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Page 3
We proceeded as far as the closed gates, whereupon:
"There you are, sir," said Bolton triumphantly. "I told you it was
empty."
An estate agent's bill faced us, setting forth the desirable features
of the residence, the number of bedrooms and reception rooms, modern
conveniences, garage, etc., together with the extent of the garden,
lawn and orchard.
A faint creaking sound drew my glance upward, and stepping back a pace
I stared at a hatchet-board projecting above the wall which bore two
duplicates of the bill posted upon the gate.
"That seems to confirm it," I declared, peering through the trees in
the direction of the house. "The place has all the appearance of being
deserted."
"There's some mistake," muttered Bolton.
"Then the mistake is not ours," I replied. "See, the bills are headed
'To be let or sold. The Red House, etc.'"
"H'm," growled Bolton. "It's a funny go, this is. Suppose we have a
look at the garage."
We walked along together to where, set back in a recess, I had often
observed the doors of a garage evidently added to the building by some
recent occupier. Dangling from a key placed in the lock was a ring to
which another key was attached!
"Well, I'm blowed," said Bolton, "this _is_ a funny go, this is."
He unlocked the door and swept the interior of the place with a ray of
light cast by his lantern. There were one or two petrol cans and some
odd lumber suggesting that the garage had been recently used, but no
car, and indeed nothing of sufficient value to have interested even
such a derelict as the man whom we had passed some ten minutes before.
That is if I except a large and stoutly-made packing-case which
rested only a foot or so from the entrance so as partly to block it,
and which from its appearance might possibly have contained spare
parts. I noticed, with vague curiosity, a device crudely representing
a seated cat which was painted in green upon the case.
"If there ever was anything here," said Bolton, "it's been pinched and
we're locking the stable door after the horse has gone. You'll bear me
out, sir, if there's any complaint?"
"Certainly," I replied. "Technically I shall be trespassing if I come
in with you, so I shall say good night."
"Good night, sir," cried the constable, and entering the empty garage,
he closed the door behind him.
I set off briskly alone towards the cottage which I had made my home.
I have since thought that the motives which had induced me to choose
this secluded residence were of a peculiarly selfish order. Whilst I
liked sometimes to be among my fellowmen and whilst I rarely missed an
important first night in London, my inherent weakness for obscure
studies and another motive to which I may refer later had caused me to
abandon my chambers in the Temple and to retire with my library to
this odd little backwater where my only link with Fleet Street, with
the land of theaters and clubs and noise and glitter, was the
telephone. I scarcely need add that I had sufficient private means to
enable me to indulge these whims, otherwise as a working journalist I
must have been content to remain nearer to the heart of things. As it
was I followed the careless existence of the independent free-lance,
and since my work was accounted above the average I was enabled to
pick and choose the subjects with which I should deal. Mine was not an
ambitious nature--or it may have been that stimulus was lacking--and
all I wrote I wrote for the mere joy of writing, whilst my studies, of
which I shall have occasion to speak presently, were not of a nature
calculated to swell my coffers in this commercial-minded age.
Little did I know how abruptly this chosen calm of my life was to be
broken nor how these same studies were to be turned in a new and
strange direction. But if on this night which was to witness the
overture of a horrible drama, I had not hitherto experienced any
premonition of the coming of those dark forces which were to change
the whole tenor of my existence, suddenly, now, in sight of the elm
tree which stood before my cottage the _shadow_ reached me.
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