CHAPTER XIII
He had never seen anybody as scared as Heloise was; that was the one clear impression which Gordon carried away from the interview. She, the self-possessed woman of the world, a soul, one superior to the lesser grades of humanity, seemed to have cowered and shrunk under the domination of Diana’s baleful eye. Gordon sighed, tied his baize apron a little tighter round his waist, and wondered where Trenter kept his stock of plate powder. On the whole, it was good that Trenter was away, and that he was spared the sight of his master’s humiliation. If indeed it was a humiliation to be thrust into an ill-lit pantry with instructions to clean the silver, and be ready at a moment’s notice to make himself presentable. Gordon tried again and attacked a cream-jug half-heartedly. His hands were not designed for housework. Yet he would as soon have thought of cutting his throat with a fruit knife (half-a-dozen of which awaited his attention) as disobey Diana’s imperious gesture which had sent him off to the pantry to clean silver.
He was not asleep; he had made absolutely certain of this; he was wide awake, in his shirt sleeves, a baize apron covering his detestable suit, and he was polishing a cream, or it may have been a milk jug. That fact being firmly and inevitably established, he had some basis for reasoning and wonder. Chief cause for wonder was why Diana kept him in the house at all, believing him to be Double Dan; why she did not send immediately for the police and have him taken off to the nearest lock-up. He was devoutly thankful that she hadn’t! The second cause for wonder was what had happened to the remainder of the domestic staff? Eleanor he had not seen. There was no evidence that the cook was on the premises. Here again this fact provided him with a certain amount of satisfaction—but where were they? He was to learn.
Diana made her appearance at the door of the pantry and he stared at her open-mouthed. Around her dainty waist was a broad leather belt, and, hanging by two straps, was a pistol holster, from the opening of which protruded the black handle of a Browning.
“Do you know anything about potatoes?” she asked curtly.
Gordon was ashamed to discover that he knew nothing about potatoes, except that they were vegetables.
“Have you ever peeled potatoes?”
“I can’t remember,” he said. “When I was at school I think we used to peel potatoes——”
“I’m not interested in what happened at Borstal—that is the name of the juvenile convict establishment, isn’t it? Put that milk-jug down and come into the kitchen.”
He followed her meekly. There was no sign of the cook; Eleanor was invisible, and he learnt the reason.