“No, dear.” It’s a hideout for a gang of thieves. Our hero watches from the shadows while masked men carry in stolen jewels and television sets.
“Mrs. Brown says her uncle has invented an electronic dog that growls and barks if burglars break in, but you can pat it if you’re a friend.”
“Fancy that.” There’s a mad professor living there. He is making robots in the shape of hideous beasts that roam the streets at night and frighten people to death.
“The Atkinsons are coming to tea this afternoon, but they won’t be here until three thirty because they’re going to the hospital first to look in on her cousin who’s got...”
“Yes, dear.” The man in Twenty-four strangled his wife because she never stopped talking.
“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying.” She gave him an affectionate pat on the knee. “Have you?”
Percy blinked and surfaced. The situation wasn’t all that uncommon. “Sorry, dear, I was preoccupied with ideas for a story about Number Twenty-four.”
“If Number Twenty-four is worrying you so much, why don’t you simply go round there and pay the occupants a visit?”
“What a good idea. In fact, why don’t I visit all the houses? I’ll start this very afternoon!”
“Bully for you,” said Pauli, knowing quite well that her dearly beloved was much too timid ever to knock on a stranger’s door.
“I’ll go straight after my after-lunch nap. I won’t take Bonzo — he might not be welcome.”
“And mind you wrap up warm.”
“I’ll take my scarf,” said Percy, looking out on the brilliant autumn sunshine.
“And don’t be too long. The Atkinsons will be here about half past three.”
“Oh, are they coming to tea today? I didn’t know.”
“At half past three.” Pauli knew it was no use getting into strife about it.
Ten past two found Percy starting his walk along Tauhou Street. It was disappointing from the start. The first house was Number Forty-six and there was a name on the letterbox — Johnson, not Quix. Percy sighed and moved along, observing the houses really carefully for perhaps the first time.
Most of the houses didn’t have the occupants’ names displayed, and when they did, they didn’t rhyme with the numbers at all. Mrs. Dean, who had such a wide choice, had elected to live in Thirty-seven! Maddening! Percy gradually came out of his poetic fantasy. He looked at Number Twenty-four with some trepidation, but there wasn’t really anything fearsome about its front door at all. It was a stout paneled door, set off center in a green weatherboard house with large, welcoming windows and tiled roof. Two steps led to a porch that sheltered the door. A pleasant if somewhat ordinary house.
The section on which it was built sloped away rather steeply, and Percy guessed that the house would be high off the ground at the back with probably the garage underneath it. Indeed, a driveway led down past the side of the house. The front garden was neat but not excessively so, unlike Number Fifteen where Percy felt he daren’t call for fear he’d leave a footprint in the garden.
On then to the end of the road, rapidly losing interest until Number One, which had a small nameplate: B. and M. Gunn. By Jove, thought Percy, Ben Gunn in Number One — if I’d brought some cheese I’d have been sure of a welcome! But the carport was empty and the letterbox was stuffed with circulars.
The whole street’s dead, thought Percy. No wonder we don’t know anybody here. He turned to walk back, thinking that the idea was silly and he’d just have to brave Pauli’s taunts. He hadn’t seen a soul in the whole street, but now in Number Twenty-three there was a woman in a sundress and a floppy hat (dress up warm, thought Percy, whose muffler was in his pocket) snipping at her roses.
“Lovely day for gardening,” he volunteered.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Bannister, going for a walk? Where’s your dog?”
“Do you know old Bonzo, then?”
“Of course. He’s always so good about waiting for you outside the shop.”
That pressed a key. “Of course — it’s Mrs. Lee from the dairy. I didn’t recognize you in your sun hat and out of your natural element, so to speak. So I do know somebody in Tauhou Street after all!” He proceeded to tell her the whole tale, and even recited his verse.
She listened with great interest. “Of course being in the dairy I know most of the folk around here, but I think it’s a perfectly splendid idea. Where will you begin? At Number One? Oh no — the Gunns are in Australia for the month and the Pughs are both at work.”
“Are they really called Pugh in Number Two?”
“Not really — they’re Morrisons — I was just joining in the fun. I don’t think there are any number-rhyming names in the street apart from the Gunns.”
“And yourself,” said Percy, warming to her.
“Of course, Mrs. Lee in Twenty-three — she may invite you in to tea! I’d never thought of it before. And right opposite are Mr. and Mrs. Shaw in Twenty-four! Well I never!” She thought for a moment. “But that’s all I can think of. Why don’t you start there? They’re a nice elderly couple about your age, though she’s away, I think. But he’ll be there, I saw his station wagon drive in just a few minutes ago.”
“But that’s where the terrors lurk,” objected Percy. “What about Twenty-two?”
Mrs. Lee laughed. “I doubt very much you’ll find any terrors there, they are really nice people. But as to Twenty-two I’d better warn you that there’s a widow living there, and if you make her acquaintance, she’ll be forever pestering you. And she’s a troublemaker.”
“A troublemaker?”
“A gossip. Just now she’s spreading a rumor that Mr. Shaw has murdered his wife.”
“Did he, do you think?”
“Of course not, but she’s sure of it because Mrs. Shaw went away without telling her. My guess is that Margaret went away to get Mrs. Drew off her back for a while.”
“Then why don’t I call in and find out?”
“Why not indeed,” agreed Mrs. Lee. “What a splendid opportunity to put Mrs. Drew in her place.”
“Because,” said Percy honestly, “I’m not brave enough.”
But Mrs. Lee scoffed at the suggestion, and our hero found himself with a big iron knocker in his hand. Almost immediately the sinister door was opened by a big greyhaired man whose usually kind lines were creased into a puzzled frown.
“You don’t look like a policeman,” he said. That threw Percy, and all he could think of to say was, “Oh! Don’t I?”
“No. But I suppose if Dietrich and Wojo are anything to go by, it doesn’t mean a thing. Come in anyway.”
He ushered Percy into a large, comfortably furnished room, the main feature of which was several mounted sets of antlers overshadowed by a magnificent stag’s head.
“Take a pew,” said the man, indicating a comfortable armchair. Percy sat and gazed round the room.
“I say,” he said, “what a magnificent head... you didn’t... did you?”
“Yes, I did. I’m a deer stalker. Do you hunt?”
“Not me — you need to be a big strong fellow for that. I fish sometimes. Mostly I work in the garden and round the house, but for a hobby I write a bit — not much — just the odd short story and a bit of verse.”
“A poet! You seem less and less like a policeman.”
“I’m not. I’m Percy Bannister and I live at the end of the road in Tihoi Street.”
“Then why the devil didn’t you say so?”
“I was going to, but you seemed so obsessed with the police — are you expecting them?”
“Not exactly.” The big man dismissed the matter as of no importance. “So what can I do for you, Percy?”
Percy explained. He considered reciting his verse, of which he was rather proud and at which Mrs. Lee had clapped her hands with pleasure, but in time he remembered the line about the door of Twenty-four. “What do you think of the idea?” he concluded.