Death Knocks Three Times Read Free Page B

find you’ve left the sponge on the basin. I like things to look as neat as my orderly room used to.”
    Crook said faintly that was nice, wasn’t it? Yes, he was sure he could find his way back, and listened to the Colonel’s retreating footsteps. They seemed to retreat a very long way. As for Bligh, he probably slept up in the attic or down in the basement or where-ever the kitchen was situated.
    It was some time before Crook could nerve himself to remove his coat; as he had anticipated, the bed was as hard as a plank; the linen sheets felt like iron; there was one pillow stuffed with stones, and he caught his big toe in the elaborate fringe of the white mar-cella quilt.
    The night seemed endless, as all nights do when you don’t sleep. The house rocked and creaked, the stairs groaned. Once a door slammed loudly, but whether that was Bligh, the Colonel or the storm Crook didn’t get up to discover. He crawled out in the morning convinced he was black and blue, and was instantly relieved to find the rain was over and an optimistic sun had appeared. True, the roads seemed mainly under water, and no man who respected his car would have dreamed of taking it out, but Crook would have backed the Scourge against Noah’s Ark, and he came downstairs whistling vaingloriously to find Bligh putting the finishing touch to the cheerless breakfast table.
    “Sun inside and out,” approved Crook, pausing on the threshold. “What d’you do with yourselves all day in this back of beyond?”
    “Make ‘istory. Leastways, the Colonel does. D’you take sugar with your porridge? Because there ain’t any.”
    “I don’t take porridge,” said Crook.
    “Blime, you’re going to be ‘ungry. The old gent don’t keep *ens.”
    “What time does the pub open?” asked Crook.
    “Ten o’clock.”
    “I can last till then. How often does the heir pay a visit?”
    ” ‘E’s coming today, if you want to know, ‘Ad a card this morning. Why don’t you stop on and meet ‘im?”
    But Crook said cheerfully that must be a pleasure deferred.
    “Why, you’re not thinking of coming ‘ere again, are you?” asked Bligh, in alarm. “You’ll upset ‘im proper if you do. ‘E’s talking of going to London as it is.”
    “Why not?” asked Crook.
    “Why not? Because it ‘ud be the death of ‘im. D’you savvy the old chap’s never seen a traffic light?”
    “He ought to be in a museum.”
    “If they find ‘im wandering around Piccadilly ‘e probably will be. Nor it ain’t no joke neither. It don’t matter ‘im being cuckoo up ‘ere with only me to know, but in London they’d send ‘im out on a chain, like a traveling bear.”
    “Oh, come,” said Crook. “What about the R.S.P.C.A.?”
    It was slightly disconcerting when the Colonel came storming in and asked Crook who the devil he was.
    “If you’re from the government about the lower meadow you can save time—and gas. I’ve told you already …”
    “Not me,” said Crook, “and it ‘ud be a waste of breath, because I don’t suppose I’d understand when you’d finished. Crook’s the name.”
    “You remember, sir,” broke in Bligh. “Last night …”
    “Probably thinks I’m part of his nightmare,” said Crook, quite unmoved.
    The Colonel was staring at Crook in an uncertain manner. “I seem to have seen you somewhere. Why, of course, you’re the chap who drove a rattletrap across the moor in yesterday’s storm. Sleep well? Slept like a top myself. You at the first battle of the Somme, by any chance?”
    “Yes,” said Crook.
    The old man looked delighted. “Now, that’s a most fortunate occurrence. I am writing the only reliable history of World War One. Now, what is your view of the engagement?”
    “Bloody,” said Crook. But not, he decided a little later, much bloodier tlian this breakfast.
    As soon as he could, he made his farewells and prepared to depart.
    “I have your address,” said the old man, looking as if he’d stepped out of one of