He walked up the little path to the door and busied himself with the lock. It was too large for his skeleton keys, but a few moments’ work with a bit of bent wire did the trick, and presently he was inside with the door closed behind him.
The house consisted of three rooms only, a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a kitchen. A narrow passage separated the last two of these, the front portion of which formed a porch and the back a pantry. The atmosphere was heavy and nauseating, and this was soon explained by the fact that everything seemed to have been left just where it was when Giles died. The clothes were still on the bed and there was mouldy and decaying food in the pantry. Dust was thick over everything; indeed it was a marvel to French where so much dust should have come from in the hear
