The Return Of Bulldog Drummond Read Online Free PDF Page B

night, in which case he might even get some other clothes. Anyway it was worthwhile trying, and a couple of minutes later there came a sharp click, followed by the sound of a window being gently raised.
    Inside the room he paused again and listened: not a sound. Once a board cracked loudly outside the door, and he waited tensely. But there was no repetition, and after a while he relaxed.
    “Empty,” he muttered to himself. “I guess we’ll do a bit of exploring, my lad.”
    He turned and softly shut and re-bolted the window. Then he crept cautiously towards the door. There was a carpet on the floor, but except for that it struck him the room was very sparsely furnished. And hopes of food drooped again, only to be resurrected as he tiptoed into the hall. For close beside him in the darkness a clock was ticking. Another thing struck him also: the temperature in the hall seemed appreciably warmer than in the room he had just left.
    He paused irresolutely: he was beginning to doubt after all if the house was empty. And then the clock began to strike. He counted the chimes – eight: why, if there were people in the house, were they all upstairs or in bed so early?
    The darkness was absolute, and if he had had any matches he would have chanced it and struck one. But matches are not supplied to His Majesty’s convicts, and so he could only grope forward blindly and trust to luck that he would not kick anything over.
    He wanted, if he could, to locate the kitchen, as being the most likely place to find food. And so, guessing it would be at the back of the house, he tried to move in a straight line directly away from the room by which he had entered. And he had taken about ten paces when his foot struck something. All too late he knew what it was – one of those rickety little tables which are specially designed to upset on the slightest provocation. He felt it going, and his hand shot out to try to save it, with the result that he gave it the coup de grâce . It fell with a crash, and a thing that sounded as if it must be a brass bowl went with it.
    In the silence the noise was appalling, and the convict, with the sweat pouring off his forehead, stood motionless. He’d find out now sure enough if the house was empty or not. Was that somebody moving upstairs, or was it his imagination? He waited for what seemed an eternity: no further sound came. And at length his heart ceased to race, and with a sigh of relief he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Safe, so far.
    Once more he went cautiously ahead, and a few moments later he bumped into a door. He tried the handle: it was unlocked, and he opened it. And at once he knew that he had struck lucky, for there came to his nostrils the unmistakable smell of food. Another thing, too – and this time there was no doubt at all about it – the room he was now in was much warmer. He groped his way forward, until his hands encountered a table – a solid, substantial table. Very gently he moved them over the surface. What was that? A cup and saucer, a loaf of bread, and last but not least a candle. And if there was a candle there might be matches.
    He went on feeling with his fingers: a knife, a plate with meat on it, and – but that seemed too good to be true – a bottle with a screw stopper: a bottle of a shape he had only seen in his dreams for years: a bottle of beer. And then, when he had almost decided to begin to eat, he touched a box of matches.
    For a while he hesitated: was it safe? There was still no sound from outside, and he decided to risk it: he wanted to gloat over that wonderful bottle. The next moment the candle illuminated the repast in front of him, and like a famished wolf the convict fell on it.
    He tore the bread in hunks from the loaf, beautiful white bread the taste of which he had almost forgotten. He crammed his mouth with beef – beef cut in thin slices. And finally he washed it down with great gulps of beer.
    At last the immediate pangs were