[CHAPTER XVI]
Scholefield Avenue was a short street of moderate-sized houses, which, when they were built, had stood at the extreme margin of what was then a suburb; indeed, some of the original tenants had called it the country. There was considerable variety of appearance about them, but they were alike in one respect: each stood apart from its neighbours, in grounds that differed in extent from a tiny yard to half an acre. Thus No. 1, at the south-eastern corner, possessed a large kitchen garden running back a long way, with outbuildings at the further end, a stable, with a coach house on one side of the stable gate, and a chicken house and run on the other. The old lady who lived at No. 1 was very proud of the fact that she supplied herself with vegetables, eggs, and poultry all the year round, though, as she was fond of saying, her house was within three miles of the Marble Arch. She often thought of keeping a cow.
No. 3, next door, had hardly any garden behind it at all, the ground that should by rights have belonged to it having been bought up by No. 1 in former days and added to its own; and this caused an unneighbourly feeling to exist between the two houses, which was inherited by each successive occupier of No. 3. Most of the other dwellings in the street were more equally provided with land; and the row came to an end with No. 17, a very small house surrounded by nothing more interesting than an asphalt path, with a thin hedge of laurel between it and the outer railings. Some of the houses showed the large, high window of a studio. On the opposite side of the road the same variety existed.
The taxi containing Gimblet, Sir Gregory, and Higgs drove slowly down the street, and was more than halfway along it when the detective caught sight of the board “To Let” for which he was looking. It adorned the railings of No. 6, which stood on the left hand side as they went north.
They stopped after they had turned the corner, and got out of the cab. Gimblet paid and dismissed it, and they walked back to No. 6.
It did not look very promising, presenting a shuttered and unbroken front to the spectator, and bearing marks of age and disrepair. The gate swung on a broken hinge, and, in the cold wind that was still blowing, a door at the back banged every now and then with uncontrolled and unprofitable violence.
Higgs, at a sign from Gimblet, rang the bell and stood aside, while they waited for some one to answer it. For a few minutes they heard nothing but the jar of the banging door and the rustle of the wind in the trees that lined the street; then they were aware of a slatternly woman, carrying a wooden bucket in her hand, who was trying to attract their attention from the steps of the house next door.
“If you gentleman are a-ringing,” she began, addressing them in a shout over the intervening bushes, “a-thinking, as it might be, by so doing to get into that there house, it ain’t no good; you can’t do it. There ain’t no one in it.”
“Who’s got the key?” Gimblet cried back to her.
“I’ve got it meself. I’ll come round and unlock the door.”