Murder Is Easy - Agatha Christie [57]
He climbed a couple of walls, got round to the back of the house, took the assorted tools from his pocket and selected a likely implement. He found a scullery window amenable to his efforts. A few minutes later he had slipped back the catch, raised the sash and hoisted himself over.
He had a torch in his pocket. He used it sparingly—a brief flash to show him his way and to avoid running into things.
In a quarter of an hour he had satisfied himself that the house was empty. The owner was out and abroad on his own affairs.
Luke smiled with satisfaction and settled down to his task.
He made a minute and thorough search of every available nook and corner. In a locked drawer, below two or three innocuous water-colour sketches, he came upon some artistic efforts which caused him to lift his eyebrows and whistle. Mr. Ellsworthy’s correspondence was unilluminating, but some of his books—those tucked away at the back of a cupboard—repaid attention.
Besides these, Luke accumulated three meagre but suggestive scraps of information. The first was a pencil scrawl in a little notebook. “Settle with Tommy Pierce”—the date being a couple of days before the boy’s death. The second was a crayon sketch of Amy Gibbs with a furious red cross right across the face. The third was a bottle of cough mixture. None of these things were in any way conclusive, but taken together they might be considered as encouraging.
Luke was just restoring some final order, replacing things in their place, when he suddenly stiffened and switched off his torch.
He had heard the key inserted in the lock of a side door.
He stepped across to the door of the room he was in, and applied an eye to a crack. He hoped Ellsworthy, if it was he, would go straight upstairs.
The side door opened and Ellsworthy stepped in, switching on a hall light as he did so.
As he passed along the hall, Luke saw his face and caught his breath.
It was unrecognizable. There was foam on the lips, the eyes were alight with a strange mad exultation as he pranced along the hall in little dancing steps.
But what caused Luke to catch his breath was the sight of Ellsworthy’s hands. They were stained a deep brownish red—the colour of dried blood….
He disappeared up the stairs. A moment later the light in the hall was extinguished.
Luke waited a little longer, then very cautiously he crept out of the hall, made his way to the scullery and left by the window. He looked up at the house, but it was dark and silent.
He drew a deep breath.
“My God,” he said, “the fellow’s mad all right! I wonder what he’s up to? I’ll swear that was blood on his hands!”
He made a detour round the village and returned to Ashe Manor by a roundabout route. It was as he was turning into the side lane that a sudden rustle of leaves made him swing round.
“Who’s there?”
A tall figure wrapped in a dark cloak came out from the shadow of a tree. It looked so eerie that Luke felt his heart miss a beat. Then he recognized the long pale face under the hood.
“Bridget? How you startled me!”
She said sharply:
“Where have you been? I saw you go out.”
“And you followed me?”
“No. You’d gone too far. I’ve been waiting till you came back.”
“That was a damned silly thing to do,” Luke grumbled.
She repeated her question impatiently.
“Where have you been?”
Luke said gaily:
“Raiding our Mr. Ellsworthy!”
Bridget caught her breath.
“Did you—find anything?”
“I don’t know. I know a bit more about the swine—his pornographical tastes and all that, and there are three things that might be suggestive.”
She listened attentively as he recounted the result of his search.
“It’s very slight evidence, though,” he ended. “But, Bridget, just as I was leaving Ellsworthy came back. And I tell you this—the man’s as mad as a hatter!”
“You really think so?”
“I saw his face—it was—unspeakable! God knows what he’d been up to! He was in a delirium of mad excitement. And his hands were stained. I’ll swear with blood.”
Bridget shivered.
“Horrible…” she murmured.
Luke said irritably:
“You shouldn’t have come out by yourself, Bridget.