Detective and mystery stories, English; Private investigators -- Fiction
Dorrington left the girl and returned to the public-house. As he
reached it he perceived a second noticeable thing. Although it was
broad daylight, there was now a light behind the solitary window at the
top of the side-wall of Naylor's house. Dorrington slipped through the
swing-doors of the public-house and watched through the glass.
It was a bare room behind the high window--it might have been a
bathroom--and its interior was made but dimly visible from outside
by the light. A tall, thin woman was setting up an ordinary pair of
house-steps in the middle of the room. This done, she turned to the
window and pulled down the blind, and as she did so Dorrington noted
her very extreme thinness, both of face and body. When the blind
was down the light still remained within. Again there seemed some
significance in this. It appeared that the thin woman had waited until
her servant had gone before doing whatever she had to do in that room.
Presently the watcher came again into Gold Street, and from there
caught a passing glimpse of the thin woman as she moved busily about
the front room over the breakfast parlour.
Clearly, then, the light above had been left for future use. Dorrington
thought for a minute, and then suddenly stopped, with a snap of the
fingers. He saw it all now. Here was something altogether in his way.
He would take a daring course.
He withdrew once more to the public-house, and ordering another drink,
took up a position in a compartment from which he could command a view
both of Gold Street and the side turning. The time now, he saw by his
watch, was ten minutes to seven. He had to wait rather more than a
quarter of an hour before seeing Richard Telfer come walking jauntily
down Gold Street, mount the steps, and knock at Naylor's door. There
was a momentary glimpse of the thin woman's face at the door, and then
Telfer entered.
It now began to grow dusk, and in about twenty minutes more Dorrington
took to the street again. The room over the breakfast-parlour was
clearly the dining-room. It was lighted brightly, and by intent
listening the watcher could distinguish, now and again, a sudden burst
of laughter from Telfer, followed by the deeper grunts of Naylor's
voice, and once by sharp tones that it seemed natural to suppose were
the thin woman's.
Dorrington waited no longer, but slipped a pair of thick sock-feet over
his shoes, and, after a quick look along the two streets, to make sure
nobody was near, he descended the area steps. There was no light in the
breakfast-parlour. With his knife he opened the window-catch, raised
the sash quietly and stepped over the sill, and stood in the dark room
within.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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