LITMIR.BIZ

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said Ben, ‘fer one thing, I ain’t uster sleepin’ with me door locked.’

      ‘And for another thing?’

      ‘Bein’ spied on! I bar that!’

      ‘Who has been spying on you, Mr Lynch?’

      ‘I expeck you know as well as me. The bloke in the next room. ’Ow’d you like it if some ’un sent searchlights through peepholes onter you?’

      ‘He will do it!’ smiled Miss Warren. ‘I’ll speak to him about it. But the locked door—well, we’ll see. And is that everything?’

      ‘No,’ replied Ben, refusing to be rushed. He was quite sure Harry Lynch would not have permitted it. ‘I like a bit of air.’

      ‘I see. The windows are worrying you, too?’

      ‘Tork abart suffercatin’!’

      ‘And how about the arrangement of this room? Do you think the bed would be better against another wall? And is the colour-scheme satisfactory? And your shaving-water—what time would you like it brought?’ She was still smiling, but a quality that made Ben wary had entered her voice. Ben’s difficulty was in finding a common denominator between what he felt and what Harry Lynch would have felt. He was struggling with the difficulty now as Helen Warren continued, ‘Now, listen to me, Mr Lynch. I am going to admit at once that I find you a most unusual person, and that, when I have found out a little more about you—and I take no chances, you know—I think you will prove the very man for the difficult job you’ve been engaged for. Because of that I am ready to put up with your—peculiarities, shall we call them?—and as I like novel sensations I am even ready to enjoy certain of them. But while you are in this flat you will not question the rules of this flat—when your own sense cannot supply any reason—and you will keep to the rules of this flat. Now, is that quite clear?’

      Ben returned her steady gaze for a little while without replying. ‘She’s watchin’ me,’ he thought, ‘to see ’ow I’m tikin’ it. So ’ow ’ave I gotter tike it?’

      Conscious that the moment was a crucial one, he wished some invisible person could have been standing by to advise him. That dead detective, for instance, whose job Ben was carrying on—he would have known how to deal with this dangerous, soul-searching woman! Yes, and she was searching her new recruit’s soul now, all right … Then, all at once, the new recruit remembered something.

      Once, on a cannibal island, he had been taken for a god by the natives. He had maintained the convenient but uncomfortable illusion, actually using it for the betterment of the island before effecting his escape, by periodically pretending to himself that he was a god. Only by yielding to the part was he able to understand and act the part. Now he would have to yield, when in doubt, to the part of Harry Lynch, to discover how he would behave.

      The mental gymnastics of slipping into the skin of a crook and potential murderer were less attractive than those of entering the more ethereal surfaces of a deity. The latter gave you a sort of a glow, like. The former gave you a sort of a shudder, like. ‘Yer can’t git away from it,’ reflected Ben. ‘I fair ’ates blood!’ But it was for the blood of a dead detective he would now be assuming that red was his favourite colour, and that thought would sustain him.

      ‘Don’t keep me waiting, Mr Lynch, will you?’ said the woman who was watching him.

      ‘I do when I wanter,’ replied Mr Lynch.

      ‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I’d better remind you, then, that your predecessor wanted to.’

      ‘Prederwotter?’

      ‘I must remember your dictionary is limited. The man I engaged before you.’

      ‘Oh! Wot ’appened to ’im?’

      ‘Something I hope will not happen to you.’

      ‘I’ll see it don’t. I mike things ’appen to other people, and I knows ’ow to tike care they don’t ’appen to me. Yer don’t think yer’ve engaged Little Lord Fowntleroy, do yer?’

      ‘I confess I don’t see the resemblance.’

      ‘I’ve twisted more necks than I can cahnt.’ He looked at her neck. ‘There was one they couldn’t untwist. Orl right. That’s me!’

      Helen Warren may have been impressed, but she was not alarmed. Slipping her hand under the lace-edged pillow, she brought out a little revolver and laid it on the silk counterpane.

      ‘And that’s me. So now you know, Mr Lynch, what will happen to you if you don’t keep to the rules of this flat. By the way, do you intend to?’

      For an instant, while her firm slender fingers tapped the revolver—the murderous weapon made an incongruous gleam on the attractive counterpane—he almost forgot he was Harry Lynch, twister of necks, for he knew that Helen Warren was ruthless and would suffer no heart-pangs if she popped him off. But the instant passed, and a wave of personal indignation helped him to maintain the role he was playing.

      ‘If you think I git palpertashuns when I sees a popgun,’ he answered, ‘yer wrong!’

      ‘Which is not a reply to my question,’ she observed. ‘I asked whether you were going to obey the rules?’

      ‘Yus, I know you did.’

      ‘Well?’

      ‘P’r’aps it derpends.’

      ‘On what?’

      ‘On if there’s any more. ’Ave I ’eard them orl?’

      ‘No, you have not heard them all,’ she said. ‘There are a few more.’

      ‘Ah!’ muttered Ben. ‘Let’s ’ave ’em!’

      ‘You are not really a lady’s man, Mr Lynch, are you?’

      ‘I treat ’em right when they treat me right.’

      ‘How fair! I am that way with people myself. Well, one of the rules you’ve not heard yet is that nobody leaves this flat without permission.

      ‘Another is that, although I may permit others to be humorous, when it amuses me, the others must understand that I myself am quite serious.’

      ‘Oh!’

      ‘Another is that, if the lift-bell rings, I answer it.’

      ‘That’s O.K. I ain’t bin engaged fer a butler.’

      ‘You have been engaged, Mr Lynch, to do whatever you are told to do—which brings me to the last rule, and the reason why I have sent for you. You are receiving a pound a day retaining fee, free board and lodging till the time comes for your job, expenses during the job, and fifty pounds when you have completed the job. I don’t think you will have to wait long. In fact, you may be sent on the job at any moment. But meanwhile I have a rule against idleness, and though you will not be my butler, you will be my cook and my waiter, and you will begin your duties at once by preparing breakfast for myself and Mr Sutcliffe. We take breakfast in our rooms. The kitchen is the first door on the right beyond the lift. You can’t make a mistake, because all the other doors are locked. Can you make tea and cook eggs?’ She laughed suddenly at his expression, and slipped the revolver back under the pillow. ‘We’re not going to quarrel, Mr Lynch. You’ll find a pound note on the kitchen table, and a slightly more presentable suit than the one you are wearing over a chair. Profit by both, and bring in my breakfast in half an hour. Thank you.’

      ‘Well, I’m blowed!’ blinked Ben.

      ‘If that’s all you are, we needn’t worry,’ she replied sweetly. ‘You can boil the eggs. Four minutes.’

      Her tone bore a note of definite dismissal. He turned to go. But at the door he paused. What would Harry Lynch’s attitude have been towards boiling eggs?

      ‘Orl right, we’ll carry

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