“I might stay on for a time, sir,—if—if they made it worth my while.”
“Oh, greed might keep you here! Kelly, what about you? Are you going to desert this stricken household?”
“I’ll—I’ll stay for a time, sir,” the butler said, quite evidently ill at ease. “Now, you mustn’t blame us, Mr Potter for——”
“I do blame you! I know how you feel about a house where there’s a mystery, but also, you ought to be glad to do whatever you can to help. And nothing could help poor Mrs Varian so much as to have some of her servants faithful to her. Also, I’m pretty sure I may promise you extra pay,—as I know that will hold you, when nothing else will.”
“And now,” Bill Dunn put in, “you’d better fix up a meal for those who want it. They had no picnic supper, you see, and there are the guests to be considered as well as your Mrs Varian.”
“Speakin’ one word for them and two for yourself, I’m thinkin’,” Hannah sniffed, as she began to tie on her apron. “Well, Mr Potter, you’ll be welcome to a good meal, I’m sure.”
“One moment, Hannah,” said Bill, “when you left here today, was there a sofa pillow out here in the kitchen?”
“A sofy pillow? There was not. Why should such a thing be?”
“A yellow satin one,—embroidered.”
“Off the hall sofy? No, sir, it never was in my kitchen at all.”