| |
The villagers of Little Hangleton still called it "the Riddle
House," even though it had been many years since the Riddle family
had lived there. It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some of
its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading
unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily the
largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was
now damp, derelict, and unoccupied.
The Little Hangletons all agreed that
the old house was "creepy." Half a century ago, something strange
and horrible had happened there, something that the older
inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for
gossip were scarce. The story had been picked over so many times,
and had been embroidered in so many places, that nobody was quite
sure what the truth was anymore. Every version of the tale, however,
started in the same place: |
|
|
|
Fifty years before, at daybreak on a fine summer's morning, when theRiddle House had still been well kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles dead.
The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused
as many people as she could.
"Lying there with their eyes wide
open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!"
The police were summoned, and the
whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with shocked curiosity and
ill-disguised excitement. Nobody wasted their breath pretending to
feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular.
Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and
their grown-up son, Tom, had been, if anything, worse. All the
villagers cared about was the identity oftheir murderer for plainly,
three apparently healthy people did not all drop dead of natural
causes on the same night.
|
|
