The Bittermeads Mystery | Page 4

have no intention of staying," retorted the other as gruffly
as before. "But I think you'll remember Bobbie Dunn next time I come
this way."
"Let me down; please let me down," wailed the boy, clinging
desperately to the gate-post on whose top he had been so
unceremoniously deposited, and Dunn laughed and walked away,
leaving the porter to rescue his youthful colleague and to cuff his ears
soundly as soon as he had done so, by way of a relief to his feelings.
"That will learn you to be a bit civil to folk, I hope," said the porter
severely. "But that there chap must have an amazing strong arm," he
added thoughtfully. "Lifting you up there all the same as you was a
bunch of radishes."
For some distance after leaving the station, Dunn walked on slowly.
He seemed to know the way well or else to be careless of the direction
he took, for he walked along deep in thought with his eyes fixed on the
ground and not looking in the least where he was going.
Abruptly, a small child appeared out of the darkness and spoke to him,
and he started violently and in a very nervous manner.
"What was that? What did you say, kiddy?" he asked, recovering
himself instantly and speaking this time not in the gruff and harsh tones
he had used before but in a singularly winning and pleasant voice,
cultivated and gentle, that was in odd contrast with his rough and
battered appearance. "The time, was that what you wanted to know?"

"Yes, sir; please, sir," answered the child, who had shrunk back in
alarm at the violent start Dunn had given, but now seemed reassured by
his gentle and pleasant voice. "The right time," the little one added
almost instantly and with much emphasis on the "right."
Dunn gravely gave the required imformation with the assurance that to
the best of his belief it was "right," and the child thanked him and
scampered off.
Resuming his way, Dunn shook his head with an air of grave
dissatisfaction.
"Nerves all to pieces," he muttered. "That won't do. Hang it all, the
job's no worse than following a wounded tiger into the jungle, and I've
done that before now. Only then, of course, one knew what to expect,
whereas now - And I was a silly ass to lose my temper with that boy at
the station. You aren't making a very brilliant start, Bobby, my boy."
By this time he had left the little town behind him and he was walking
along a very lonely and dark road.
On one side was a plantation of young trees, on the other there was the
open ground, covered with furze bush, of the village common.
Where the plantation ended stood a low, two-storied house of medium
size, with a veranda stretching its full length in front. It stood back
from the road some distance and appeared to be surrounded by a large
garden.
At the gate Dunn halted and struck a match as if to light a pipe, and by
the flickering flame of this match the name "Bittermeads," painted on
the gate became visible.
"Here it is, then," he muttered. "I wonder - "
Without completing the sentence he slipped through the gate, which
was not quite closed, and entered the garden, where he crouched down
in the shadow of some bushes that grew by the side of the gravel path

leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself for a long vigil.
An hour passed, and another. Nothing had happened - he had seen
nothing, heard nothing, save for the passing of an occasional vehicle or
pedestrian on the road, and he himself had never stirred or moved, so
that he seemed one with the night and one with the shadows where he
crouched, and a pair of field-mice that had come from the common
opposite went to and fro about their busy occupations at his feet
without paying him the least attention.
Another hour passed, and at last there began to be signs of life about
the house.
A light shone in one window and in another, and vanished, and soon
the door opened and there appeared two people on the threshold,
clearly visible in the light of a strong incandescent gas-burner just
within the hall.
The watcher in the garden moved a little to get a clearer view.
In the paroxysm of terror at this sudden coming to life of what they had
believed to be a part of the bushes, the two little field-mice scampered
away, and Dunn bit his lip with annoyance, for he knew well that some
of those he had had traffic with in the past would have been very sure,
on hearing that scurrying-off