The Dalehouse murder

by Francis Everton

At times, though, I am almost uncanny, and when playing tennis I can generally hear most of my opponent’s private comments. “Play everything on to Jeffcock and we shall be sure to win,” is the sort of remark I hear more often than I like.

The summer was one of the hottest on record, and no drop of rain had fallen since the latter end of April. Day after day the sun shone unclouded. Grass and gardens were scorched and brown, and even the larger shrubs and trees began to droop and wilt.

Nearly every one was feeling the unusual heat, and on Thursday I had caught a chill and had had to give up all idea of accepting Ethel’s invitation for Saturday. But when Monday came I decided that I was well enough to risk it, though Brenda did her best to alter my decision. Had I known then of what the week held in store for me, I think I should have needed no persuasion of hers to make me stay away.

Brenda—dear good soul that she is—had got the car round before we sat down to breakfast, and shortly after half past eight I started out on my forty-mile run. It was scorching hot before I finished my journey, and having made good time I drew in to the side of the road under the shade of a tree, in order to light my pipe.

A slight rise in the ground gave me a wonderful view of Merchester Cathedral from where I sat. It is built of a pale red sandstone that seems able to reflect every shade of light and color. That morning it looked as though it were wrought in pale gold; with the windows ablaze as they flashed back the sun, and the lower part of the building and the top of the hill on which it stands hidden by a summer morning haze, it might have been some fairy structure floating in the air. It seemed to dominate the whole countryside.

The city lies huddled round the base of the hill on which the great cathedral and the close are grouped, odd streets straggling out—like the roots of some great tree—into the surrounding flats. I imagine there can hardly be a point in the whole city from which the cathedral can not be seen towering up above, and at the hour and at the quarters, every street reverberates with the boom of the chimes from the central tower.

The doctor’s house stands just at the foot of the hill, and the long garden behind it lies dead level at first and then rises steeply at about half its length. The garage stands on a tiny plateau leveled off at the top of the slope. There is the shortest of wash yards and then a double door leading on to the narrow lane that runs the length of the garden and enters the main road at the side of the house. The narrowness of the lane and the abrupt little hill make a very awkward entry and my old two-seater still bears the scars of my first attempt to negotiate it.

The house itself is built of a dull red brick and is of the Georgian period. There is something in the proportions and the setting of the windows that gives it a quiet air of character and strength. It is far too large for the doctor’s needs, and the attics and some of the upper rooms are never used. At some time or other a one-story wing which is of stone with a flat-topped roof had been built out at the back on the side next the lane. This, Hanson has turned into a private business wing complete with consulting-room, dispensary and waiting-room. A small hall with a door opening on to the little lane—Dalehouse Lane it is called—and another passage connecting it to the house itself, make it a really convenient arrangement.

The strip of garden in front of the house and the large garden behind are alike surrounded by a ten-foot wall, buttressed at intervals, and built of the same red brick as the house. This wall—it must be some eighteen inches thick and is tiled at the top like the roof of a house—has made a very secluded spot of the doctor’s garden, and there is an air of quiet secrecy about the place that in some subtle way is enhanced by the fact that the front door-bell is rung from a door in the outer wall.

Yes, sheltered and shut in is the right description for the old garden, with its red buttressed walls, that lies behind Dalehouse, and when after dinner we used to take our coffee on the lawn—Hanson and I with our pipes and perhaps Mrs. Hanson and Ethel with their sewing and their books—I used to think it must be the most peaceful spot in all the world.