A Crime on Canvas by Fred M. White — Read

IT was not a difficult task that Ethel had set herself, seeing that her grandfather had not the least idea that he was being shadowed. The track he took was a strange one to the girl, though she had flattered herself she knew the house thoroughly. Sir Arthur appeared to be leading towards the kitchens. But he branched off presently along a passage, which, to the girl's surprise, was thickly, not to say richly, carpeted, and gave a general idea of comfort and luxury. She thought it odd she had never been through it before. But she had other thoughts to occupy her attention. With a sudden feeling that she was not behaving altogether well, she contrived to keep her grandfather in sight till he paused before a door which he proceeded to open with a patent latchkey he had taken from his pocket. He did not seem to trouble whether he was being followed or not. The idea of such a thing had never occurred to him, for he left the door open and turned up the lights.

Glenallan was still an old-fashioned house rejoicing in its old-fashioned traditions, but one innovation Sir Arthur had introduced, and that was the electric light. The room was flooded now to its utmost corner, so that Ethel could stand in the passage and see what was going on. At the first blush there was nothing to rouse her suspicions or cause her any feeling of alarm. It was just an ordinary sitting-room, evidently furnished with a view to gratify a pretty feminine taste. The carpet was of soft Aubusson silk, daintily figured after the most elegant design; the richly-gilt furniture belonged to the period of Louis Quatorze, and possessed all the graceful character of that epoch, without the garishness inseparable from the tasteless imitation. The tables and chairs were covered with priceless tapestry, and most of the pictures on the brocade-panelled walls were those of beautiful women, the work of famous French artists; indeed, the whole room might have been transported bodily from Versailles or one of the old French palaces. Doubtless some bygone Blantyre had furnished this room for herself regardless of cost, though why she had chosen an out-of-the-way room, accessible only by a dingy corridor, Ethel could not divine.