The Secret of Tarn-End House [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEFrom the very first I could not get away from Mandy Buckingham. Try as I would, there was no escape.To me the room always had been and always would be hers. Crossing the threshold seemed to be trespassing. The first time I went there I had remained in the doorway, reluctant to move a foot further into a stranger's territory.The woman beside me had no such qualms, and walked briskly through the room, flinging open the window. "The perfume that girl uses is overpowering. The place smells like a tart's tavern.""I need somewhere right now," I had said hesitantly. "So I'm afraid it won't do.""You can have it right now."I had stared at the pale, expressionless face, then back at the room with its ample evidence of occupation. The profusion of ornaments, books, phonograph records, m,aga2dnes, and miscellaneous clutter, all dominated by a life-size oil painting of a yoimg woman who gazed wistfully down from a gilt frame over the fireplace."But someone's living here," I protested. "They haven't even packed.""Wttss. Buckingham will get her stuff out the minute she's back in the house. She owes three weeks rent already, and we can't afford to run a charitable institution.""You're turning her out because she can't pay her rent?""There's more to it than that."The woman was facing me now, her mouth pursed up in a thin tight line. I wondered what the imfortunate Miss Buckingham had done to warrant such hostility. Had her youth and beauty made this older woman jealous? I cannot be sure why it was that I knew Mandy Buckingham was yoimg and beautiful. No one had told me that the portrait over the fireplace was of her. Perhaps it was the look in the woman's eyes when she said the girl's name. She spoke again, and I knew my intuition had not been false."We'd hoped to have a different sort of person this5'4-i i:'fl ;