In the Teeth of the Evidence by Dorothy L Sayers

Author:Dorothy L Sayers [Sayers, Dorothy L]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Crime, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 0450002489
Publisher: Hodder
Published: 2009-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Scrawns

THE GATE, ON WHOSE peeled and faded surface the name SCRAWNS was just legible in the dim light, fell to with a clap that shook the rotten gate-post and scattered a shower of drops from the drenched laurels. Susan Tabbit set down the heavy suit-case which had made her arm ache, and peered through the drizzle, towards the little house.

It was a curious, lop-sided, hunch-shouldered building, seeming not so much to preside over its patch of wintry garden as to be eavesdropping behind its own hedges. Against a streak of watery light in the west, its chimney-stacks – one at either end – suggested pricked ears, intensely aware; the more so, that its face was blind.

Susan shivered a little, and thought regretfully of the cheerful bus that she had left at the bottom of the hill. The conductor had seemed just as much surprised as the station porter had been when she mentioned her destination. He had opened his mouth as though about to make some comment, but had thought better of it. She wished she had had the courage to ask him what sort of place she was coming to. Scrawns. It was a queer name; she had thought so when she had first seen it on Mrs Wispell’s notepaper. Susan Tabbit, care of Mrs Wispell, Scrawns, Roman Way, Dedcaster.

Her married sister had pursed up her lips when Susan gave her the address, reading it aloud with an air of disapproval. ‘What’s she like, this Mrs Wispell of Scrawns?’ Susan had to confess that she did not know; she had taken the situation without an interview.

Now the house faced her, aloof, indifferent, but on the watch. No house should look so. She had been a fool to come; but it had been so evident that her sister was anxious to get her out of the house. There was no room for her, with all her brother-in-law’s family coming. And she was short of money. She had thought it might be pleasant at Scrawns. House-parlourmaid, to work with married couple; that had sounded all right. Three in family; that was all right, too. In her last job there had been only herself and eight in family; she had looked forward to a light place and a lively kitchen.

‘And what am I thinking about?’ said Susan, picking up the suit-case. ‘The family’ll be out, as like as not, at a party or something of that. There’ll be a light in the kitchen all right, I’ll be bound.’

She plodded over the sodden gravel, between two squares of lawn, flanked by empty beds and backed by a huddle of shrubbery; then turned along a path to the right, following the front of the house with its blank unwelcoming windows. The side-walk was as dark as the front. She made out the outline of a french window, opening upon the path and, to her right, a wide herbaceous border, where tin labels, attached to canes, flapped forlornly. Beyond this there seemed to be a

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