Read Online Deadly Nightshade by Elizabeth Daly - Free Book Online Page A

the family, in the dry cleaner’s van.”
    â€œBut on Tuesday morning she came in by the front door, and didn’t see a thing. Meanwhile, Miss Ridgeman was helping you in the kitchen. What time was it when you asked her to come in and lend a hand?”
    â€œIt’s not for me to call a nurse away from a child. Nobody can say I did a thing like that.”
    â€œOf course not. I mean, what time did she come?”
    â€œIt was after twelve when she looked in on me and saw the dishes from the top shelf of the pantry waiting to be washed, and the vegetables wilting in their skins. ‘Annie,’ she says, ‘you’ll kill your knee entirely,’ she says. And not a step did she take out of the kitchen until the doorbell rang and the company came. It was kind of the woman, tired as she had a right to be herself, with cleaning the upstairs.”
    At this moment a nurse in a white uniform appeared in the hall above, holding a little girl by the hand.
    â€œGood morning, Miss Ridgeman,” said Mitchell. “I hear the family’s been delayed.”
    â€œA little.” She came down, the little girl eagerly stepping from stair to stair beside her. “They’ll be here any minute now, and I know Mr. George Bartram will want to see you, even if Mr. Bartram isn’t up to it yet.”
    Annie disappeared through a baize door at the end of the long hall, and Miss Ridgeman assisted her charge down the rest of the stairway. Mitchell introduced Gamadge, who shook hands gravely with the nurse and with Miss Irma Bartram. The latter swung on Miss Ridgeman’s hand in a carefree manner; she was a jolly-looking little girl, with thick, curly brown hair and round brown eyes, whose short white dress and blue jumper gave her the appearance of being about seven eighths leg. Miss Ridgeman was a square-built, rather homely woman, darkish in coloring, with a face and manner that expressed practical common sense. This had been overlaid at the moment by a dryness and constraint that might well have been the effects of a great shock. Even her voice was subdued, as she said:
    â€œCome into the sitting room. I should like very much to talk to you, and Irma can play chess. Can’t you, Irma?”
    Irma nodded, and ran into the sitting room ahead of them. She skipped to a low table at the farther end of the long parlor, and opened a rosewood box. From it she began to take out big red-and-white carved ivory chessmen, which she ranged in two rows.
    Miss Ridgeman led the two men to a bay window overlooking the front garden.
    â€œIt’s just as well that we have young company with us at present,” she said, in that dry, strained voice. “We have to pretend to be cheerful, and that’s just what we all need.”
    â€œYou’ve been fine, Miss Ridgeman,” said Mitchell. “I’ll have to hand it to you.”
    â€œFine?” The nurse’s face hardened. “That’s hardly the word to describe my behavior, I’m afraid. If I can help them in any way now, I’m thankful for the chance.”
    â€œDon’t feel that way. I wish you’d tell me something; is that old cook of yours all right in the head?”
    â€œAnnie? Oh, yes. It’s been a frightful shock to her, that’s all. Has she been telling you there’s a curse on the place?”
    â€œYes, she has.”
    â€œNobody can quite make out what she means. I suppose you could call what happened a curse.”
    â€œBut she don’t know what really did happen, you think?”
    â€œAbsolutely not. She never notices what goes on. I wanted to ask you if you’d had any news—about that little gypsy boy, for instance.”
    â€œNo news about him at all.”
    â€œI do hope they can prove that he wasn’t responsible. Doctor Loring and I want Mr. Bartram to take him.”
    Mitchell was astonished. “Take him?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œFor good, you