Beware Your Neighbour by Miles Burton

Author:Miles Burton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime
ISBN: 9781627551762
Publisher: Collins
Published: 1950-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

XII

THEY WALKED silently along the flagged path towards the house, each busy with his own thoughts. None of them had ever approached it from this direction before. No light shone from any of the windows. A few yards from the house the path forked, each branch leading to a door, one in the side of the house facing them, the other round the corner.

They approached the former door, as being the nearer. It seemed to be the back door and appeared not to have been used recently, for the threshold was deep in drifted leaves. It had a rusty knocker, and Raynham, who had tacitly assumed the role of leader, rapped loudly with it. They waited, listening, for a few minutes, then Raynham knocked again. A longer wait this time, but still no sound from within the house. “Perhaps, if they’re in the front of the house, they can’t hear,” the Admiral remarked. “We’d better try that other door.”

The second door, round the corner of the house, had a small porch, and on the door-post was a bell-push. As Raynham put his finger on this, they all started. The answering ring was so loud and insistent that it seemed to reverberate throughout the house. “That’ll fetch ‘em,” said Teesdale. Merrion stepped back, watching the windows for a light to be switched on. But the house remained dark and silent. Raynham pressed the push again, keeping his fingers on it till it seemed that the clamour of the bell must be audible the whole length of Hallows Green. But, though they waited patiently, no reply came from within.

“I can’t make it out,” said Raynham irritably. “If they were in bed and asleep, that would have wakened them. They must both be out, that’s what it is.”

“Then they’ll find the door in the wall bolted against them when they come back,” Merrion remarked. “I don’t altogether like the look of things. Try the door and see if it’s locked.”

Raynham turned the handle and pushed, but the door resisted his efforts. “It’s locked all right,” he replied.

“There’s still another,” the Admiral suggested. “The front door. We might try that before we give up.”

To reach the front door they had once again to turn the corner of the house. Here they came to the drive leading from the entrance in Hallows Green. It was grass-grown, and had been encroached upon by the laurels on either side. The front door was approached by a flight of half a dozen stone steps, broad and shallow. The stones were chipped and falling apart, with moss growing in the crevices. Beside the front door was another bell-push, and Raynham pressed this firmly. Only the faintest, scarcely audible tinkle rewarded him.

Then, as they stood there, they heard a sharp click not very far away. “What’s that?” Raynham whispered nervously.

“Sounded to me like the click of a latch,” Merrion whispered back. “The front gate, perhaps.”

The drive curved and the laurels on either side of it hid the front gate from where they were standing.

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