The Reed house is on Beauregard Square. It is a small, exclusive
community, the Beauregard neighborhood; a dozen or more solid citizens
built their homes there in the early 70’s, occupying large lots, the
houses flush with the streets and with gardens behind. Six on one
street, six on another, back to back with the gardens in the center,
they occupied the whole block. And the gardens were not fenced off, but
made a sort of small park unsuspected from the streets. Here and there
bits of flowering shrubbery sketchily outlined a property, but the
general impression was of lawn and trees, free of access to all the
owners. Thus with the square in front and the gardens in the rear, the
Reed house faced in two directions on the early spring green.
In the gardens the old tar walks were still there, and a fountain which
no longer played, but on whose stone coping I believe the young
Beauregard Squarites made their first climbing ventures.
The gardens were always alive with birds, and later on from my windows I
learned the reason. It seems to have been a custom sanctified by years,
that the crumbs from the twelve tables should be thrown into the dry
basin of the fountain for the birds. It was a common sight to see
stately butlers and _chic_ little waitresses in black and white coming
out after luncheon or dinner with silver trays of crumbs. Many a scrap
of gossip, as well as scrap of food, has been passed along at the old
stone fountain, I believe. I know that it was there that I heard of the
“basement ghost” of Beauregard Square—a whisper at first, a panic later.
I arrived at eight o’clock and rang the doorbell twice. The door was
opened at once by Mr. Reed, a tall, blond young man carefully dressed.
He threw away his cigarette when he saw me and shook hands. The hall was
brightly lighted and most cheerful; in fact the whole house was ablaze
with light. Certainly nothing could be less mysterious than the house,
or than the debonair young man who motioned me into the library.
“I told Mrs. Reed I would talk to you before you go upstairs,” he said.
“Will you sit down?”
I sat down. The library was even brighter than the hall, and now I saw
that although he smiled as cheerfully as ever his face was almost
colorless, and his eyes, which looked frankly enough into mine for a
moment, went wandering off round the room. I had the impression somehow
that Mr. Patton had had of the nurse at headquarters that morning—that
he looked as if he expected a knife in his back. It seemed to me that he
wanted to look over his shoulder and by sheer will-power did not.
“You know the rule, Miss Adams,” he said: “When there’s an emergency get
a trained nurse. I told you our emergency—no servants and two small
children.”
“This should be a good time to secure servants,” I said briskly. “City
houses are being deserted for country places, and a percentage of
servants won’t leave town.”
He hesitated.
“We’ve been doing very nicely, although of course it’s hardly more than
just living. Our meals are sent in from a hotel, and—well, we thought,
since we are going away so soon, that perhaps we could manage.”
The impulse was too strong for him at that moment. He wheeled and looked
behind him, not a hasty glance, but a deliberate inspection that took in
every part of that end of the room. It was so unexpected that it left me
gasping.
The next moment he was himself again.
“When I say that there is no illness,” he said, “I am hardly exact.
There is no illness, but there has been an epidemic of children’s
diseases among the Beauregard Square children and we are keeping the
youngsters indoors.”
“Don’t you think they could be safeguarded without being shut up in the
house?”