There is No Return Read Free Page B

brass band either,” he admitted with his cocksure grin. “However, as you say, murder is a cat of another odour.”
    I caught my breath. “Murder!”
    He gave me a sharp glance. “The real question before the house is: Who tried to send Thomas Canby to kingdom come?”
    I gasped, but he was already walking toward the bus and, feeling suddenly infirm in the region of my knees, I followed.

2
    I shall never forget my first glimpse of Lebeau Inn that afternoon.
    The storm which was slowly gathering made a sullen background for the rambling frame structure with which twenty years of neglect had wrought havoc. An effort had been made to repair the sagging columns along the wide veranda at the front. The grounds closest to the building had been cleared, but there was still something frowzy and unkempt about the shrubs which grew up so high as to obscure the lower panes of the tall windows on the first floor.
    There were too many scraggly pines hugging the house. No wonder the place had a musty smell, I thought, it needed a good sunning.
    I remembered that, being so high above sea level, the clouds had a habit of meandering in and out of the inn at the least excuse.
    “I don’t know why everybody in the place doesn’t come down with rheumatism,” I grumbled as I was untangling myself from my cramped position in the bus.
    Chet Keith grinned. “It does look a little on the dreary side,” he remarked, then added in what he evidently intended for a facetious tone, “A swell setting for a murder.”
    I had succeeded in hanging my skirt again and, hearing a slight rip as I jerked myself loose, was not in the sweetest temper. “What are you going to do about that cold chisel?” I demanded.
    “Do?”
    “I suppose there is such a thing as police protection in this benighted spot.”
    He changed colour. “I dare say you’re right,” he said slowly.
    “What we saw will have to be reported — at least to Thomas Canby.”
    “Well, I should think so,” I snapped and stared with a slight shiver at that angry black sky behind us.
    “We’re probably making a great to-do about nothing,” he said.
    I glanced at him sharply but he turned away, following the bus driver, who, laden with our joint baggage, was leading the way into the inn. The lobby, or lounge as they call it at Lebeau Inn, is a huge, barn-like room with high ceilings and distempered green walls in which the oak armchairs and leather-seated settees look lost. At the right as you enter is the desk, a tall walnut contraption with pigeonholes behind the counter for room keys and the mail.
    At one end of the desk is a combination cigar and news stand. At the other is the door to the dining room. Opposite the desk is the entrance into twin parlours. At the rear of the lounge a single door leads into a long corridor from which opens a series of guest rooms, extending clear across the back of the building, there being only two storeys to the inn.
    A blond young woman was presiding over the old-fashioned register which she pushed toward us with an ennuied gesture. In spite of her bored manner she took a lively interest in the young man who gallantly permitted me to register first. I saw her watching him from under her eyelashes. I thought Mr Chet Keith was aware of the fact. He struck me as a young man who was accustomed to exciting a ripple in feminine breasts. He was just a shade too nonchalant about the way he lit a cigarette and allowed his gaze to stray over the young woman’s rather blatant curves.
    “Lady-killer,” I remarked to myself, having lived long enough about hotels to recognize the type which I abominate.
    I did not miss the caressing gesture with which he accepted the pen from the girl behind the desk after I laid it down. However, upon reading the name which I had written the young woman transferred her attention to me.
    “Oh, Miss Adams, Mrs Trotter left word for me to let her know the moment you arrived,” she said brightly. “I’ll give her a