The Dusky Hour Read Online Free Page A

Warden continued, “going west, that is.”
    â€œThe lane leading to Markham’s farm?”
    â€œYes, and nowhere else,” said the colonel. “Apparently, however, it did not go there, for there are no tracks higher up the lane, and no one at Markham’s knows anything about it. Norris thought it an odd place to park a car. He took a note of the number, and it is the same as that of the car found in the Battling Copse chalkpit. More curious still, when Norris went on, towards Sevens, he saw a man standing on the bank behind the hedge just before the Sevens entrance, watching the house through a pair of field-glasses.”
    â€œWhat on earth for?” exclaimed Mr. Moffatt.
    â€œThat,” said the colonel, “is what Norris asked. The fellow seemed confused. Norris had come up quietly on his bicycle and had taken him by surprise. He said something about Sevens being a fine old house and he was interested in architecture. Then he made off. Got into his car and drove away, or seemed to. Must have come back again. Nothing Norris could do, of course. Bad manners, but no legal offence in watching people through field-glasses. But Norris says he is certain the dead man found in the car in the chalk-pit is the man he saw.”
    â€œDon’t understand it,” said Mr. Moffatt. “If he wanted to see the house, nothing to stop him coming and asking.” In point of fact, Sevens was not a fine old house. The original building had been burnt down in mid-Victorian days and re-erected in a sham and inappropriate Gothic that always made Ena feel she loved her birthplace less than she should have done. Once, under a misapprehension born of old prints, a representative of Country Life had arrived, full of enthusiasm and belief that the ancient building survived. Ena had never forgotten his expression as he gazed upon the actual edifice. It had even battlements.
    â€œNorris,” continued the colonel, “says the car went on up the road. Now you know that way leads nowhere once it is past Sevens except to Mr. Hayes’s place, to the Towers, and to two or three cottages and then back to the main road again in a long circuit. So what was he after?”
    â€œExcuse me, sir,” said Bobby, looking up in rather a puzzled way from the large-scale map he was studying, “is the Towers Mr. Hayes’s place? I thought that was Way Side. That’s marked here, but I can’t see any Towers.”
    â€œPoultry farm,” explained the colonel, “first place past Battling Copse – run by Miss Towers and her sister, London ladies who lost their money in some smash and are probably now on the way to lose what’s left.”
    â€œSure to, sure to,” grumbled Mr. Moffatt, scowling and frowning as if he hoped as much. “I’ve told them so myself. Much better get back to town, much better.”
    He spoke with so much apparent feeling that Bobby wondered if there was any reason why these Londoners were unwelcome as neighbours, or if Mr. Moffatt merely thought it a pity people should lose money in undertakings for which probably they were quite unsuited.
    â€œThen Way Side is Mr. Hayes’s place?” Bobby asked.
    The colonel nodded, and to Mr. Moffatt he said:
    â€œHayes is an American, isn’t he?” To Bobby he explained, as if fearing Scotland Yard efficiency might lift an eyebrow at ignorance of any of the more prominent residents in the district: “Only been there a few months. It was empty for some time after the last owner died, and then this man took it.”
    â€œI don’t think he is American,” Mr. Moffatt answered. “Pleasant fellow to talk to; seems anxious to be neighbourly. Of course, I don’t know him well; he’s hardly got settled in yet. He’s called once or twice, though, and we’ve been over there. He did say he had made his money in America – a place called Denver; mining town