The garden was neglected and the front windows blindless and dusty.
Freyberger opened the gate and, followed by Hellier, walked up the path to the front door. He knocked and rang, but there was no reply.
“Let’s try the back,” said Freyberger; “some people live in the back premises and only keep a hall door for ornament.”
But no one, apparently, lived in the back premises of No. 18 St Ann’s Road.
A glassed-in verandah ran along the whole of the back.
Freyberger tried the verandah door, it was locked. Some green shelves, containing a few empty flower-pots, were visible; against one of the shelves stood a hoe, on the blade of the hoe some dark brown traces of earth proclaimed to the eye of the detective that the instrument had been used quite recently, and not for hoeing but for digging.
“There is no one here,” said Freyberger.
“No one now,” replied Hellier, “but there has been some one.”
“Oh, yes, no doubt; one might say the same of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Pompeii.”
“If Klein has been here, if this is one of his hiding places, he may come back.”