The Return Of Bulldog Drummond Read Online Free PDF

the Glensham family, but increasing taxation and death dues had so impoverished the present owner that he had been compelled to let.
    Legends about the place abounded, and though some of them were undoubtedly founded on fact, many were merely local superstitions. For the house was an eerie one, set in eerie surroundings: the sort of place round which stories would be likely to grow – especially in the West Country.
    But whatever the truth of some of the modern yarns – strange lights seen without human agency, footsteps when there was no one there to make them – certain of the older legends were historically true. The house was honeycombed with secret passages, and there was documentary proof that it had sheltered many of the Royalists during the Civil War with Cromwell.
    For the last two years it had been empty, the tenants having left abruptly because, so they said, of the servant troubles. An old woman who lived in a cottage not far away had aired the place and kept it more or less clean, but there was a dark and unlived-in atmosphere about the house as it loomed up that made the man who was feeling his way cautiously forward along the edge of the drive shiver involuntarily and hesitate.
    He was cold and hungry: for eight hours, like a phantom, he had been dodging other phantoms through the fog. Once he had butted straight into a woman, and she, after one glance at his clothes, had fled screaming. He had let her go: anyway there would not have been much good in attempting to follow her in that thick blanket of mist. And in some ways he was glad she had seen him. Already he was regretting bitterly the sudden impulse that had made him bolt, and she would most certainly say she had seen him, which would localise the hunt. In fact, only a certain pride and the knowledge that he was hopelessly lost prevented him from going back to the prison and giving himself up.
    Sheer chance had guided his footsteps to Glensham House. He knew the dangers of the moor in a fog: he knew that the risk he ran of being caught by a patrol of warders was a lesser evil far than a false step into one of those treacherous green bogs, from which there was no return. But he also knew that the main road was more dangerous than a side track, and when he had accidentally blundered off the smooth surface on to gravel he had followed the new direction blindly. Food and sleep were what he wanted: then perhaps he would feel more capable of carrying on. Perhaps he might even do the swine yet, and make a clear get away. Other clothes, of course – but that would have to wait. It was food first and foremost.
    And now he stood peering at the house in front of him. He could see no trace of a light: not a sound broke the silence save the melancholy drip, drip from the sodden branches above his head. And once again did Morris, the Sydenham murderer, shiver uncontrollably.
    Like most men of low mentality, anything at all out of the ordinary frightened him. And having been born in a town, and lived all his life in crowds, the deadly stillness of this gloomy house almost terrified him. But hunger was stronger than fear: where there was a house there was generally food, and to break into a place like this was child’s play to him.
    He took a few steps forward until he reached the wall: then he began to circle slowly round the house in the hope of finding a window unlatched. To save himself trouble had always been his motto, and in case there should be anyone about it would minimise the risk of making a noise. But ten minutes later he was back at his starting point without having found one open. He had passed three doors, all bolted, and he had definitely decided in his own mind that the place was empty.
    And now the question arose as to what to do. If it was empty there would probably be no food: at the same time it was shelter – shelter from this foul fog. He would be able to sleep: and, he might find something to eat. Perhaps the owners were only away for the