The Ka of Gifford Hillary by Dennis Wheatley Page A

put up single guests in two of the bedrooms on the ground floor if I wished, and to use another as a store-room; but Evanshad three rooms for his private use and the greater part of the upper floor had been gutted, then roofed over with glass, to make him a laboratory.
    Even had he had more in common with Ankaret and me, to have had him with us all the time would have become very irksome; so it had been agreed that he should have his meals sent through to him on a tray from the kitchen and, fearing that he might find such a life lonely, I had also offered to foot the food bill if from time to time he cared to have a friend to stay. But he seemed to be one of those solitary types to whom work is also wife and friends, for he had never made use of his guest room.
    On entering the hall we gave one another a vague smile and parted. I got rid of my outdoor things and went into the drawingroom. Ankaret was there curled up on the sofa reading a book. She was wearing a ‘shocking pink’ silk house-coat, and looking very seductive. But she always does; and even after having been married to her for five years there were still times when I felt my pulses quicken at the sight of her.
    As I bent over her from behind she tilted back her head, threw an arm round my neck, and pulled my head down. I gave her a long kiss on the mouth, then asked what sort of a day she had had.
    ‘Oh, all right,’ she shrugged. ‘But I get bored to tears all by myself here.’
    ‘Now that your leg is no longer painful, you should have asked someone down for the week-end,’ I told her. ‘I did suggest it.’
    ‘I know you did, Giff, and I ought to have. I’m afraid having done damn all for five weeks has made me terribly lazy.’
    ‘You can’t have it both ways,’ I said with a smile.
    ‘No; I suppose not. I really must make an effort and snap out of it now I can get about again. We’ll ask the Wyndhams or the Beddinghams for next week-end. But what about tonight? Let’s ring up Hugh and Margery, or General John, and ask ourselves over for drinks after dinner.’
    I shook my head. ‘Sorry, darling, but the Prof has just completed a new toy, and I’ve promised to look into the lab to see him work it. The little man is no end excited about hissuccess, so I’m afraid he’d be terribly upset if I let him down. But tomorrow and Sunday I’m all yours, so make any arrangements you like.’
    Ankaret was never sulky or unreasonable, and she shrugged philosophically. ‘Oh, never mind, then, I’ll fix something for tomorrow. How did your meeting go? From what you said this morning I gathered that it was rather a special one.’
    ‘It was. It didn’t go too badly. I’ll tell you about it over dinner; but I must leave you now to get down to my Friday chores.’
    My Friday chores were the wages, and the payment of bills for the running of the place which lay outside the regular list of Ankaret’s household accounts. The awful spade-work of figuring out tax deductions and proportions of contribution to insurance stamps was done for me by my secretary at the office; so I really had only to see to it that the staff got the wage packets she made up for me by passing them on.
    Silvers was my butler-valet, and his wife was our cook. Ankaret had known them since childhood and, hearing that their late mistress had died, had got them to come to us soon after we were married. I had blessed her for it, as it is far from easy to get servants even to consider taking a place at Lepe. The trouble is that this little corner of Hampshire is right off the beaten track. There is not a High Street or a cinema within ten miles of us. But the Silvers were elderly and did not seem to mind that. They adored Ankaret and were dependable old-fashioned servants whom it was a pleasure to have about the house.
    Besides them we had only one girl living in, a well-grown eighteen-year-old named Mildred Mallows. She was a local who had not yet found her wings; or perhaps was