"If I could get into the house," Hetty said, "I would cheerfully do what you ask."
"That is quite easy. I have a latchkey in my waistcoat pocket. You have only to go and get the papers, and nobody will be any the wiser. I felt quite sure you would do this thing for me."
Balmayne murmured something more and closed his eyes. When the nurse came up to him an hour later he was dead. He had passed away quietly in his sleep. How he came by his death, and who his assailants were nobody knew. There were many dark passages in that dark life known only to itself and its Maker.
It was a few days later before Hetty thought of her promise to Balmayne. It was a fine bright afternoon with a strong sunshine, so that even the deserted house in Lytton Avenue looked almost cheerful. With a feeling that she might have been taken for a burglar or a house-breaker, Hetty let herself in.
Everything was gone, even to the electric fittings. The place was dismantled and dirty, the floors grimy with the tramp of many feet. A door closed with a sullen bang, and Hetty started.
"How dreadful it all looks!" she murmured. "I hope I shall never see it again. Some houses seem to be given over to misery and crime. Now to find those papers."
The little room was at the top facing the blank windows of the Corner House. Hetty had no difficulty in finding the box, and a very brief search showed the address she was looking for. The box she emptied in the grate and set fire to the contents with a match she had brought for the purpose.
She watched the flames die away, and turned to go. As she did so she looked out for a moment at the Corner House. The sun was shining strongly on the grimy windows. It seemed as if somebody was moving inside. Hetty was certain that she could see a shadowy form there.
She waited just for a moment in eager expectation. There was the form again, and then the spurt and flare of gas. What would anybody want gas for at this time of the day? The question was answered immediately, for a hand went over the gas flame holding something that looked like a kettle to the flame. Then the hand disappeared and nothing more was to be seen, despite Hetty's patience.
She pondered over this discovery as she went home. It might mean a lot, it might mean a very little. It was more than possible that Mr. Charlton had left a caretaker in possession of the house with a view to avoiding further incursions upon his possessions. If so, that casual way of boiling a kettle was quite the course a caretaker would adopt.