The Angel of Terror

by Edgar Wallace

  Chapter XXVI

  Jean Briggerland discovered a new arrival on her return to the house.

  Jack Glover had come unexpectedly from London, so Lydia told her, andJack himself met her with extraordinary geniality.

  "You lucky people to be in this paradise!" he said. "It is raining likethe dickens in London, and miserable beyond description. And you'relooking brown and beautiful, Miss Briggerland."

  "The spirit of the warm south has got into your blood, Mr. Glover," shesaid sarcastically. "A course at the Riviera would make you almosthuman."

  "And what would make you human?" asked Jack blandly.

  "I hope you people aren't going to quarrel as soon as you meet," saidLydia.

  Jean was struck by the change in the girl. There was a colour in hercheeks, and a new and a more joyous note in her voice, which wasunmistakable to so keen a student as Jean Briggerland.

  "I never quarrel with Jack," she said. She assumed a proprietorial airtoward Jack Glover, which unaccountably annoyed Lydia. "He invents thequarrels and carries them out himself. How long are you staying?"

  "Two days," said Jack, "then I'm due back in town."

  "Have you brought your Mr. Jaggs with you?" asked Jean innocently.

  "Isn't he here?" asked Jack in surprise. "I sent him along a week ago."

  "Here?" repeated Jean slowly. "Oh, he's here, is he? Of course." Shenodded. Certain things were clear to her now; the unknown drencher ofbeds, the stranger who had appeared from nowhere and had left her fathersenseless, were no longer mysteries.

  "Oh, Jean," it was Lydia who spoke. "I'm awfully remiss, I didn't giveyou the parcel I brought back from the hospital."

  "From the hospital?" said Jean. "What parcel was that?"

  "Something you had sent to be sterilized. I'll get it."

  She came back in a minute or two with the parcel which she had found inthe car.

  "Oh yes," said Jean carelessly, "I remember. It is a rug that I lent tothe gardener's wife when her little boy was taken ill."

  She handed the packet to the maid.

  "Take it to my room," she said.

  She waited just long enough to find an excuse for leaving the party,and went upstairs. The parcel was on her bed. She tore off thewrapping--inside, starched white and clean, was the dust coat she hadworn the night she had carried Xavier from the cottage to Lydia's bed.The rubber cap was there, discoloured from the effects of thedisinfectant, and the gloves and the silk handkerchief, neatly washedand pressed. She looked at them thoughtfully.

  She put the articles away in a drawer, went down the servants' stairsand through a heavy open door into the cellar. Light was admitted by twobarred windows, through one of which she had thrust her bundle thatnight, and she could see every corner of the cellar, which was empty--asshe had expected. The clothing she had thrown down had been gathered bysome mysterious agent, who had forwarded it to the hospital in her name.

  She came slowly up the stairs, fastened the open door behind her, andwalked out into the garden to think.

  "Jaggs!" she said aloud, and her voice was as soft as silk. "I think,Mr. Jaggs, you ought to be in heaven."