The Blue Lights: A Detective Story

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

A narrow lane ran off from the main road, bordered on each side by lindens and poplars.

Along this lane the houses of the little hamlet were set, some near the road, others quite a distance back. She rose, and began to walk slowly along the lane.

As she had expected, dogs of various sorts and sizes, to judge by their voices, began barking as soon as she came opposite the first house. A small fox terrier ran through the gateway of a garden, yelping sharply. The deep-toned baying of a hound sounded farther up the street. A small white poodle, and a black one of the same size, ran after her, as she went along, making friendly attempts to play. The one she sought, however, seemed nowhere in evidence.

The lane ascended a gently sloping hill, at the top of which stood a house, somewhat larger than the others, whose outbuildings and pastures proclaimed it to be a dairy farm. There was a hedge of roses along the roadside, and a little wooden gate.

Grace heard a sharp bark on the other side of the gate as she passed it, and, stopping, glanced over. In the shadow stood a black poodle; but whether his tail showed the markings for which she sought she was unable to tell on account of the darkness. She gave the gate a gentle push, and it slowly opened. The dog ran out into the road. As he crossed a patch of moonlight, she saw that her search was ended. This, she was convinced, was the dog—and the house!

Her next problem was how to get inside. Try as she would, she could think of no excuse which would adequately account for her presence in this little frequented locality at such a time of night. That the occupants of the house had long ago retired was evidenced by the blackness of the windows, the silence which brooded over the whole place.

She looked about her. Just across the lane from the little gate a building loomed formless against a shadowy clump of trees. She went over to it, and found that it was a small shed. The door stood open. Inside stood a tumbledown old wagon, dust covered, and quite evidently unused for a long time. The shelter of the shed seemed grateful—as though she had arrived somewhere, instead of being a wanderer in the night.

There seemed nothing to do, now, but wait for daylight. She climbed into the creaking wagon and sat upon the seat. There was a back to it, which, like the seat, was covered with old and torn velveteen. She leaned back in the shadow and closed her eyes. Her walk, the night air, had made her tired. In the distance she heard, after a long time, the faint booming of a bell. She looked at her watch. It was midnight.

The next thing that Grace remembered was the loud barking of a dog. She sat up, feeling stiff and cold. Her neck and left shoulder ached painfully. A glance through the open door of the shed told her that it was still night; but there was a gray radiance in the air, a soft pale light, that betokened the coming of dawn.

She crept stiffly down from the wagon, and again consulted her watch. It marked the hour of four. Through a dusty window in the side of the shed she saw the eastern sky, rose streaked and bright, heralding the sun.