance, for Lady Ovingham had a way of
investing her money in diamonds, for she knew that these stones would
not suddenly depreciate in value.
The conversation was animated and, in many cases, hilarious, for Mr.
Lewinstein had mixed his guests as carefully as his butler had mixed
the cocktails, and both things helped materially towards the success
of the evening.
It was towards the end of the dinner that the first disagreeable
incident occurred. His butler leant over him, ostensibly to pour out a
glass of wine, and whispered:
“That young lady that came this afternoon, sir, has been taken ill.”
“Ill!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay. “What happened?”
“She complained of a bad headache, was seized with tremblings, and had
to be taken up to her room,” said the butler in a low voice.
“Send into the village for the doctor.”
“I did, sir,” said the man, “but the doctor had been called away to
London on an important consultation.”
Mr. Lewinstein frowned. Then a little gleam of relief came to him. The
detective had asked him not to be alarmed at anything that might
happen. Possibly this was a ruse for her own purpose. She ought to
have told him though, he complained to himself.
“Very good, wait till dinner is over,” he said.
When that function was finished, and the guests had reached the coffee
and cigarette stage before entering the big ballroom or retiring to
their cards, Mr. Lewinstein climbed to the third floor to the tiny
bedroom which had been allocated by his lady wife as being adequate
for a lady detective.
He knocked at the door.
“Come in,” said a faint voice.
The girl was lying on the bed, covered with an eiderdown quilt, and
she was shivering.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me
even.”
“Good Lord!” said Mr. Lewinstein in dismay, “you’re not really ill,
are you?”
“I’m afraid so; I’m awfully sorry. I don’t know what has happened to
me, and I have a feeling that my illness is not wholly accidental. I
was feeling well until I had a cup of tea, which was brought to my
room, when suddenly I was taken with these shivers. Can you get me a
doctor?”
“I’ll do my best,” said Mr. Lewinstein, for he had a kindly heart.
He went downstairs a somewhat anxious man. If, as the girl seemed to
suggest, she had been doped, that presupposed the presence in the
house either of Four Square Jane or one of her working partners. He
reached the hall to find the butler waiting.
“Excuse me, sir,” said the butler, “but rather a fortunate thing has
happened. A gentleman who has run short of petrol came up to the house
to borrow a supply----”
“Well?” said Mr. Lewinstein.
“Well, sir, he happens to be a doctor,” said the butler. “I asked him
to see you, sir.”
“Fine,” said Mr. Lewinstein enthusiastically, “that’s a good idea of
yours. Bring him into the library.”
The stranded motorist, a tall young man, came in full of apologies.
“I say, it’s awfully good of you to let me have this juice,” he said.
“The fact is, my silly ass of a man packed me two empty tins.”
“Delighted to help you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein genially; “and
now perhaps you can help me.”
The young man looked at the other suspiciously.
“You haven’t anybody ill, have you?” he asked, “I promised my partner
I wouldn’t look at a patient for three months. You see,” he explained,
“I’ve had rather a heavy time lately, and I’m a bit run down.”
“You’d be doing us a real kindness if you’d look at this young lady,”
said Mr. Lewinstein earnestly. “I don’t know what to make of her,
doctor.”
“Setheridge is my name,” said the doctor. “All right, I’ll look at
your patient. It was ungracious of me to pull a face I suppose. Where
is she? Is she one of your guests by the way? I seem to have butted in
on a party.”
“Not exactly,” Mr. Lewinstein hesitated, “she is--er--a visitor.”
He led the way up to the room, and the young man walked in and looked
at the shivering girl with the easy confident smile of the experienced
practitioner.
“Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter with you?”
He took her wrist in his hand and looked at his watch, and Mr.
Lewinstein, standing in the open doorway, saw him frown. He bent down
and examined the eyes, then pulled up the sleeve of his patient’s
dress and whistled.
“Is it serious?” she asked anxiously.
“Not very, if you are taken care of; though you may lose some of that
hair,” he said, with a smile at the brown mop on the pillow.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Scarlet fever, my young friend.”
“Scarlet fever!” It was Mr. Lewinstein who gasped the words. “You
don’t mean that?”
The doctor walked out and joined him on the landing, closing the door
behind him.
“It’s scarlet fever, all right. Have you any idea where she was
infected?”
“Scarlet fever,” moaned Mr. Lewinstein; “and I’ve got the house full
of aristocracy!”
“Well, the best thing you can do is to keep the aristocracy in
ignorance of the fact. Get the girl out of the house.”
“But how? How?” wailed Mr. Lewinstein.
The doctor scratched his head.
“Of course, I don’t want to do it,” he said slowly; “but I can’t very
well leave a girl in a mess like this. May I use your telephone?”
“Certainly, use anything you like; but, for goodness’ sake, get the
girl away!”
Mr. Lewinstein showed him the library, where the young man called up a
number and gave some instructions. Apparently his telephone interview
was satisfactory, for he came back to the hall, where Mr. Lewinstein
was nervously drumming his fingers on the polished surface of a table,
with a smile.
“I can get an ambulance out here, but not before three in the
morning,” he said; “anyway, that will suit us, because your guests
will be abed and asleep by then, and most of the servants also, I
suppose. And we can get her out without anybody being the wiser.”
“I’m awfully obliged to you, doctor,” said Mr. Lewinstein, “anything
you like to charge me----”
The doctor waved fees out of consideration.
Then a thought occurred to Mr. Lewinstein.
“Doctor, could that disease be communicated to the girl by means of a
drug, or anything?”
“Why do you ask?” said the other quickly.
“Well, because she was all right till she had a cup of tea. I must
take you into my confidence,” he said, lowering his voice. “She is a
detective, brought down here to look after my guests. There have been
a number of robberies committed lately by a woman who calls herself
‘Four Square Jane,’ and, to be on the safe side, I had this girl down
to protect the property of my friends. When I saw her before dinner
she was as well as you or I; then a cup of tea was given to her, and
immediately she had these shiverings.”
The doctor nodded thoughtfully.
“It is curious you should say that,” he said; “for though she has the
symptoms of scarlet fever, she has others which are not usually to be
found in scarlet fever cases. Do you suggest that this woman, this
Four Square person, is in the house?”
“Either she or her agent,” said Mr. Lewinstein. “She has several
people who work with her by all accounts.”
“And you believe that she has given this girl a drug to put her out of
the way?”
“That’s my idea.”
“By jove!” said the young man, “that’s rather a scheme. Well, anyway,
there will be plenty of people knocking about to-night, so your guests
will be safe for to-night.”
The girl had been housed in the servants’ wing, but fortunately in a
room isolated from all the others. Mr. Lewinstein made several trips
upstairs during the course of the evening, saw through the open door
the doctor sitting by the side of the bed, and was content. His guests
retired towards one o’clock and the agitated Mrs. Lewinstein, to whom
the news of the catastrophe had been imparted, having been
successfully induced to go to bed, Mr. Lewinstein breathed more
freely.
At half-past one he made his third visit to the door of the sick room,
for he, himself, was not without dread of infection, and saw through
the open door the doctor sitting reading a book near the head of the
bed.
He stole quietly down, so quietly that he almost surprised a slim
figure that was stealing along the darkened corridor whence opened the
bedrooms of the principal guests.
She flattened herself into a recess, and he passed her so closely that
she could have touched him. She waited until he had disappeared, and
then crossed to one of the doors and felt gingerly at the key-hole.
The occupant had made the mistake of locking the door and taking out
the key, and in a second she had inserted one of her own, and softly
turning it, had tip-toed into the room.
She stood listening; there was a steady breathing, and she made her
way to the dressing-table, where her deft fingers began a rapid but
silent search. Presently she found what she wanted, a smooth leather
case, and shook it gently. She was not a minute in the room before she
was out again, closing the door softly behind her.
She had half-opened the next door before she saw that there was a
light in the room and she stood motionless in the shadow of the
doorway. On the far side of the bed the little table-lamp was still
burning, and it would, she reflected, have helped her a great deal, if
only she could have been sure that the person who was lying among the
frilled pillows of the bed was really asleep. She waited rigid, and