Henry Gamadge 04 The House without the Door by Elizabeth Daly

Author:Elizabeth Daly [Daly, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384173
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Stump Lot

GAMADGE, ON THE LOOKOUT for the branch to Pine Lots, slowed as he approached a likely-looking road on his right. A bus passed him labelled Danbury, and he heard the faint whistle of a train; the railway must be over the hill to the west.

A two-seater came down the by-road, going fast; Gamadge, waiting for it to make the turn, had a clear view of the driver's profile; but he would hardly have recognized Mr. Paul Belden if that gentleman had not cast a momentary look at him as he flashed by. Perhaps he also recognized Gamadge, but he gave no sign of doing so—his hard, set, almost ferocious expression did not alter. It was so nearly a grimace that in the uncertain daylight it made Belden look more like a gargoyle than a man.

Gamadge watched the car streak southwards; then he entered the by-road and drove along between stubble fields in which a few pumpkins still glowed among the stacks of corn. Stony pastures followed, and to the north a deep belt of pines. The land rose steeply in front of him and to the south. He passed a small, shabby farm on his left, set back among maples at some distance from the road.

The farmer came round his house, a bucket in each hand, and glanced over his shoulder at the woods rising steeply to the south-west. A dog was barking somewhere in that region. He set his pails down as Gamadge stopped his car, and came to the road along a dirt path.

"Am I right for Pine Lots?" asked Gamadge.

"You be."

"You're Mr. Hotchkiss?"

"That s right."

"Mrs. Stoner get back today?"

"Yes, come up this mornin'."

"Mrs. Greer says you take good care of them."

"Try to; they're nice ladies."

The angry barking continued. Hotchkiss said: "That's my pup. Guess he found a woodchuck; hope it ain't a skunk." He whistled piercingly, and a spotted dog with hound's ears came running down the cleared hillside. He ran up, and his master admonished him: "You ferget them animals and come in and eat your supper."

"Well, good evening," said Gamadge.

"Good evenin'."

Gamadge drove on, over a ridge, past a stump lot on the left, past a tongue of pine trees which came down to the road. He stopped at sight of a white house. It had a yard planted with old trees; from where he sat Gamadge could not see the side door. He got out of the car, and skirted the pines until he was in sight of the garage in the rear. He had seen the curtained upper windows and the side entrance, and now he was looking at a latticed kitchen porch. He strolled to the garage; it contained no car, but a well-kept sedan stood in front of it.

A burst of wild barking somewhere above and behind him made him turn; he frowned, as it changed to a long, rising wail. The Hotchkiss dog had come back. Gamadge crossed the yard again, pushed through the belt of pines, and came out on the stump lot.

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