Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer

Author:Georgette Heyer [Heyer, Georgette]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780755108954
Goodreads: 1068573
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2010-03-15T16:40:56+00:00

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Chapter Eleven

Hawing extricated the car from the ditch with the aid of a farm-horse, Charles and Peter drove it into Manfield, the market town that lay some six miles to the east of Framley. Here was the headquarters of the County Police, and in the red-brick police-station they found the District Inspector.

This individual was of a different type from Constable Flinders. He was a wiry man of medium height, with foxy hair and a moustache meticulously waxed at the ends. He had a cold blue eye and a brisk manner, and his air of business-like competence promised well.

He listened without comment to the story Charles unfolded, only occasionally interrupting to put a brief question. His face betrayed neither surprise nor interest, and not even the episode of the discovered skeleton caused him to do more than nod.

"One had the impression," Charles said afterwards, "that such occurrences were everyday matters in this part of the world."

"You say the picture fell," the inspector recapitulated. "You have a suspicion someone was responsible. Any grounds for that, sir?"

"None," said Charles.

"Except," Peter put in, "that we can neither of us see how the falling picture could have knocked the rosette in the panelling out of place."

The inspector made dots on his blotting-pad with the point of a pencil he held. "Very hard to say that it could not, sir, from all you tell me. You haven't tested it?"

"No," said Charles, "funnily enough we haven't. Though there are quite a lot of pictures in the house, and if we'd smashed one in the test we could always have tried another."

The first sign of emotion crept into the inspector's face. The cold blue eyes twinkled. "Very true, sir," he said gravely. "Now there is the entrance into the cellars. You say you heard this move on several occasions, and on the last you went down and saw someone make his escape that way. Did you recognise this person?"

"No," Charles said. "There was hardly time for that."

"Very good, sir. And since you have sealed up that entrance no further attempt has been made to break into the house?"

"On the contrary. My aunt encountered the Monk in the library."

The inspector made more dots. "The lady being, I take it, a reliable witness?"

"Most reliable. Moreover, up till then she had no belief in the story that the Priory is haunted."

"Quite so, sir. And on that occasion you discovered the window into the library to have been open?"

"Unbolted. It was shut, however."

"But I understand it could be opened from outside?"

"Yes, certainly it could."

"And this — Monk - would have had plenty of time to escape by that way, pausing to shut the window behind him, in between the time of the lady's falling into a faint, and your arrival on the scene?"

"Plenty of time. So much so that neither my brotherin-law nor I thought it would be of any use to search the grounds."

"I see, sir. And since that occasion no one has, to your knowledge, been in the house?"

"Not to my knowledge.

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