considering what next to do. She made a decision. She would phone her husband on her mobile and let him deal with it.
She reached into her handbag for the phone, when she noticed the bus was slowing down again. It stopped. She looked up. Apparently, it was a regular bus stop for passengers to alight only. One elderly lady was getting off. Mary suddenly decided to alight also and she leaped out of her seat and followed her down the steps. The doors swished shut, the bus pulled away and she watched it go wondering if she had done the right thing.
There was nobody around. A few cars whizzed past in both directions. She waited for her opportunity, crossed the road and walked back to the end of the alley. She looked up it and around about. There was no sign of the girl, or anybody else. She walked the few paces up the alley to the spot where she had seen the girl fall. Several tufts of grass had been pulled out of the old wall, and it had fresh scrape marks where she had caught her shoes on the way down. She looked down to where she thought something had been dropped. Sure enough in a clump of grass, there was something shining back at her. She reached down and picked it up. It was like a pair of scissors with a small box on one of the blades. She realized at once that it was a candle-snuffer. It looked very old, and being silver, she considered it might be quite valuable. She snapped it a couple of times. It seemed to be all right. She put it into her shopping bag and looked round to see if anything else had been dropped. There was nothing.
Mary walked back to the road junction, went round the corner onto Creeford Road to the first house. It was a big, detached Victorian pile with double wrought-iron black-painted gates standing wide open. She walked through the gates and along the short drive that was surrounded by dark evergreen bushes of several types. Then up four stone steps to the freshly painted black door.
There was a door knocker and a china bell-push. She stuck out a finger and pressed the bell. Nothing happened. After a short wait, she reached up for the door knocker, gave it a few bangs and then pressed the bell-push again for good measure.
There was still no reply. Looked like there was nobody at home.
She dug into her bag for her mobile and tapped in her husband’s phone number. He soon answered and she told him the story about the girl coming over the wall, the finding of the candle-snuffer and her attempt to return it to the householder. He thought it needed following up promptly, so he told her to wait there and he’d be along right away.
She sighed and stuffed the mobile in her bag, and then strolled under the small parapet to see whatever there was to see in the garden.
A big car suddenly roared through the gates driven by a man in a hurry. He saw Mary Angel by the front door and was surprised. He slammed the car door and rushed up the steps.
She stared down at him. He was almost certainly the wealthy man who lived there, and she was pleased that she might be able to tell him the story, return the silver snuffer and press on with her shopping.
‘Good morning,’ he said pleasantly, his eyebrows raised. ‘Did you want to see me?’
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I do if you live here.’
‘Indeed I do,’ he said pulling out a bunch of keys and making for the door.
‘Good. Then I can give you this. I believe it’s yours.’
He turned back.
She reached into her bag, pulled out the candle-snuffer and handed it to him.
He took it from her, stared at it, gasped, turned it up and down, and then very seriously said, ‘Well, thank you very much, but how on earth did you come by it?’
She began to tell him the events of the morning to which he listened most attentively. He was thanking her when another car came through the gate. She was relieved when the driver smiled reassuringly up at her. She acknowledged the smile with a small wave of the hand.
‘You know the gentleman?’ he said