Scholefield Avenue was a short street of moderate-sized houses, which,
when they were built, had stood at the extreme margin of what was then a
suburb; indeed, some of the original tenants had called it the country.
There was considerable variety of appearance about them, but they were
alike in one respect: each stood apart from its neighbours, in grounds
that differed in extent from a tiny yard to half an acre. Thus No. 1, at
the south-eastern corner, possessed a large kitchen garden running back
a long way, with outbuildings at the further end, a stable, with a coach
house on one side of the stable gate, and a chicken house and run on the
other. The old lady who lived at No. 1 was very proud of the fact that
she supplied herself with vegetables, eggs, and poultry all the year
round, though, as she was fond of saying, her house was within three
miles of the Marble Arch. She often thought of keeping a cow.
No. 3, next door, had hardly any garden behind it at all, the ground
that should by rights have belonged to it having been bought up by No. 1
in former days and added to its own; and this caused an unneighbourly
feeling to exist between the two houses, which was inherited by each
successive occupier of No. 3. Most of the other dwellings in the street
were more equally provided with land; and the row came to an end with
No. 17, a very small house surrounded by nothing more interesting than
an asphalt path, with a thin hedge of laurel between it and the outer
railings. Some of the houses showed the large, high window of a studio.
On the opposite side of the road the same variety existed.
The taxi containing Gimblet, Sir Gregory, and Higgs drove slowly down
the street, and was more than halfway along it when the detective caught
sight of the board "To Let" for which he was looking. It adorned the
railings of No. 6, which stood on the left hand side as they went north.
They stopped after they had turned the corner, and got out of the cab.
Gimblet paid and dismissed it, and they walked back to No. 6.
It did not look very promising, presenting a shuttered and unbroken
front to the spectator, and bearing marks of age and disrepair. The gate
swung on a broken hinge, and, in the cold wind that was still blowing,
a door at the back banged every now and then with uncontrolled and
unprofitable violence.
Higgs, at a sign from Gimblet, rang the bell and stood aside, while they
waited for some one to answer it. For a few minutes they heard nothing
but the jar of the banging door and the rustle of the wind in the trees
that lined the street; then they were aware of a slatternly woman,
carrying a wooden bucket in her hand, who was trying to attract their
attention from the steps of the house next door.
"If you gentleman are a-ringing," she began, addressing them in a shout
over the intervening bushes, "a-thinking, as it might be, by so doing
to get into that there house, it ain't no good; you can't do it. There
ain't no one in it."
"Who's got the key?" Gimblet cried back to her.
"I've got it meself. I'll come round and unlock the door."
Descending the steps as she spoke she proceeded to make her way into
the street, and so in at the swinging gate of No. 6.
"'Ave you got a horder from the hagents?" she demanded when she arrived.
"No? Well, I don't mind you having a look at the 'ouse all the same, if
you're set on it. There ain't much to see, I reckon, but a lot of dirt
and litter."
As she spoke she inserted the key in the lock, and opened the door. Sir
Gregory, who was nearest, was about to enter, but Gimblet laid a hand
upon his arm.
"Please, Sir Gregory, I must pass before you to-day," he said, and
putting him gently on one side he stepped across the threshold. The
woman was in the act of following, but he motioned her back, and stood
for a moment staring at the floor. Then he turned to her.
"I see on the board that the house is to be let unfurnished, or would be
sold," he said, "and I understand it has been empty a considerable time.
Can you tell me how long it is since anyone has been to look at it?"
"It's stood hempty more'n two years," said the woman, "so I've 'eard
say. There ain't been no one come to look at it since I've been 'ere.
I'm caretaking, I am, for a party what live next door. 'E's away in
foreign parts, that's where 'e is, and time I've been a-caretaking for
'im you're the first what's asked to see the hinside of this yere
'ouse."
"And how long have you been caretaking here, do you say?" Gimblet
inquired.
"I've been 'ere a matter of four months come next Monday," replied the
woman.
"Thanks," said Gimblet; and turned again towards the interior of the
building. He bent down, and looked close at the bare boards of the
passage, on which lay the dust and dirt that accumulates in an empty
house. Then as an idea struck him he stood upright again.
"I don't think we will bother to go over the house," he said to the
woman. "I fear it wouldn't suit me. At all events, you can perhaps tell
me one more thing I am anxious to know," he continued, coming out of the
house and facing the street. "There was another board up in this street
about a week ago, but I see they have taken it down. Do you know which
number it was, and whether the house has been let?"
"Why yes, sir, they 'ave been and took down the board from No. 13," said
the caretaker, "took it down beginning of the week, they did. But the
'ouse's let, I think; it won't be no good your going after it. If it's a
furnished 'ouse you're looking for, I see a board hup in the next street
t'other day. Little Cumberland Street."
"Thank you very much," said Gimblet. "I'll take a look at it if I find
No. 13 is let. Good morning, and I'm sorry to have troubled you."
They left the woman to lock up the house and return to her caretaking,
and started off up the street.
Sir Gregory went reluctantly, visibly hanging back.
"Look here," he said to Gimblet, "why don't you go over that house? It
wouldn't take a minute. Supposing they've got her shut up in an empty
room at the top somewhere. Much better make sure."
"My dear Sir Gregory, no one has been in that house for months; the
dust was deep on the floor and there were no signs of its having been
disturbed recently. Do you think two women in long evening dresses could
go in without leaving some mark of their passage so short a time ago.
Their dresses would either have swept away some of the dust or, if they
held them high, their footmarks would have remained. It is impossible
that No. 6 is the house, unless some one has spread fresh dust in the
hall since Monday. Besides, it is very improbable that they should
have gone to such a deserted, filthy building, and, on the contrary,
more than likely that they should go to a house that had just been
let. I felt sure there must have been a board up at another house in
this street when Miss Finner passed, as soon as I looked at the floor.
Come, here is No. 13, and I have a feeling that we shall find it a more
profitable hunting ground."
Gimblet opened, as he spoke, the gate of No. 13, and took a rapid
scrutiny of its exterior as he walked quickly up the short distance that
separated it from the road.
It showed a striking contrast to the forlorn and gloomy front offered
to the world by the house they had just visited. No. 13 was spick and
span; its white walls and shutters shone with the brightness of new
paint; a neat grass plot, with a diminutive carriage drive winding in
a half-circle round it, divided it from the railings of the street,
the whole occupying no more than a few square yards of space. On each
side of the flight of steps that led up to the front door there was a
little triangular flower bed, gay with pansies, and, as the three men
approached, the sun, breaking for the first time that day through the
dilatory dispersal of the clouds, cast a shining beam about the place
and was caught and reflected from the surface of the windows.
The change in the day was not without its effect even on Sir Gregory,
and as he watched Higgs spring forward to ring the bell a new and sudden
inrush of hope mounted to his heart.
"I have an excuse by which we may get into the house if they seem
disinclined to admit us," Gimblet was murmuring in his ear. "Back me up
in all I say, but leave the chief part of the talking to me."
They waited eagerly, with eyes fixed on the door and ears strained to
catch the sound of footsteps; but minutes passed and no such sound
greeted them. Higgs rang again; the loud pealing of the bell could be
heard jingling itself to a standstill in the basement, and must surely
be audible all over the house. Still no one came, and he tried the area
with no better result. Leaving Higgs to continue his efforts, Gimblet
backed across the little lawn, and looked up at the windows to see if he
could detect any sign of life.
There were muslin curtains in the bedroom windows and he tried in vain
to catch sight of a pair of eyes peeping from behind one of them; but
not a movement was visible anywhere. The shutters of the drawing-room
were closed, and the parapet of the broad balcony shut them out from
a searching inspection, which was still further impeded by a wide
wooden stand which took up most of the balcony, and extended its whole
length. In it were planted flowers, tall daisies and geraniums, which
appeared somewhat withered and neglected, and, with the closed shutters,
contributed the only hint of disorder in the clean and cheerful aspect
of the house.
The detective made his way round to the back. Here the ground fell away,
and the basement appeared on the surface instead of below the level of
the ground. Another and longer flight of iron steps led up to a door
used, no doubt, to give access to the garden. There was no bell here,
and the door, of which Gimblet tried the handle, was locked. Through
the windows of the basement he could see into the kitchen, clean and
orderly as the outside of the house, with white tiled walls and rows
of shining stewpans. The table was bare, he noticed, and no fire burnt
in the grate; on a summer's evening such as this it might well have
been allowed to go out. On the other side of the steps he looked into
what must be the scullery, and beyond this was a larder; over these was
a small window into which he could not see, while above the kitchen
a large one was hidden, like those of the drawing-room, by outside
shutters. The back window of the first floor, however, and all the other
windows at the back of the house were without shutters, and veiled only
by curtains of white muslin.
Gimblet took a hasty survey of the garden. It was not large, extending
back for some sixty or seventy yards from the house, but bright with
flowers and green with lawn and leaf; trees surrounded it on all sides,
now golden in the rays of the descending sun; and a high wall gave it
privacy from an inquisitive world. Here again the beds were dappled
with pansies; here were pinks and poppies, daisies and tall larkspurs,
with such other flowers as could be induced to derive nourishment from
the unrefreshing showers of smuts, which was their daily portion. By
the end wall was a hut, of which the door yielded to Gimblet's touch,
and disclosed a mowing machine in one corner, some garden implements
in another, and a potting bench with boxes of mould and some packets
of seeds; by the door were stacked a few red pots. Gimblet stood for a
moment looking in, and then went back to the front of the house.
Here he found Sir Gregory engaged in conversation with an elderly man,
whose velvet coat and the paint brush he carried stuck behind his ear
suggested that he was an artist. He introduced himself as the detective
came up.
"Mr. Gimblet, I think," said he; "my name is Brampton. I live next
door," and he waved his hand towards the south.
Gimblet ground his teeth as he realised that Sir Gregory had given away
his identity, but he replied civilly that it was indeed he.
"Although only a stay-at-home painter, I have heard of you," said the
new-comer; "but of course I had no idea who was ringing, when I came
round. My wife saw your friends at the door here, and suggested that I
should come and tell you that she believes there is no one in the house.
We heard that it was let, and the other day a man came and took down
the board, but my wife says that no one has been seen to go in or leave
the house for several days; she and the servants are of opinion that
it is empty at the present moment, and that the new tenant has not yet
arrived."
"Indeed," said Gimblet, "I am grateful for your information; but I have
some reason to think that the new tenant took possession some time ago."
"It can hardly be very long," observed Brampton, "for the Mills, to whom
it belongs, only went away last week."
"Really," said Gimblet, "you interest me. Who are the Mills? Do you know
them at all?"
"Most certainly I do. They are great friends of ours, and their having
to go away like this is a sad loss to us. Arthur Mill is the son of an
old acquaintance of mine--a manufacturer of glass--and is employed in
his father's business. His wife is a charming woman, and we are devoted
to them both. It was only lately decided that he was to go abroad, to
look after a branch of the business in Italy, and they had very little
time to make arrangements about letting their house. They only left on
Friday last, and it was a great surprise to us to hear on Monday that
the house had been let."
"Did you hear who had taken it?" inquired Gimblet.
"I think I did hear the man's name, but I am afraid I have forgotten
it. My wife saw a charwoman going in on Monday morning whom she often
employs herself, so she ran in here, as she told me, to ask her what she
was doing, as the house had been all cleaned up on Friday and Saturday
after the Mills left. The charwoman said she had been sent in by the
house agents to see if anything remained to be put in order, as the new
tenant, or so she understood, wanted to go in at once. That is all we
heard; but as no one has been seen or heard about the place since that
day it looks as if they had changed their minds."
"Thanks very much," said Gimblet. "If you could tell me the name of the
agents I think my best plan is to go and try to get the key from them,
as it seems impossible to rouse anyone here."
"Ennidge and Pring are the agents; in Sentinel Street, about ten
minutes' walk from here. You'll have to be quick, or you won't catch
them. They're sure to close at six."
"I will go now," said Gimblet, and he drew Higgs on one side. "Higgs,"
he said, "keep an eye on the front of the house, and if anyone comes out
and you fail to detain him, follow him, leaving Sir Gregory to watch the
house. In the meantime, let him watch the back. I shall be back soon if
I can get a taxi."
He started off, Mr. Brampton accompanying him as far as his own door
and pointing out the way to Sentinel Street. At the gate they glanced
back at the shuttered first floor windows and the faded flowers on the
balcony.
"Mrs. Mill would be terribly upset if she saw how her flowers are being
neglected," said Mr. Brampton. "She is so very fond of her garden, and
is always watering and attending to her plants. A man is to come once a
week, on Saturday mornings, to look after the garden and mow the lawn,
and I shall tell him to insist on watering the balcony boxes. That's
your way now, up the street and bear to the left. Ah, there's a taxi."
A cab had indeed that moment turned into the street, and Gimblet hailed
it and drove rapidly to the offices of Messrs. Ennidge and Pring, house
agents.