The Bungalow Mystery by Annie Haynes Read Free Book Online Page B

lifted his face to the breeze. People were still struggling up to the barn; the undertaker’s men, brisk and busy, met him. Half-way across the field he was hailed from behind:
    â€œEh, Dr. Lavington!”
    Roger paused in some surprise; the man who was hurrying towards him, alert, rosy-faced, clean-shaven, was a stranger. He waited.
    â€œI heard that you were in Northchester, that you had been to see Sir James Courtenay, and, as I am anxious to have a little conversation with you, I thought, perhaps, I had better avail myself of this opportunity. But I must introduce myself. I am Detective-Inspector Collins of Scotland Yard.”
    â€œIndeed!” Lavington’s tone was curt.” What can I do for you?”
    Inspector Collins joined him on the path.
    â€œI am going your way; if you will excuse me, Dr. Lavington, we can talk as we walk. Perhaps I ought first to have explained that I have been sent here in connection with the Bungalow Murder, and as you were the doctor called in, as well as the first person who saw Maximilian von Rheinhart after he was discovered by the housekeeper, I am naturally anxious to hear what you have to say.”
    Roger frowned. He pulled his hat low down over his brows, and stuck his hand low down in his trousers pockets.
    â€œI do not know that I have anything to add to the account I gave at the inquest.”
    Detective-Inspector Collins’s sharp little grey eyes glanced obliquely in his direction.
    â€œQuite so! Quite so! I understand,” he said in a soothing tone, which somehow aroused an unreasonable amount of resentment within Roger’s breast. “But, naturally, I want to hear what you have to say at first hand. You were of the opinion that Rheinhart had been dead some time when you saw him?”
    â€œSome little time; possibly not more than half an hour,” Roger assented.
    â€œJust so! Just so!” the detective acquiesced. “Now, this young woman”—he jerked his head back to the barn—“has been identified by a man named Heron as a girl he saw enter the garden gate at The Bungalow half an hour or three-quarters before the murder was committed and you were summoned; he recognized her by her yellow hair, he says; and the description he gave of her dress previously tallies with what she was wearing at the time of the accident. I take it you saw nothing of her there,” with another lightning glance.
    There was a moment’s silence; Roger’s thoughts went back to the silent thing lying in that ghastly row with the primly-plaited golden hair; his right hand clenched itself suggestively in his pocket.
    â€œNothing!” he said in an abrupt, decided tone “She must have made her escape before I came.”

Chapter Five
    â€œI am sick of the whole detestable rubbish! It is worse than useless, I tell you.”
    James Courtenay was sitting in the wheeled chair, in which he managed to make his halting, painful progression from room to room. Two years had elapsed since that Northchester disaster; but, though the doctors had held out hopes of being able to fix artificial limbs, there were other injuries that complicated matters and so far every attempt had ended in failure, and Courtenay was still absolutely crippled.
    â€œThis draught will at least relieve you,” Roger Lavington said quietly, as he held out the glass. The past two years had altered him but slightly; there were a few grey hairs mingled with brown near the temples, and an added line or so near the mouth, that was all.
    The practice at Sutton Boldon had not turned out a success, and Courtenay, who had heard that Dr. Lavington was selling his practice, wrote to ask him to come to him as resident physician, with a handsome salary.
    At first Lavington refused. It seemed to him that it would be giving up his independence. Courtenay, however, persisted; his condition was such as to render the presence of a physician close at hand almost a