Into the Valley of Death by Evelyn Hervey

attention rather than the other way about.
    It did not take her long to get to the still-room, where she knew a quantity of a laudanum preparation had been left in readiness. Carrying a small glass of it on a tray, she quickly made her way back.
    The lady seemed not to have been disturbed. She was lying where Miss Unwin had left her with her eyes shut and the soaked handkerchief spread over her pale forehead.
    “This should help you feel better, madam,” Miss Unwin said.
    The lady sat up and drank down her draught. But then, to Miss Unwin’s intense irritation, she closed her eyes again and lay back.
    Would it be right to creep from the room and leave her where she was? And would it be safe to beckon Phemy from behind the curtains to follow? She must get to know as soon as possible if there was anywhere from which she could observe the notorious Mrs. De Lyall and the men who hung about her.
    She decided to give the ailing lady just five minutes by the ormolu clock on the room’s mantelpiece before risking signalling to Phemy. And her decision proved justified. The clock’s gilt minute-hand had moved forward for only four of the five minutes when the lady abruptly sat up, declared she felt a little better, and said she would go and look for her husband.
    Hardly was she out of the room when Phemy burst through the curtains.
    “Hey, miss,” she said, “you know who that was, don’t you?”
    “No. No, who was it?”
    “Why, only the wife of your deadly rival.”
    “My rival? What do you mean?”
    “Don’t you twig? That’s Mrs. Major Charteris, and her husband’s our new Chief Constable.”
    “Oh, is the county Chief Constable here?” Miss Unwin said coolly. “I suppose he would be, if all the gentry of the neighbourhood are invited. But why do you call him my rival?”
    “Well, I should think that’s plain. I’m beginning to wonder whether you’re much of a female detective after all.”
    Miss Unwin thought quickly. She must regain her slipping reputation with this child. The imp was such a find as a source of knowledge.
    “Ah, you mean that the Chief Constable was responsible for Jack Steadman’s arrest, and I am here to find him innocent?”
    “Hit it right away.”
    “Well, that’s as may be. But what I want now is a good chance of observing Mrs. De Lyall while I myself remain unseen.”
    “Pooh, that’s easy.”
    “Easy?”
    “Yes, there’s a little gallery above the ballroom. Grandpapa told me once that when the ballroom was the great hall of the house, musicians used to play there. But it’d come tumbling down now if you tried to get all our band up into it, great fatties that they are.”
    Once more, sharp words about personal remarks came into the head of Miss Unwin, governess. And once more Miss Unwin, detective, silenced them.
    “Then lead me to your gallery,” she said. “Quickly, before anyone else comes and complains of the headache.”
    “I can’t,” Phemy answered.
    “What do you mean, you can’t? Listen, child, it is vitally important for me to set up a watch on Mrs. De Lyall. A man’s life may depend on it.”
    Her fierceness did have the effect of wiping the grin off Phemy’s face.
    “Oh, miss,” she said, “don’t be cross. I only meant I’ll have to tell you how to get to the gallery because I can’t come with you. Grandpapa’s awfully kind-hearted, but if he saw me going about the house dressed as I am, no stockings and everything, there’d be a most fearful row. He’d have an apoplexy on the spot.”
    “Yes, of course, you’re quite right. You go back and hide where you were, but tell me first how to get to the gallery.”
    Phemy’s instructions were complicated. But Miss Unwin forced herself to memorise them exactly. It was, truly, vital that she should be able to observe Mrs. De Lyall and, more important even, to watch the men who buzzed round this female honeypot.
    In the end she found, hurrying through the house keeping respectfully close to the