From where he stood he could see only the top of her head, a tangle of fair curls that gleamed yellow as spun gold in the lamplight, and the rich fur collar of the coat in which she was wrapped. He could see her hands, too, and the sparkle of her rings. There was something about those hands, with their strangely crisped fingers, as though they had been arrested in the very act of closing, that somehow gave the lie to the woman’s attitude of sleep.
But it was not her hands or the beauty of her hair that held the eyes of the man at the door. They were glued to the open blotter and the stain which had spread across it, a stain which had already stiffened the fair curls that lay so still upon the once white paper into hard little rings and which was even now fading from its first bright scarlet into a dull rust.
He stood motionless, oblivious of the acrid odour of the smoking lamp, then, with an effort, pulled himself together and crossed the room. Placing the light on the mantelpiece, he bent over the woman and laid his hand gently on hers; but he knew, even before he touched her, that she was beyond all human aid. Raising the thick fair hair at the side of her head he revealed a wound in the temple from which the blood had already ceased to flow.
As he straightened himself after his brief examination, his eyes went instinctively to the window; but he was not quick enough.
Had he been a second earlier he would have seen the white face of a man, pressed against the glass outside, taking in every detail of the room and its grim occupant. As he was in the very act of raising his head the watcher ducked below the sill of the window and when, a few minutes later, he ran out of the front door, after a hurried search through the house, there was no one either in the barn or any of the outhouses.
The unseen watcher at the window had vanished like a shadow into the darkness of the night.
Chapter II
Police Constable George Gunnet bent down with a grunt of satisfaction and slowly unlaced his second boot. He was not a quick mover at the best of times and the pleasant kitchen, with its glowing fire and appetizing aroma of toasted cheese, was conducive to drowsiness. He had just come in from his last round and, to one fresh from the wild night outside, the kitchen was a haven of peace and comfort. His tunic hung over the back of a chair and he sat, very much at ease, in his shirt-sleeves, waiting for Mrs. Gunnet to finish her bustling preparations for the supper he felt he had more than earned.
“Nobody been, I suppose?” he asked, according to custom, as he filled his pipe.
“Who should have been?” his wife countered tartly. Mrs. Gunnet had once, some twenty years ago, been in service in Glasgow and, as she often said, never could get used to a dead-alive little place like Keys. “Nothing ever happens here, as I’m aware of.” Gunnet stretched his legs luxuriously towards the warm glow of the fire.