One morning, after I’d been four whole years at Aunt Emma’s, I heard a ring at the bell, and, looking over the stairs, saw a tall and handsome man in a semi-military coat, who asked in a most audible voice for Miss Callingham.
Maria, the housemaid, hesitated a moment.
“Miss Callingham’s in, sir,” she answered in a somewhat dubious tone; “but I don’t know whether I ought to let you see her or not. My mistress is out; and I’ve strict orders that no strangers are to call on Miss Callingham when her aunt’s not here.”
And she held the door ajar in her hand undecidedly.
The tall man smiled, and seemed to me to slip a coin quietly into Maria’s palm.
“So much the better,” he answered, with unobtrusive persistence; “I thought Miss Moore was out. That’s just why I’ve come. I’m an officer from Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Callingham—alone—most particularly.”
Maria drew herself up and paused.
My heart stood still within me at this chance of enlightenment. I guessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor of excitement:
“Show the gentleman into the drawing-room, Maria. I ‘ll come down to him at once.”
For I was dying to know the explanation of the Picture that haunted me so persistently; and as nobody at home would ever tell me anything worth knowing about it, I thought this was as good an opportunity as I could get for making a beginning towards the solution of the mystery.