Death in the Dark by Moray Dalton

Author:Moray Dalton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2023-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

JUDY TAKES A CHANCE

“A pot of tea, Miss, and a poached egg on toast.”

Judy arranged her parcels on the chair beside her. She had got all she wanted and meant to spend the rest of the evening in the cinema across the road. Meanwhile she was pondering over the odd little incident of Mrs. Farwell and the tin of mustard. It was queer, thought Judy, however you looked at it. Ill, perhaps. But it looked more like sheer fright. Those gloved fingers fumbling over the purse, the fluttering, breathless voice. “Oh, no, I’m all right.”

She had not always been like that, thought Judy, or the grocer would not have been so surprised. What was Mrs. Farwell afraid of? She did not live at Sard Manor, where the wolves woke you in the night and you heard the boards creaking, if you listened long enough, under what might be a stealthy footstep.

Judy finished her tea and went over to the cinema, where she slept through two pictures and a newsreel and woke when the lights were turned on just in time to hurry out and scramble into the last bus.

The only other passenger got out on the outskirts of the town and she was left alone with the friendly bus conductor.

“I remember you taking this trip last week,” he said, “going to Sard Manor. How do you like the place?”

“It’s all right so far.”

“You’ve got stronger nerves than my sister-in-law then. Been doing a bit of shopping?”

“Yes.”

He eyed her parcels curiously. She was worried about them herself.

If only she could get them to her room unnoticed, the bow and arrows could be hidden under her mattress and the cord could be locked up in her suitcase.

He stopped the bus at the turning to Sard Manor and helped her down.

“Gosh, that’s a heavy lump to carry. You’re not afraid to go up that lane in the dark? Good night!”

The bus rumbled away down the road and its lights vanished round the next corner. Judy looked after it wistfully. She hated going back to Sard Manor. Only the thought of David, sitting in his warm, bright, dreadful cell, playing draughts with a warder; David, who would never be alone now until he died, nerved her to it. She trudged on until the black bulk of the house loomed up before her in the dim starlight. Ten o’clock, but only one light in the kitchen window. Mattie had gone to bed but Mrs. Lacy was sitting up for her with a pack of greasy cards spread out on the table.

Luckily she was absorbed and did not look up as Judy passed behind her. “Going straight to bed? Take your things off and come back for a cup of cocoa.”

“Thanks, I will.”

Judy disposed of her burdens and returned to the kitchen.

“Ought I to go to the drawing-room?”

“No. The doctor rang up. He was kept by a case and couldn’t come after all, so Mrs. Ramblett and Miss Helen have both gone to bed early. I saw that the lights were all out and looked to the fastenings myself.

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