blur. The window itself, however, did not appear to be closed. Next I tried the farther window. As I put the lantern to the chink, it made a faint rattling sound on the wood: and I could have sworn that there was a movement in the room. I could not identify it — it was something like a rustling — but it almost made me drop the lantern. This time the slit was a trifle larger, so that I could see something very dimly and darkly on the edge. It was something of rounded shape, like the back of a chair. And projecting over the top of it, at a queer unnatural angle, was something like a flower-pot turned upside down. It seemed to be of the same reddish colour, although I could not be certain in that blur, and it did not move. There was no reason in the world why such a sight should seem horrible to a prosaic-minded man in a suburban garden: I can only tell you that it did. As I stood back from the window, wiping my forehead, I heard the rustling movement again.
I tried the shutters. Both were tight-fastened. More as an automatic gesture than with any hope, I moved along and tried the knob of the door. But the door was unlocked.
Though I tried to ease it open gently, the thing creaked and cracked at every foot. Ahead was the main hall of the small house, with the front door facing me some thirty feet ahead. And that front door was now open. In the aperture, the key of the front door still in his hand, a man stood silhouetted against the faint glow of the street- lamps outside, looking at me.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Poison-Bottle
'Who's there?' a voice said with a quick and shaky start.
For reply I pressed the button of my lantern, turning it sideways so that he could see the uniform. If it had been chosen deliberately, I could have selected no better or more reassuring garb. I heard a sort Of 'Pluh!' of relief. The newcomer groped after a wall-switch, and the lights went up.
We were in a narrowish hall, somewhat frowsily kept after the spick-and-span exterior. There was a porcelain umbrella stand, and on one wall a Teutonic water-colour, circa 1870, of a girl in billowy skirts dancing before a table at which sat two resplendent officers with spiked helmets and beer-mugs. In the doorway — he still seemed reluctant to close it — the newcomer stood blinking.
He was a young man, small and slight, but his air or clothes had a portentousness which made him seem much Older. When not frightened (as he was now), his manner would be grave and somewhat superior. He wore his hair slicked down, parted at the side and brought across his forehead in a slight curve after the fashion of the Old-style barman. His features were sharp, rather hollowed under the cheek-bones, but with good-natured, cocky eyes and a cocky shoulder. No one, he seemed to say, would get the better of him. He wore careful dark clothes, with a wing collar and black tie: also, he carried a bowler hat and gloves. His accent was the accent of London. This, beyond doubt, was Hogenauer's servant, who was supposed to be out with a girl. If I had gone through with my burglary scheme, I should have had a very thin time of it.
'You put the wind up me, you did,' he declared accusingly. 'What's the game?'
'This door was open,' I explained. 'I looked in to make sure everything was all right. We're after somebody in the neighbourhood, and..’
'Ere!' he said, galvanized. 'You don't think the beggar's in this house, do you? Who are you after? It must be somebody dangerous. The whole street's full of coppers.'
It was; and that was the trouble. I reassured him instantly that there was nobody in the house, for I was afraid he might go out and bawl for all the rest of the police. It was a ticklish position, and I wished to God he would come in and close the door. There were familiar footfalls in the road outside as my late friends patrolled it: there was I, standing smack in the middle of a bare narrow hail illuminated like a theatre, Open to the inspection of anybody who passed. But I couldn't duck back to hide, Or even order him to close the door, in case it roused his suspicions. While he fiddled with his cuffs, and looked hesitantly from the street back to me, the footfalls clumped nearer…
'It's a long job,' I grumbled, and turned towards the back door. 'Well, I'll be getting on.'
'Ere, stop a bit!' he protested, and did what I had hoped for. He closed the door and hurried towards me, evidently wanting to keep a policeman at his elbow when there were cut-throats in the suburbs. He produced a packet Of Gold Flakes, and became persuasive. 'NO need to rush Off, is there! 'Ave a fag. Gaow on; 'ave one. There's nobody to mind the smoking. Your sergeant needn't see you, and my governor's away for the evening. There you are!'
'I don't mind if I do,' said the Law, relaxing his sternness. 'Thank you kindly, sir. You're Mr. Hogenauer's gentleman, aren't you?'
Now this was very much overdoing the bobby-business,
but the other took to it. He nodded with an air of good-natured condescension as he lit a match. 'That's me, constable. Bowers is my name — Henry Bowers, at your service. Only been at this job two weeks. Of course, the job is — but — ' The dashes do not indicate words, but shrugging gestures which I could not quite interpret. 'But never mind that,' he said with ghoulish eagerness. 'Who is it you're after? What's he done? Is it murder?'
Since he now appeared to have no idea of calling in anybody else, I piled it on rather thickly about a burglar-murderer who had robbed the Chief Constable of the county. 'So it's a good job you're indoors, sir. Funny thing, though. How does it happen that, if the boss is out for the night, you're in? I wouldn't, if it was me.'
Bowers shifted. 'Ah, that,' he said. 'That's my conscience. Do I have a cushy job here? Do I appreciate it? Not half!' He became confidential. 'Good wages, not much to do, and every night off if I want it. So I don't take any chances with it. I pay attention to the emperor, whatever he says. See?' Drawing down the comers of his mouth and half closing his eyes, Bowers tapped his chest with an air of profound shrewdness. 'Well, this morning after breakfast he says to me, 'Harry, I'm going to Bristol this evening.' And laughed when he said it. 'But,' he says, you might come in early to-night, because I may have a visitor'
'He said he was going to Bristol, but still he expected a visitor?'
'That's it. I tell you straight, I often think the governor's a bit-' Bowers tapped his forehead significantly. 'Ruddy queer sense of humour 'e's got, and I never know whether he means what he says or not. So I do whatever he says. See? I'll tell you how it was.
'This morning after breakfast, as I say, he said he was going to Bristol in the evening. I says, 'Shall I pack a bag?' He says, 'No, I won't need a bag,' — and laughed again. I says, 'You'll be at Dr. Keppel's, I suppose?' (This Dr. Keppel is another Squarehead, sort of a professor, who lives in a hotel at Bristol.) He says, 'Yes, I'll be at Dr. Keppel's, but I don't think Dr. Keppel will be there; in fact, I've got every hope that he'll be out.' Then was when he told me we might have a visitor tonight. I ask you!'
The reason for Bowers's loquacity I could see in his own uneasiness. He was smoothing at his dark, slicked- down hair, and peering into corners of the hall. But this gave a new turn to possibilities in the business. It would appear that Hogenauer himself might be intending to do a spot of burglary, or at least secret visiting: that he was going to pay a quiet call at Keppel's hotel when he could make sure Keppel was out: and that the `visitor' he expected here might be Keppel himself, brought on some wild-goose mission. Why?
Such a possibility had clearly occurred to the far from dull-minded Bowers.
'So I thinks to myself,' says Bowers, with a sort of pounce: 'the governor goes to Bristol, and Keppel comes here. Eh! The more so, mindyer, because Keppel's right here in Moreton Abbot — or he was this morning, anyway. Keppel came here this morning, dropped in about eleven o'clock, and had a talk with the governor. I don't know what they said, because they talked in German, but the governor gave Keppel a little packet like an envelope folded in half. Very friendly, they was. Oh, yes. Of course, it's none of my business, but, I tell you straight, I didn't like it.'
I gave an imitation of a man pondering heavily.
'But your governor,' I said, 'told you to come in early to-night. You didn't come in very early, did you?'
'No, and that's just it,' cried Bowers, with a sort of defensive aggressiveness. 'Because why! I'll tell you. Because, the last thing my governor said this afternoon… I went out before he did, just after I gave 'im his tea… the last thing he said, in that quiet glassy-eyed way of his, was: 'Yes,
Harry, I think you may have a visitor to-night, but I doubt if you'll see him'.'
There was a pause. It was not a comfortable pause.
