Dead Man's Quarry by Ianthe Jerrold Read Free Book Online Page A

hadn’t. And he seemed to think something should be done about it. You see, nobody knows him in these parts yet. If he had an accident, we might not hear for some time.” He sighed. “It is tiresome, because from what I’ve seen of Charles it’s quite likely he’s just taken it into his head to go off somewhere on his own, and there’s no means of finding out where until he chooses to turn up, if that’s the case.”
    â€œDid you ring up your home?”
    â€œYes,” said Felix moodily, filling his pipe. “He’s not been seen there. Blodwen—that’s his sister, my cousin—says that my father’s been out all day with his car and not come back yet. It’s just possible they may have met and gone off somewhere together. But it’s most unlikely, I should think. They’d have come here, if anywhere.”
    He looked despondently out of the window, as if still hoping to see the light of Charles’s bicycle approaching down the winding street.
    â€œWell,” said John briskly, rising from the table, “the best thing we can do is to take out the car and run back to the Tram Inn. Possibly the people there can give us some information. And it’s a lovely night for a run.”
    It was indeed a lovely night, perfectly windless and clear, with a starry sky and dim, pale mists lying over the low fields. But Felix did not take much pleasure in the nocturnal beauties of the landscape. John drove slowly, and Felix peered anxiously along the hedge-rows, still obsessed with a fear that his cousin had crashed and injured himself and was lying unconscious at the side of the lonely road. They passed nobody between Penlow and the Tram Inn, which they found closed. The door was opened to them by the pale girl who had served tea to Felix and his friends that afternoon.
    â€œI’m afraid I can’t serve you, sir,” she said in a civil but decided tone before John could speak. “It’s gone ten o’clock nearly a quarter of an hour ago.” Recognizing Felix, she gave him a dubious smile, and added:“I’m very sorry, sir.”
    â€œThat’s all right,” said Felix, and proceeded to ask whether one of the gentlemen who had been of the tea-party had returned to the inn later, and whether she had noticed in which direction he had started. But no information was to be got from her. She had been working in the kitchen at the back of the inn, she said, at the time, and could not say who might have entered the bar. On this she seemed disposed to shut the door, but Felix persisted.
    â€œWho was serving in the bar? Can’t we see someone else?”
    â€œMy father was in the bar, sir,” said the girl dubiously. “But he’s gone up to bed, and I don’t hardly like to call him, sir. If you’d call again in the morning ”
    â€œI can’t do that. It’s important. My cousin may have had an accident. Please ask your father if he’d kindly come down for a moment.”
    The girl looked rather frightened. Her natural reluctance to offend a customer seemed to strive with a wholesome awe of her parent. She hesitated, looking over her shoulder up the stairs, and shook her head.
    â€œI couldn’t do that, sir. He wouldn’t like to be disturbed.” Her voice took on a faintly injured tone. “It is after closing-time, you know, sir.”
    â€œDon’t be silly,” said John in tones of fatherly reproof. “It’s an important matter. Come, run along, there’s a good girl. I’ll make it all right with your father.” He faintly and suggestively clinked some coins in his trouser-pocket. But the girl seemed deaf to the alluring sound.
    â€œIt is after closing-time,” she repeated with an access of obstinacy, and jumped with a little cry of alarm as a protracted guttural screech split the still air, and was repeated again and again. John smiled. The