LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE thin spring sunshine had little warmth and the pale blue sky looked cold, but together they turned the row of old gabled houses into a charming picture. They faced a narrow canal, tree-lined, the water dark, the arched bridge at its end leading to a street busy with traffic.

      The girl walking along the narrow pavement paused to look about her and then, studying the street plan she was carrying, hitched the small package she held under one arm and crossed the narrow street to stand under the budding trees and study the houses opposite.

      They were impressive, two and three storeys high with small windows in their various gables, heavy front doors with fanlights above them and with a double flight of steps leading to the door. Some of them had numbers on their walls; one or two had a coat-of-arms carved in stone above the fanlight.

      Satisfied, she crossed the street again and mounted the steps of a tall house with high wide windows on each side of its door and an impressive gable, and thumped at the heavy knocker.

      The man who opened the door was old, very thin and very upright with a fringe of white hair and pale blue eyes. He was dressed neatly in a black alpaca jacket and striped trousers and he addressed her in civil tones but, unfortunately, in Dutch.

      She held out the packet she had been carrying. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand Dutch. This is for Mr van Houben, from Corinna.’

      The elderly face slowly wrinkled into a smile. ‘I will see that he receives it, miss. Do you wish to give your name?’

      ‘No—no, thank you. Corinna asked me to deliver it here since I was coming to Amsterdam.’ She smiled nicely. ‘How very well you speak English.’

      He gave a grave inclination of the head. ‘Thank you, miss.’

      ‘Well, goodbye.’ She smiled again and went down the steps. She ran down on to the bottom one as a dark blue Bentley drew up. She turned her head to look at it, took a step which wasn’t there, and fell in an untidy heap on to the pavement.

      She wasn’t hurt, she assured herself, and then said so to the enormous man crouching beside her. ‘So silly of me,’ she added politely.

      He took no notice of that. ‘Arms and legs all right?’ he asked, and it seemed perfectly natural that his English should be as good as her own. ‘You have a graze on your arm—any pains anywhere?’

      When she said no, he heaved her gently to her feet, dusted her down and urged her back up the steps.

      ‘I’ve just been there,’ she told him. ‘There’s no need to bother anyone—I’m quite all right…!’

      He had bright blue eyes in a handsome face dominated by a powerful nose. He studied her now, standing on the step by the door. ‘You need a wash and your hair could do with a comb.’ His voice was impersonal but kind.

      The colour came into her face, made pale by the shock of falling. A pretty girl, she reflected bitterly, could get away with that, but she couldn’t, she hadn’t the looks—a small tip-tilted nose, a wide, generous mouth and a great deal of light brown hair didn’t amount to much, although her eyes were beautiful; grey, thickly fringed. She held her tongue and allowed herself to be ushered back up the steps and into the house.

      The hall was impressive and so typical of the Dutch Interior paintings she had been at pains to study at the Rijksmuseum that for a moment she wondered if this house was a museum too. Apparently not. She listened without understanding while there was an exchange of Dutch over her head and the elderly man went away, to return in a moment with a middle-aged woman with a formidable bosom and a kind face who clucked over her in a kindly fashion and led her away to the back of the hall and into a cloakroom secreted behind the dark panelling, the very antithesis of the hall: comfort—no, luxury with its elegant fittings, thickly carpeted floor and mirrored walls and a shelf full of just about everything needed to improve one’s appearance. The girl washed her face and hands and the quite nasty graze on her arm and, since there was no help for it, took the pins out of her hair and combed it with one of the ivory combs on the shelf, and pinned it neatly again. A little lipstick and powder would have been nice, but she didn’t like to use any of these, arranged so beguilingly on the shelf.

      She looked awful, she decided, and went back into the hall, to the stout woman who led her into a room on the other side of the splendid staircase.

      There was another unintelligible exchange of Dutch before she was asked to sit down.

      ‘I’ll take a look at that graze,’ said her host, and, having done so, went and rummaged in a black bag on the enormous desk under the window, to return with gauze and strapping and a tube of something.

      ‘A soothing ointment,’ he explained, and added, ‘Keep it covered for a couple of days.’ When he had finished he asked, ‘You

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