Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White (top 10 motivational books TXT) 📖

might have crept in by the basement,” suggested Nurse Barker.

“Things have been most peculiar all the night, just as if someone was

working the trick from inside.” She added, with sinister meaning, “We

shall know, if I pass out. I took brandy in my tea. I wonder if it’s

that which makes me feel so dizzy?”

 

As she spoke, she staggered slightly, and passed her hand over her brow.

Helen stared at her, speechless with horror. In spite of the woman’s

venom, she clung to her as desperately as a drowning person clings to

his rescuer.

 

Although her common sense reminded her that Nurse Barker was plugging at

her alarmist policy in order to terrify her, events over which she had

no control seemed to indicate some subterranean direction of the general

withdrawal.

 

One after another her companions had left her. They slept, while she

remained, to watch. In the end, she would be alone.

 

Determined that Nurse Barker should not have the satisfaction of knowing

that she had drawn blood, she kept her head high and her lips steady.

But Nurse Barker looked at her eyes and noticed how the pupils had

swamped the iris.

 

Helen saw her smile, and was suddenly inflamed at reprisal.

 

“I can’t understand why you should grudge me my first chance of

happiness,” she said. “It’s mean. When I was hungry, it didn’t help me

to know others were hungry; too. In fact, it was worse, for I always had

bread, and could guess what it meant to those who had nothing at all.”

 

“Oh? So you’ve starved?” asked Nurse Barker.

 

“Not exactly. But I’ve gone very short, in between jobs.”

 

“That only proves you’re of no use. There’s a glut of unskilled labor.

You’d never be missed.”

 

Again Helen glimpsed the blue star of daylight shining at the end of the

tunnel.

 

“I wish it was tomorrow,” she sighed. “Oh, nurse, help me to come safely

through the night.”

 

“Why? You wouldn’t put yourself out for me.”

 

“I do wish I could prove it was genuine,” Helen said eagerly. “I was a

horrible little beast. But you’ve grown on me. I think I understand,

now, how your doctor felt.”

 

Nurse Barker listened in silence, her expression enigmatic. In the pause

the telephone-bell rang, with startling shrillness. The sound was music

to Helen’s ears, with the reminder that the Summit was still resistant

to the Hollywood tradition of the cut wires.

 

She rushed across the hall, her pale face suddenly vivid with color and

glow.

 

“You were right, as usual,” she panted. “Dr. Parry wasn’t outside, for

he’s ringing me now.”

 

She was so sure of hearing his voice, when she took up the receiver,

that her disappointment was acute at the sound of mincing feminine

accents.

 

“Is thet the Summet?”

 

“Summit speaking,” replied Helen dully.

 

The next minute, she spoke to Nurse Barker.

 

“The call’s for you.” Nurse Barker arose with an air of importance.

 

“Who is ringing me?” she asked.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Unconscious of impending disaster, Helen watched Nurse Barker with none

of her usual interest.

 

“Nurse Barker speaking. Who is it?… Oh, is it you, dear?”

 

The Secretary of the Nursing-Home explained the position.

 

“How nice to hear your voice, dear. I’m still on duty. We’ve a rush op.,

and I’m trying to get Blake. He’s on holiday, and I’m chasing him all

over England. So, while I’m waiting I thought I’d ring you up, just in

case you hadn’t gone to bed.”

 

“Not much chance of that,” said Nurse Barker.

 

“That doesn’t sound too bright. Isn’t the case comfortable?” “Most

uncomfortable. In fact, it’s all most unpleasant and very peculiar.”

 

“I’m not surprised, dear. I think you ought to know that someone rang me

up and asked me the most extraordinary questions about you.”

 

“About me?”

 

Helen caught the inflection of Nurse Barker’s voice.

 

With a sinking heart, she listened to half of the dialogue.

 

“Please repeat that… Indeed. Anything else?… What? The

insolence… Who rang you up?… You are sure it was a girl’s

voice?… When? Please try to remember, because I mean to trace this

back to its source… Are you sure it was that time?… Then I

know which girl it was, for the other had left the house… Not at

all. You are quite right to let me know. Goodbye.”

 

Nurse Barker rang off, and looked at Helen.

 

“You wanted to prove yourself?” she asked. “Well, you’ve done it.

Completely. You’re a liar and a sneak. If I could save your neck by

lifting my little finger, I wouldn’t do it.”

 

Helen opened her lips dumbly, in an effort to explain. But her mind felt

as incapable of coagulation as a lightly-boiled egg. She could only

realize that she had alienated the defense, and that a man was prowling

outside, in the streaming darkness.

 

The man was still there, encircling the house. Lashed by the gale,

twigs flogged his face, like wire whips, as he stooped over the sodden

ground to examine each small basement window.

 

Once he thought he had found a vulnerable spot, for a casement shook

before his pressure. Inserting his pen-knife inside the frame, he hacked

away a makeshift fastening of a peg and some string, but only to meet

the resistance of an inner shutter.

 

The house was armed to its teeth. It was blind and impregnable as an

armored car.

 

Dr. Parry should have been pleased by this evidence of obedience to his

orders. He had advised the most stringent precautions. Yet, as he looked

upwards at the blank walls, seeking in vain a gleam of light from some

upper window, he felt a chill.

 

He had always disliked the tree-muffled isolation of the Summit,

although he was a lover of solitude.

 

Endowed with swift intuitions—swayed by violent likes and dislikes, he

recognized—and fought—a streak of superstition in his nature. At that

moment he distrusted the exterior of the Victorian house, whose tall

chimneys seemed to bore the ragged clouds.

 

Suddenly he thought of a simple way of getting into communication with

Helen. Snapping on his lighter, he searched in his pockets to find a

scrap of paper. When he had discovered an old envelope, he managed, with

difficulty, to scrawl a message upon it. Then he slipped it into the

letter-box and gave the postman’s traditional double-knock.

 

“That’ll bring her down, quicker than a stick of dynamite,” he thought,

as he withdrew to a position on the gravel drive which commanded a view

of the house.

 

As the minutes passed, however, and no signal-light gleamed from any

of the upper windows, he grew apprehensive. The lack of response was not

typical of Helen’s curious nature. With a memory of her sensational

scampers up the stairs, he knew that it would not take her long to reach

the second floor, even if she had followed his advice to sleep in the

basement.

 

Presently he grew tired of standing in the rain, as though he were

planted with the trees. It was evident that the Summit—following her

character of respectable widow—was not at home to stray knocks, after

dark.

 

He was on the point of turning away, when a light glowed in a bedroom on

the second floor. The window was closed, but not shuttered, and screened

by a light curtain of turquoise-blue.

 

At the sight his face lit up with welcome. Not until he was on the point

of hearing her voice again, did he realize the strength of his feeling

for Helen. The glow in his heart rose to his lips and flamed into a

smile. His lover’s rapture made the subsequent disappointment the

keener. With a shock of positive horror, he saw—thrown upon the light

screen of the curtain—a furtive, crouching shadow.

 

It was the head and shoulders of a man.