Читать книгу The Feathered Serpent - Edgar Wallace - Страница 8

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IT was a gentle tap against one of the legs of the iron bedstead which woke him instantly. Along the edge of the blind which covered the window was a streak of yellow light that stood for the street lamp outside.

He sat up in bed. The room was in darkness, but outside the door and immediately opposite was a window which looked down into the back court of the house, and there was enough light in the sky to show him that his door was ajar. He strained his ears, listening, and presently he heard a deep breathing. Somebody was in the room.

Stretching out his hand stealthily towards a small electric torch which he kept on the table by the side of his bed, he kept his eyes upon the door and saw it was open. In an instant he was out of bed and had flashed on the lamp.

He caught a glimpse of a figure crouched to spring; saw only the lowered head, thinly covered with greying hair, and then something struck him on the shoulder, so violently that he dropped the lamp, and in another instant was grappling with the intruder. Wrenching himself free, he stooped and picked up the torch that his foot had touched, lashed out wildly, but hit air, and in another fraction of a second he heard the door slam and the key turn.

The whole house was aroused now. Voices called from the lower floors, and he heard the patter of feet on the stairs, as some of the other boarders, alarmed by the sound of the struggle, came on the scene.

It was fully five minutes before the key was found to unlock his door, and by this time Peter had switched on the lights. The room was in some confusion, and the first discovery he made was that the intruder had carried off the jacket which he had hung on one of the bed-posts. His trousers pockets were turned inside out and their contents had vanished, but his watch and chain, which were in his waistcoat, had been left behind.

The burglar had left no clue as to his identity, but his method of escape was obvious. The window in the corridor outside the room was wide open. From here was a short drop to the flat roof of the kitchen below, and thence it was easy enough to reach the courtyard wall and the street.

There was no mystery as to how the stranger came to pick on Peter's room—if that had been his objective. It was a peculiarity of the boarding-house that the cards of the 'guests' were fixed in a little brass holder on each door, and Peter afterwards discovered that, but for this eccentricity of his landlady, he might have been spared a rather unpleasant experience.

Day was breaking dingily when the male guests assembled in the dining-room and drank the coffee which had been hastily prepared by their affrighted landlady. She had sent for the police, to Peter's annoyance.

Nothing was more certain in his mind than that he had been the victim of a haphazard burglary. Some poor, unscientific thief had found access to the house, and had chosen Peter's room because it was the nearest to the window where he had made his entry. This he explained to the local detective-sergeant who called to investigate the crime.

'If he didn't want to take your gold watch,' asked that unimaginative individual, 'why did he pinch your coat?'

'Because he hadn't time to search it,' suggested Peter, but the sergeant shook his head.

'You know these fellows as well as I do, Mr. Dewin. The moment he found he was caught, his first thought would be to get away. He wouldn't load himself up with coats, and he certainly wouldn't have left your watch and chain.'

Later in the morning the coat was discovered by a police patrol in the area of a house off Ladbroke Grove, and it was a curious fact that a silver cigarette-case was still in the pocket, though the jacket had been searched most thoroughly.

Peter heard the news in wonder; but the solution to his little mystery did not come until, turning over his pillow by accident, he saw the little purse, and it flashed upon him that the visitor of the night had been searching for that, and that alone. In his wildest speculations he would not have imagined that Daphne Olroyd was responsible for the burglary, yet that was no more than the truth.