The Blind Side by Patricia Wentworth Page B

was shut.”
    â€œSure?”
    â€œQuite sure—quite, quite sure.”
    â€œThen how could you have got in? Be reasonable.”
    She looked at him in a distressed way.
    â€œI don’t know. You said Ross was stoshed. Perhaps he didn’t shut the door when he went in—if he was drunk. Did you mean that he was drunk?”
    â€œOh, he’d certainly been drinking, but I don’t suppose he was drunk. It takes a lot to make Ross drunk. No, he was just stoshed—silly—didn’t know what he was doing. Mavis had knocked him out. A decanter full of whiskey is quite a hearty weapon. Yes, I suppose he might have left the door open, but there’s nothing in that to worry you—No, but—by gum, there is! Because if you were inside the flat, those pretty little footprints of yours will be damn well all over the place.” He laughed. “It’s no odds, because he’ll only mink it was Mavis, and he’ll want to hush the whole thing up. And his man won’t know who was there—only that there was a rough house and a lot of mess to clear up. And I don’t suppose it’s the first time by a long chalk. I expect he’s paid to hold his tongue. Now look here, what about this girl Mavis? The best thing we can do now is to cart her across to Lucy’s flat, and officially she spent the night there. In fact, you chaperon each other. By the way, I don’t know what she was up to, but she went out again after I took her in. She had the bedroom, and I was in here, and I heard the front door. Something had just waked me, and mere she was, sneaking in with a little silver bag in her hand.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Peter nodded.
    â€œIt was hers all right—matched her dress—made of the same stuff. She had it with her at the Ducks and Drakes—”
    â€œYou were at the Ducks and Drakes—last night?”
    Peter grinned.
    â€œI was, my child, but not with her. She was with our dear cousin Ross. She had the little silver bag. And I was with the Nelsons and a party.” He groaned. “All enthusiastic, up from the country, and the temperature rising ninety! There is no call for jealousy. But to return to Mavis. She said she’d dropped her bag on the landing after the fracas, but I’m prepared to swear she hadn’t got it when she came tottering out of Ross’s flat, so it looks to me as if she had gone back for it.”
    â€œWould she, if he had frightened her as much as that?”
    â€œThat depends on what was in the bag, and how badly she wanted it. She might have reckoned on his being asleep.”
    â€œBut she couldn’t have reckoned on finding the door open.”
    â€œShe might have gone out on the landing to see if she had dropped it there, and then found that the door wasn’t shut.”
    There was a pause. Lee said in a careful voice,
    â€œIt couldn’t have been shut. If it had been shut, I couldn’t have got in. But if I was walking in my sleep—” She broke off. “I wonder which of us shut the door, because it was shut this morning, and one of us must have shut it—either Mavis or I.”
    Without waiting for him to speak she turned away. “We’d better see how she’s getting on,” she said, and went quickly to the communicating door. But no sooner was it open than she turned a frightened face on him.
    â€œPeter—she’s gone!”
    Peter said, “Nonsense!” and, when they had looked in the bathroom and kitchen, “Good riddance.” But he was left with a feeling of profound discomfort. Mavis had fainted when she saw Lee, and it was a real honest-to-goodness faint and no sham. And now she had run away without a word to either of them, and though it was a good riddance, it was also a disquieting circumstance.
    He went out on the landing and listened. Rush was down in the hall. He could hear him stumping about, swishing with a broom. He