Mystery Villa Read Online Free

market.
    Turning back, Bobby retracted his steps along Windsor Crescent, and, about half-way, paused to look again at a house that he had noticed before. With the careful, quick attention he had taught himself to give, overlooking no detail, for he knew well that strange realities may lurk behind the most ordinary appearances, he let his gaze travel over this residence that showed no notice that it was to let or to be sold, but that yet had about it an even more strongly marked air of desolation and neglect than had any of those displaying house-agents’ bills.
    On the gate, secured by a rusty chain and padlock that seemed to have been in position for years, was just visible, in faded paint, the name, Tudor Lodge; and as Bobby had recently read two novels about Henry VIII, and two violently contradictory lives of the same monarch, as he had also quite recently seen one film that specialised in depicting the table manners of the same historic personage, one play about him, and another about his daughter, Elizabeth, he found himself wondering vaguely if the Tudor cult was older than he had supposed. Beyond the gate was a gravel path, overgrown with weeds and grass, and the front garden had evidently not been touched for a very long time. The windows on the ground floor of the house were closely shuttered, and from the front door most of the paint had long peeled off. At most of the upper windows the blinds were drawn, and all seemed thick with the dust and dirt of years. But a gap by the side of the padlocked gate admitting to the drive showed signs of use, and the path leading to the back of the house seemed less grass-grown than the drive.
    â€˜Perhaps there’s a caretaker,’ he thought idly, and he noticed that a small window at the side of the house, on the first floor, was open, and that a gutter-pipe passed close by so that, to a man like Conway, access and entry would be perfectly easy. ‘Only there wouldn’t be likely to be anything there Conway would think worth taking,’ Bobby told himself, as he walked away.
    His watch informed him he had half an hour to spare, so he went on to the Brush Hill police-station, where he looked in, ostensibly to make a purchase at the canteen, but really for a chance of getting a talk with someone. In the billiard-room he was lucky enough to find one of the sergeants attached to that division, a man named Wild, with whom Bobby had chanced to be associated in some small case shortly before, and who now was watching a game of pool then in progress.
    Sergeant Wild, a portly, dignified person, not far from retiring age, greeted Bobby with a nicely calculated mixture of the condescending patronage a veteran may justifiably show the young recruit, and of the deferential amiability due to a rising C.I.D. man whose name was already becoming known. But he did not seem very interested when he found that it was still Con Conway of whom Bobby wished to talk.
    â€˜Most likely he was only doing a prowl round, on the lookout for any likely prospect,’ declared Wild. ‘Nothing’s been reported, that I know of, and I’ve asked some of the boys, but none of them seem to have seen him, or anyone answering to the description. Besides, there’s not much in his line round about this part; it’s the big stuff he goes after, as a rule.’
    â€˜Something had scared him; scared him pretty bad, too,’ Bobby insisted. ‘I can’t help wondering what.’
    â€˜Perhaps he saw one of our chaps, and thought he had better clear while the going was good,’ suggested Wild, with a chuckle.
    â€˜Maybe he’s one of the football gang,’ remarked one of the pool players, who had been listening while waiting for his turn, and who wanted to join in what seemed like a little gentle chaff of one of those smart Yard chaps.
    â€˜Football? How’s that?’ Bobby asked.
    â€˜Richards only means,’ explained Wild, a little coldly –