Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a window, littered with knives, planes, saws, and files, and an assortment of sharp cutting tools: some with flat, some with curved, and some with V-shaped blades. There was a vise, and wooden and rubber mallets of different sizes.
    On a stand stood a magnificently carved oak eagle, not quite finished, its vast wooden wings raised and spread, its beak open in a silent shriek, its feathers slightly ruffled, as if rising up like a puff adder to defend its nest from mountain climbers. It was a lectern, of course, and I knew that the eagle represented Saint John the Evangelist.
    Once installed in whatever church it was destined for, this bird would strike secret terror into the hearts of all the little children lining up for their first communion—as perhaps it was supposed to do. Even
my
neck was bristling slightly.
    As a wood-carver and an artist, Mr. Sambridge was a genius, no doubt about it.
    A small cooker, a sink full of soiled dishes, its slow
drip
-
drip
matching the sound of the ruined gutters outside, and slipping in and out of time with the Black Forest cuckoo clock on the wall.
    Tick…tock…tick…tock…DRIP…tick…tock…tick…DRIP…tock…
    And so forth.
    The hands of the clock were at 10:03.
    A few books and a cold fireplace completed the ground floor. A narrow staircase led to the upstairs.
    “Hello?” I called again, as I set foot upon the first step.
    The man might be an unusually sound sleeper.
    Or perhaps he drank. Anything was possible. Even if he
did
carve evangelical eagles.
    “Mr. Sambridge?”
    A stair tread creaked and I froze—but realized almost at once that I was frightening myself. “Getting in a state,” as Mrs. Mullet called it.
    I gave a carefree little snort to relieve the tension. The man had gone out and left his front door unlocked. There was no more to it than that.
    Technically, I suppose, I was trespassing—perhaps even housebreaking. I’d have just a quick peek into the upper room and then make my exit. I’d leave the envelope on Mr. Sambridge’s workbench, where he couldn’t miss it. I might even scribble a little note giving my name and the time of day—so that he would know who’d been in his cottage, and when.
    Everything on the up-and-up…all shipshape and Bristol fashion…all according to Hoyle.
    But that was not the way things turned out.
    At the top of the stairs was a door.
    A closed door.
    There is a certain type of person to whom a closed door is a challenge—a dare, a taunt, a glove thrown down—and I am one of them. A closed door is more than a mystery to be solved: It’s an insult. A slap in the face.
    As anybody with two older sisters can tell you, a closed door is like a red rag to a bull. It cannot go unchallenged.
    I stepped forward, put my ear to the panel, and listened.
    Dead silence. Not even the usual amplified roar of an empty room that you expect when you use a wooden door as a sounding board.
    I put my hand on the knob, gave it a twist, shoved open the door just wide enough to let my eyes rove over the room.
    What a disappointment.
    In alphabetical order: bed (neatly made), bookshelf, chair, chamber pot, clothes press, table, and a thin Turkey carpet: all very orderly. All surprisingly neat and clean.
    No monsters, no madmen: none of the things you always expect to come leaping out at you when you’re snooping round a stranger’s house.
    I pushed the door a little wider, but with a sudden thump, it seemed to meet with some obstruction. It jammed just past the halfway mark.
    I stepped into the room, and as I did so, the door swung slowly closed of its own accord.
    It must have been off balance, I decided later, because of the weight of Mr. Sambridge’s body.
    I spun round.
    He was hanging upside down, lashed to the back of the door—his arms and shackled legs spread in the shape of a human “X.”

· TWO ·
    T HE EXPRESSION ON HIS darkened face was ghastly: a look of sheer horror. The eyes bulged out in a stare that might have been