In case of
violence the bag would be the point of attack, and he intended to lock
it and throw away the key. Before it could be forced open and the
deception discovered there would be time to increase his chances of
escape with the real packet.
It was five o'clock when the silent Jehu pulled up in front of a
half-broken gate and pointed with his whip to a house that stood in its
own grounds among trees and was just visible in the gathering gloom.
Shorthouse told him to drive up to the front door but the man refused.
"I ain't runnin' no risks," he said; "I've got a family."
This cryptic remark was not encouraging, but Shorthouse did not pause to
decipher it. He paid the man, and then pushed open the rickety old gate
swinging on a single hinge, and proceeded to walk up the drive that lay
dark between close-standing trees. The house soon came into full view.
It was tall and square and had once evidently been white, but now the
walls were covered with dirty patches and there were wide yellow streaks
where the plaster had fallen away. The windows stared black and
uncompromising into the night.
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