Tragedy at Beechcroft. Dorothy Fielding

      CHAPTER I.

       AN ARTIST PAINTS A COUPLE OF CHILDREN

       AND HEARS AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

       Table of Contents

      VICTOR GOODENOUGH was shown at once into the studio where Santley was painting the Moncrieff twins. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in the middle thirties, who looked as though he would do anything efficiently to which he set his hand—a well-kept, muscular hand, browner even than his face, and with the palms calloused by the swinging of golf clubs. He was a "plus" man. For the rest, he was handsome, with regular features of a rather wooden type, lit up now and then by a pleasant smile.

      The artist was about his age, but belonged to another world. Nervous, diffident, shy, the youngest R.A. was rarely to be met anywhere but at his studio out here by Putney Bridge, where he lived as well as worked. He had a scholarly face, with deep-set, brooding eyes, that looked as though they would go through life seeking for something just beyond their vision.

      "Good sitters?" Goodenough asked, waving a hand at the two children just now squirming a welcome to him.

      Oliver Santley groaned. He had never tried to paint children before, but he needed a couple for part of a panel design, and Lavinia Moncrieff had suggested the twins, Cordelia and Dorothy—Dilly and Dolly in everyday life—aged five. They were the wards of her husband, Major Moncrieff, and only distantly related even to him, but they were orphans, and lived with her and her husband down in the country.

      Santley went across now, and once again arranged them back to back on the white rug, their daffodil-yellow muslin frocks no brighter than their curls, a gay rag picture-book in each lap.

      "Children give one no chance to paint what's inside the shell," he said now, returning to his easel, "and that's all I really care for. Kids are all shell."

      "Except that shells stay where you put them," Goodenough said pointedly, and Santley yet once again put his models into position.

      "I'll go into the lounge," Goodenough volunteered. "I only came on the chance of meeting Ann."

      "Chance is likely!" murmured Santley; and Goodenough acknowledged the hit with a laugh. Ann Bladeshaw was the twins' governess, though it seemed quaint to call vital, impulsive Ann Bladeshaw by a name that suggested anything repressed or repressive.

      "She's coming for them in half an hour," Santley said, looking gloomily at the clock high up on the studio wall, "But Mrs. Phillimore promised to stay during the sitting."

      Mrs. Phillimore was Lavinia Moncrieff's mother, and a sort of adopted grandmother to the twins.

      "I think I hear her just coming in. Well, so long then, Santley, I'll blow in again after half an hour. Don't let Ann go before I get back."

      Goodenough paused in the lounge outside, to shake hands with a tall, grey-haired woman. Mrs. Phillimore looked ill, he thought, and rather blown about, as though she had just got off a long journey on a train.

      She clung to his hand for a moment.

      "Victor, I want to ask a favour of you! But later will do. I must have a word with Oliver first," and with a forced, apologetic smile, she hurried on into the studio.

      Goodenough wondered what the trouble was, apparently it was trouble, then he went on out to his car. He could just do a small affair of business in the neighbourhood and get back in time to go on somewhere for lunch with Ann.

      Mrs. Phillimore came in so quietly that Santley thought she must be afraid of starting the twins off, and gave her a grateful look which she did not seem to see, as, sinking into a deep chair at the farther end, she leant her cheek on one long shapely hand, sitting so that her face was in the shadow.

      "I's growing pains!" Dilly suddenly announced triumphantly, scrambling to her feet.

      "I stopped growing months ago!" Dolly said scornfully, "when I stopped biting my nails," she added. Dolly was fond of giving precise details.

      "You didn't!" came indignantly from Dilly. "You haven't. Why, you've lots to grow yet!"

      "I haven't! I did! I did!"

      The artist expected to see them tearing each other's hair in another second, but Mrs. Phillimore, usually so alert in such cases, seemed to notice nothing. She sat with her head still bent, apparently engaged in meditation.

      "Here's Nanny!" said Santley with relief. After all, there is nothing like a woman about the place, he thought, as nurse entered, picked up the two rag-books, placed them neatly on a table, and