Greeks. When I had finished counting I turned around and began to follow them. They took me all the way through the town and up a hill on the fringe. They went to a little cottage—it couldn’t have more than three rooms—set back in a clearing in the woods by itself. There was a ‘For Sale’ sign on it, and no curtains in the windows, no sign of occupancy—but on the ground behind the back door there was a wet place, as if a bucket or pan of water had been thrown out.
“I stayed in the bushes until it got a little darker. Then I went closer. I could hear people inside, but I couldn’t see anything through the windows. They’re boarded up. After a while the two chaps I had followed came out, saying something in a language I couldn’t understand to whoever was in the cottage. The cottage door stayed open until the two men had gone out of sight down the path—so I couldn’t have followed them without being seen by whoever was at the door.
“Then the door was closed and I could hear people moving around inside—or perhaps only one person—and could smell cooking, and some smoke came out of the chimney. I waited and waited and nothing more happened and I thought I had better get in touch with you.”
“Sounds interesting,” I agreed.
We were passing under a street light. Jack stopped me with a hand on my arm and fished something out of his overcoat pocket.
“Look!” He held it out to me. A charred piece of blue cloth. It could have been the remains of a woman’s hat that had been three-quarters burned. I looked at it under the street light and then used my flashlight to examine it more closely.
“I picked it up behind the cottage while I was nosing around,” Jack said, “and—”