Deadly Nightshade by Elizabeth Daly Page B

and India trade. The Bartrams owned a good deal of property here, and they kept enough of it to protect ’em from close neighbors. Here’s their place now.”
    For the last few minutes they had been climbing, steadily if gradually. Mitchell turned the car left, and they entered a narrower road, bordered on the east by a hilly meadow of goldenrod, scrub oak and sumac, and on the west by a picket fence and a high privet hedge. Behind these, straggling lilac bushes and tall trees formed a screen for the big white house that could be dimly discerned, a pattern of light and shade, beyond.
    The car rounded a bend in the road, and Mitchell stopped it in front of a gate. “Here we are,” he said, sliding out from under the wheel. Gamadge also descended, to follow him up a long flagged walk, bordered with flower beds that would have been the better for weeding. The façade of the house rose before them; wide and low, of white-painted brick, with the inevitable green shutters. A broad, shallow flight of steps led up to a portico with fluted columns, and a door with a handsome fanlight. Mitchell climbed the steps, but Gamadge paused on the flagged walk to glance about him.
    â€œLovely old place,” he said. “I haven’t seen a trellis like that in years; and the red honeysuckle on it—I bet that’s been growing there for the best part of a century.”
    He strolled eastward, where flower beds of which the plants had ceased to flower stood up like immense pincushions from the coarse grass of the surrounding turf. Little ornamental wire railings enclosed them, and bordered the winding gravel paths. Ironwork seats and settles, with grapevine backs and arms, rusted under the syringa bushes and mountain-ash trees; and a thick box hedge, dying in patches, was designed to conceal the kitchen garden and drying ground.
    â€œComing?” asked Mitchell, his hand on the old-fashioned brass bellpull.
    â€œJust a minute.” Gamadge crossed the walk, and wandered a few paces to the west of it. Here the trees—evergreens and maples—grew thickly enough to form a grove. He could see glimpses of sunlight beyond, but he did not penetrate to it. He stood quietly sniffing the air.
    â€œSmells good,” he explained. “There’s a tang of salt in it.”
    â€œThe shore isn’t far off.”
    â€œI’ve never been up this way before. Lovely old place—lovely. Dozing, isn’t it? They’ve let it run right to seed. Too much greenery, besides. Just a little too damp and dim.”
    He joined Mitchell at the door, on which a brass plate bore the name BARTRAM in rubbed letters. Mitchell pulled the bell; they heard a far-off tinkle, and after a while the door opened a crack.
    â€œThe family is out,” said a quavering voice.
    â€œAll right, Annie; you know who I am. Let us in,” said Mitchell.
    The door opened halfway. Gamadge saw a scared, wrinkled face, pale-blue eyes, and a small bent figure in dark blue, with a white apron.
    â€œThe family is not at home,” Annie repeated.
    â€œNone of ’em?”
    â€œOnly the nurse and the little girl.”
    â€œWhere are they all?”
    â€œThey’re at the funeral.”
    â€œFuneral! I thought they were going to have the funeral early.”
    â€œA grand Boston funeral. Late, it was—an hour late.”
    â€œI hope they didn’t find much of a crowd at the cemetery.”
    â€œâ€™Twill be like a fair.”
    â€œNot so bad as that, I hope.”
    â€œBut Ormiston will not be at the graveyard.”
    â€œNever you mind that; let us in, will you? I want my friend Mr. Gamadge to meet Miss Ridgeman, and he may like to have a word with you.”
    The door opened wide. As he entered the square hall Gamadge turned to the small creature at his elbow, and asked: “Was Mr. Ormiston expected at the funeral? I didn’t know the Bartrams knew him.”
    Annie replied in a