Presently, we crept upon the front porch. I tiptoed along the porch in the hope of getting a peep in at the lower windows, but the blinds were drawn, and I could see nothing of the interior. I knew where to find the bell, and I rang it once, twice, thrice. It was an old-fashioned, jangling bell that echoed dismally in the silence of the night.
When there was no response, we retraced our steps as far as the friendly bushes, and continued to watch the house from that point until we were both equally certain that the place, after all, was unoccupied. We were about to turn away, feeling that we might as well return to the police station, when something happened. That something was the sudden lighting up of a window in the top-story.
Silhouetted against this light, we saw a figure, unmistakably that of a woman. A few seconds later, another figure appeared in the window-frame of light. What followed was like old-time shadowgraphs, which used to delight me when I was a child: black, shadowy figures in action against a dimly lighted background. We saw an arm upraised and then fall, as though a blow had been delivered, and then two arms thrusting the woman-like figure away from the window, by force. Then the window went dark again.
There was nothing to do but turn away, and return to the car. On the way, I suggested to McGinity that we drive back about a mile, where I recalled seeing a light gleaming among a dense growth of pine trees. If it was a human habitation, I figured that the occupants, living so near the LaRauche estate, might give us some much desired information.
We found a light burning in a small cabin, in a clearing in the woods, set well back from the road. Our knock was answered by an elderly, gray-haired man, with a laborer's stoop in his shoulders. He inspected us a moment over his spectacles, then invited us to enter.
He turned out to be a carpenter and wood-chopper. His wife and daughter, he explained, had gone to the movies, in the village, with his wife's sister, who evidently was better placed in life and owned a car.
"Now, can I be of any service?" he asked, showing us to chairs in front of a blazing log-fire, in a plain but cheerful room, modern enough to have electric lights and a telephone.
I made a polite reply, without giving ourselves away. I was a friend of Dr. LaRauche, and had been surprised, on calling, to find his house dark. There had been no answer to the bell.
The carpenter smiled grimly, and said: "I'm afraid, stranger, you'll never git eny response to the ringin' of that bell, if you ring till Judgment Day. Others have tried, unsuccessfully, myself included. Old Doc LaRauche owes me considerable fer some wood-choppin' I done fer 'im."
"How do you explain it?" I asked.