There was a narrow space between the house and what
was the blank brick wall of the building next to it, and this space
extended to the rear, and therefore, indirectly, by circling the house
at the back, led to the house and the door in the fence again.
Jimmie Dale smiled grimly, as he swung the old-fashioned windows back on
either side. So far he was in luck to-night, and, with luck, in a very
few minutes now be out and away from the house by the same way he had
entered it--but luck sometimes was a fickle thing, and a goddess most
to be trusted by those who looked after themselves!
He walked back to the doorway, and levelled his flashlight across the
room directly in front of him. The ray fell upon the wooden panelling,
and, holding the light steadily on the same spot, he moved forward
across the floor to the opposite wall, dropped on his hands and knees,
and began to examine the woodwork critically. It was beautiful work,
this panelling that went all around the room, very old, but very
beautiful work, and of very beautifully matched wood--it was entirely
out of place with the rest of the room, or would have been, were it not
that the panelling itself bore witness to the fact that it had been
built in there when the house itself had been built, and bore witness,
too, to the fact that in those days, long gone by, a relic perhaps even
of Dutch handiwork, the house had not been unpretentious amongst its
fellows of that generation.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168