Mystery Villa Read Free Page A

done in the past,’ Conway explained. ‘And some think it’s a parson of some kind, doing good according to his lights, what no man can’t ’elp, but what I say is, if it was that way, he would be along quick enough to rake in the souls what he’d been laying down the bait for. But some says it’s a sportsman what’s brought off something good, wanting to share his luck so as he shan’t lose it.’
    â€˜It’s a queer yarn,’ Bobby observed. ‘What do you think yourself?’
    â€˜It’s a looney what’ – began Conway, and then stopped so abruptly that Bobby had the idea he had intended to say more and then had changed his mind – ‘a looney what his keepers don’t look after proper,’ Conway completed his sentence, differently, as Bobby felt more certain still, from the manner first intended. ‘Guv’nor,’ he added, ‘what about the price of a doss, guv’nor, so as in your own bed to-night you won’t have to think of no poor bloke keeping them stones warm under Waterloo Bridge?’
    Bobby sighed, and produced a couple of shillings, but, before handing them over, felt himself called upon – it must be remembered he was still quite young – to improve the occasion by a short but earnest homily on the advantages of hard work and honesty, and the extreme ruggedness of the path chosen by the transgressor. Conway listened with an air of meek yet absorbed attention that Bobby found distinctly pleasing, so that he really did not mind very much the loss of his two shillings as he handed them over.
    â€˜That’ll do you bed and breakfast,’ he said. ‘Though I believe you men think we are at the Yard only for you to touch between one job and the next.’
    â€˜Well, guv’nor,’ observed Conway thoughtfully, as he accepted the two shillings, ‘if it wasn’t for the likes of us, where would the likes of you be? Unemployed, that’s what,’ declared Conway darkly, as he melted away into the night, and not until he had vanished did Bobby discover that his smart, brand-new, gold-mounted, silk umbrella he had been so proud of had vanished, too.
    At the same moment the long-threatening rain began to fall – heavily.

CHAPTER TWO
Tudor Lodge
    Though it did not keep Bobby awake, nor trouble his slumbers with vexing dreams – for he was still of an age that knows little of sleeplessness or vexing dreams – nevertheless the memory of that strange flight of Con Conway’s through the silent and unheeding streets remained teasingly in his mind.
    Something, it was certain, must have happened to drive the little man in such headlong panic, something so strange and terrifying it had actually come to him as a relief to find himself collared by a C.I.D. man. After he woke, before he got up, while he was dressing, Bobby worried himself with endless conjectures; while he was shaving he cut himself, because he was thinking about it instead of about what he was doing; so absorbed, indeed, was he that he actually forgot all about his second rasher of bacon, and allowed it to be taken away untasted – much to the alarm of his good landlady who, startled by so unprecedented an occurrence, was inclined to fear that he must be either ill or in love.
    Later, Bobby made an excuse to ring up Brush Hill and inquire if any report of any unusual happening in the district had come in, explaining, as he did so, that he had seen Con Conway there the night before, and wondered if he had been up to mischief. The facetious reply came back that all was quiet on the Brush Hill front, but when, partly by chance, partly through a little manoeuvring on his own part, Bobby found himself, next afternoon, in the same district again, he took the opportunity of having a look round the scene of his odd encounter with Conway – perhaps not without a lingering hope that, with luck, he might run across Conway