Miss Million's Maid Part 30

She's accustomed to giving me her impressions of every fresh person she sees; talking over each detail of their appearance while I'm doing her hair.... I mean that's what she used to be accustomed to! If only I knew when I should do her hair again!

Well, I walked upstairs, and the first hint of coming discomfort met me on our landing. It took the shape of our sandy-haired chamber-maid. She was whisking down the corridor, looking flushed and highly indignant over something or other. As I pa.s.sed her she pulled up for a moment and addressed me.

"Your turn next, Miss Smith, I suppose!" she sniffed, with the air of one who feels that (like Job) she does well to be angry. "You'd better be getting ready for it!"

"Getting ready for what?" I asked bewilderedly.

But the sandy-haired one, with another little snort, had pa.s.sed on.

I think I heard her muttering something about "Never had such a thing happen before! The ideear!" as she disappeared down the corridor. I was puzzled as I went back into Miss Million's room, that seems to have been empty for so long. What did the chamber-maid mean? What "thing" had happened? What was I to prepare for? And it was my "turn" for what?

I was soon to know.

CHAPTER XXI

AN UNEXPECTED INVASION!

I HAD scarcely been in the room ten minutes. I was putting fresh water into the tall gla.s.s jar that held the sheaf of red carnations, when there came yet another tap at the white door that I have had to open several times already to-day, but never to any messenger with tidings of my missing mistress!

This time, to my amazement, it was quite a group of men who asked for admittance to Miss Million's room!

There was first the frock-coated manager; then a very stout and black-eyed and fleshy-nosed Hebrew gentleman whom I hadn't seen before; then a quiet-looking man with a black tie whom I recognised as the one who had been pointed out to me by the telephone girl as a Scotland Yard plain-clothes detective; then the young American in the light-grey tweeds.

I wondered if I were dreaming as this quartette proceeded to walk calmly in.

Such an invasion!

What could they all want?

The manager turned to me with a smile. He spoke in quite as pleasant a voice as he had spoken before; it was, indeed, quite conciliating! But there was an order behind it!

"Now, Miss Smith, I am very sorry to have to disturb you. We're all very sorry, I'm sure," with a glance at the other three men.

The detective looked polite and blank; the Jew man seemed fussing and fuming over something; the young American glanced interestedly about the room, taking everything in, down to the carnations in my hand. He smiled at me. He had a friendly face.

"Not at all," I said, wis.h.i.+ng my heart would not beat with such unreasonable alarm. "Is there anything--is it anything about my mistress?"

"Oh, no. Miss Smith. It's a mere formality we're asking you to submit to," said the manager. "All our own staff have complied, without raising any objection. And we think it advisable to apply the same thing to other--er--to other people employed about the place. It's as much for your own sake as for ours, you know?"

"What is?" I asked, feeling distinctly more fluttered.

"I am sure you're far too reasonable to make any demur," the manager went on soothingly. "The last young lady, our Miss Mackenzie, raised no objection at all."

Mackenzie is the sandy-haired chamber-maid.

"Objection to what?" I asked, with as much dignity as I could possibly summon up.

"Why, to having us go through her boxes, Miss Smith," said the manager with great suavity. "The fact is an article of value is missing from this hotel. The property of Mr. Rattenheimer here," with a turn towards the obese Hebrew, "and it would be a satisfaction to him and to all of us to prove that no suspicious can be attached to anybody in the place.

So----"

So that was it!

They wanted to search my things to see if I were a thief!

Yes, they actually wanted to search my trunks! Just as if I were a suspected servant in a country house where one of the guests finds a diamond bar missing!

Here was a nice predicament for Aunt Anastasia's niece, and for my poor father's child, to say nothing of Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter!

It was so absurd that I nearly laughed. At all events, I suppose the anxious expression must have left my face for the moment.

The manager rubbed his hands, and said in a pleased voice: "Ah, I knew you were sensible, and would make no fuss! When people have clear consciences I don't suppose they mind who goes looking through their things. I am sure I should not mind anybody in the world knowing what was inside my boxes. Now, Miss Smith, I think your room is No. 46, is it not? So if you will be kind enough to give me your keys, and----If you would not mind stepping with us across the corridor----"

Here I found voice.

"You really mean it?" I said. "You want to search my trunks?"

"Merely as a matter of form," repeated the manager a little more insistently. "I am sure a young lady like you would not mind who knew what was in her trunks."

I stood there, one hand still full of the red carnations that I was rearranging, the other gripping the end of the pink couch. I was thinking at lightning speed even as the frock-coated, shrewd-eyed, suave-voiced manager was speaking.

My trunks?

Well, as far as that went, I had only one trunk to my name! For I had given Mackenzie, the sandy-haired chamber-maid, all the luggage which had known me in Putney.

When she asked me what she was to do with it, I told her she could give it to the dustman to take away, or cut it up for lighting the fires with, or anything she liked. She had said, "Very good" in a wooden tone that I knew masked surprise and wonderment unceasing over the inhabitants of Nos. 44, 45, and 46. Consequently I had, as I say, only one single trunk in the whole wide world.

And that was the brand-new masterpiece of the trunkmaker's art, bought in Bond Street, and handed over to me for my use by Miss Million on the ill-fated day when we first arrived at the Cecil.

As for what was in it----

Well, in one of Miss Million's own idioms, "It was full of emptiness"!

There was not a thing in it but the incorporate air and the expensive-smelling perfume of very good new leather!

As the luggage of a modest lady's-maid it was really too eccentric-looking to display to the suspicious eyes of the four men who waited there in Miss Million's sitting-room confronting me. I protested incoherently: "Oh, I don't think I can let you----"

"Ah!" said the stout Jewish gentleman, with a vicious glance from me to the Scotland Yard detective, "this don't seem a case of a very clear conscience!"

The manager put up a deprecating hand.

"A little quietly, sir, if you please. I am sure Miss Smith will see that it is quite as much for her own benefit to let us just give a bit of a look through her things."

Her "things!" There, again, was something rather embarra.s.sing. The fact was I had so ridiculously few things. No dress at all but the well-cut, brand-new gown that I stood up in; one hat, one jacket, and two pairs of expensive shoes, three changes of underclothes, and silk stockings. All were good, but all so obviously just out of the shop! There was absolutely nothing about them to link their owner to any past before she came to the hotel!

For the fact is that when I sent my boxes and hold-all away I had also repudiated every st.i.tch of the very shabby clothing that had been mine while I was not Miss Million's maid, but her mistress. The ne'er-do-well serge skirts, the makes.h.i.+ft "j.a.p" silk blouses with no "cut" about them, the underclothes, all darned and patched, the much-mended stockings, once black cashmere but now faded to a kind of myrtle-green--all, all had gone to swell two bulky parcels which I had put up and sent off to The Little Sisters of the Poor!