The Cases of Susan Dare by Mignon G. Eberhart

moment, locked her door and presently went to bed and listened to the rain against the windowpanes and wished she could sleep. However, she must have fallen asleep, for she awakened suddenly and in fright. It had stopped raining. And somewhere there had been a sound.
    There had been a sound, but it was no more. She only knew that it had waked her and that she was ridiculously terrified. And then all at once her heart stopped its absurd pounding and was perfectly still. For something—out there in the long and empty hall—had brushed against her bedroom door!
    She couldn’t, either then or later, have persuaded herself to go to that door and open it and look into the hall. And anyway, as the moments dragged on, she was convinced that whoever or whatever had brushed against her door was gone. But she sat, huddled under blankets, stonily wide awake until slow gray dawn began to crawl into the room. Then she fell again into sleep, only to be waked this time by the maid, carrying a breakfast tray and looking what she thought of trained nurses who slept late. Mrs. Denisty, she informed Susan, wished to see her.
    Not, thought Susan, getting into the unaccustomed uniform, an auspicious beginning. And she was shocked to discover that she looked incredibly young and more than a little flip in the crisply tailored white dress and white cap. She took her horn-rimmed spectacles, which improved things very little, and her thermometer, and went downstairs, endeavoring to look stern enough to offset the unfortunate effect of the cap.
    But on the wide landing of the stairs she realized that the thick, white-haired woman in the hall below was interested only in the tongue-lashing she was giving two maids. They were careless, they were lying, they had broken it—all of it. She looked up just then and saw Susan and became at once bland.
    “Good morning, Miss Dare,” she said. “Will you come down?” She dismissed the servants and met Susan at the foot of the stairs. “We’ll go into this drawing room,” she said. She wore a creamy white wool dress with blue beads and a blue handkerchief and did not ask Susan to sit down.
    “The household is a little upset just now,” she said. “There was an unfortunate occurrence here, night before last. Yes—unfortunate. And then yesterday or last night the maid or cook or somebody managed to break some Venetian glass—quite a lot of it—that my daughter-in-law was much attached to. Neither of them will admit it. However, about my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Gladstone Denisty, whom you are here to care for: I only wished to tell you, Miss Dare, that her nerves are bad, and the main thing, I believe, is merely to humor her. And if there is anything you wish to know, or if any—problem—arises, come to me. Do you understand?”
    Susan wondered what was wrong with the room and said she understood.
    “Very well,” said Mrs. Denisty, rising. “That is all.”
    But that was not all. For there was a whirlwind of steps, and a voice sobbing broken phrases swept through the door, and a woman ran into the room clutching in both hands something bright and crimson. A queer little chill that she could never account for crept over Susan as she realized that the woman clutched, actually, broken pieces of glass.
    “Did you see, Mother Denisty?” sobbed the woman. “It’s all over the floor. How much more—how much more—”
    “Felicia!” cried Mrs. Denisty sternly. “Hush—yes, I know. It was an accident.”
    “An accident! But you know—you know—”
    “The nurse is here—Miss Dare.”
    The young woman whirled. She was—or had been—of extraordinary beauty. Slender and tall, with fine, fair hair and great, brilliant gray eyes. But the eyes were hollow and the lids swollen and pink, and her mouth pale and uncertain.
    “But I don’t need a nurse.”
    “Just for a few days,” said Mrs. Denisty firmly. “The doctor advised it.”
    The great gray eyes met Susan’s fixedly—too fixedly,