Paula started the car and drove up to the gate of the blue and white cabin. I got out.
“You may or may not hear screams,” I said. “If you do, think nothing of it. It’ll only be Eudora impressed by my personality.”
“I hope she hits you over the head with a flat iron.”
“She may. She’s one of those unpredictable types. I like them that way.”
I climbed over the gate and walked down the path to the front door. I rapped and waited, whistling softly under my breath. Nothing happened. The house was as quiet as a mouse watching a cat.
I rapped again, remembering how Big Boy had looked up and down the road, and seeing in that memory a sudden sinister significance. I touched the door, but it was locked. It was my turn now to look up and down the road. Apart from Paula and the car it was as empty as the face of an old man who is out of tobacco and has no money. I lifted the knocker and slammed it down three times, making quite a noise. Paula peered out of the car window and frowned at me.
I waited. Still nothing happened. The mouse was still watching the cat. Silence brooded over the house.
“Drive down to Beach Road,” I said to Paula. “Wait for me there.”
She started the engine and drove away without looking at me. That’s one of the very good things about Paula. She knows an emergency when she sees one, and obeys orders without question.
Again I looked up and down the road, wondering if anyone was peeping at me from behind the curtains of the many houses within sight. I had to take that risk. I wandered around to the back of the house. The service door stood open, and moving quietly I peered into a small kitchen. It was the kind of kitchen you would expect to find in a house owned by a girl like Eudora Drew. She probably had a monthly wash-up. Everywhere, in the sink, on the table, on the chairs and floor, were dirty saucepans, crockery and glasses. The trash bin was crammed with empty bottles of gin and whisky. A frying-pan full of burnt grease and bluebottle flies leered up at me from the sink. There was a nicely blended smell of decay, dirt and sour milk hanging in the air. Not the way I should like to live, but then tastes differ.