The Summons of The Crimson Circle
Thalia Drummond went back to the lodging she had occupied before she
had entered Mr. Harvey Froyant’s service as resident secretary, and
apparently the story of her ill-deeds had preceded her, for the stout
landlady gave her a chilly welcome, and had she not continued to pay
the rent of her one room during the time she was working for Froyant,
it was probable that she would not have been admitted.
It was a small room, neatly if plainly furnished, and oblivious to the
landlady’s glum face and cold reception, she went to her apartment and
locked the door behind her. She had spent a very unpleasant week, for
she had been remanded in custody, and her very clothes seemed to
exhale the musty odour of Holloway Gaol. Holloway, however, had an
advantage which No. 14, Lexington Street, did not possess. It had an
admirable system of bathrooms, for which the girl was truly grateful
as she began to change.
She had plenty to occupy her mind. Harvey Froyant… Jack Beardmore… she
frowned as though at a distasteful thought, and tried to dismiss him
from her mind. It was a relief to go back to Froyant. She almost hated
him. She certainly despised him. The time she had spent in his house
had been the most wretched period in her life. She had taken her meals
with the servants and had been conscious that every scrap of food she
ate had been measured and weighed and duly apportioned by a man whose
cheque for seven figures would have been honoured.
“At least, he didn’t make love to you, my dear,” she said to herself,
and smiled. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Harvey Froyant making love to
anybody. She recalled the days she had followed him about his big
house with a notebook in her hand, whilst he searched for evidence of
his servants’ neglect, drawing his fingers along the polished shelves
in the library in a vain search for dust, turning up carpet corners,
examining silver, or else counting, as he did regularly every week,
the contents of his still-room.
He measured the wine at table and counted the empty bottles, even the
corks. It was his boast that in his big garden he could tell the
absence of a flower. These he sent to market regularly, with the
vegetables he grew and the peaches which ripened on the wall, and woe
betide the unlucky gardener who had poached so much as a ripe apple
from the orchard, for Harvey had an uncanny instinct which led him to
the rifled tree.
She smiled a little wryly at the recollection, and, having completed
her change of costume, she went out, locking the door behind her. Her
landlady watched her pass down the street, and nodded ominously.
“Your lodger’s come back,” said a neighbour.
“Yes, she’s come back,” said the woman grimly. “A nice lady she is--I
don’t think! It is the first time I’ve ever had a crook in my house,
and it’ll be the last. I am giving her notice to-night.”
Unconscious of the criticism, Thalia boarded a bus which took her into
the city. She got down in Fleet Street, went into the large office of
a popular newspaper. At the desk she took an advertisement form,
looked at the white sheet for a moment thoughtfully, then wrote:
“Secretary.--Young lady from the Colonies requires post as
Secretary. Resident-Secretary preferred. Small wages required.
Shorthand and Typewriting.”
She left a space for the box number, handed the advertisement across
the counter, and paid the fee.
She was back again in Lexington Street in time for tea, a meal which
was brought up to her on a battered tray by her landlady.
“Look here, Miss Drummond,” said that worthy person, “I’ve got a few
words to say to you.”
“Say them,” said the girl carelessly.
“I shall want your room after next week.”
Thalia turned slowly.
“Does that mean I’ve got to get out?”
“That’s what it means. I can’t have people like you staying in a
respectable house. I’m surprised at you, a young lady as I always
thought you were.”
“Continue to think so,” said Thalia coolly. “I’m both young and
ladylike.”
But the stout landlady was not to be checked in her well-rehearsed
indictment.
“A nice lady you are,” she said, “giving my house a bad name. You’ve
been in prison for a week. Perhaps you don’t think I know, but I read
the newspapers.”
“I’m sure you do,” said the girl quietly. “That will do, Mrs. Boled. I
leave your house next week.”
“And I should like to say----” began the woman.
“Say it on the mat,” said Thalia, and closed the door in the choleric
lady’s face.
As it was now growing dark, she lit a kerosene lamp and occupied the
evening by manicuring her nails, an operation which was interrupted by
the arrival of the nine o’clock post. She heard the rat-tat at the
door and the heavy feet of her landlady on the stairs.
“A letter for you,” called the woman.
Thalia unlocked the door and took the envelope from the landlady’s
hand.
“You had better tell your friends that you’re going to get a new
address,” said the woman, loath to leave her quarrel half-finished.
“I haven’t told my friends yet that I live in such a horrible place,”
said Thalia sweetly, and locked the door before the woman could think
of a suitable reply.
She smiled as she carried the envelope to the light. It was addressed
in printed characters. She turned it over, looking at the postmark
before she opened it, and extracted a thick white card. At the first
glance of the message her face changed its expression.
The card was a square one, and in the centre was a large crimson
circle. Within the circle was written in the same printed characters:
“_We have need of you. Enter the car which you will find waiting at
the corner of Steyne Square at ten o’clock to-morrow night._”
She put the card down on the table and stared at it.
The Crimson Circle had need of her!
She had expected the summons, but it had come earlier than she had
anticipated.