"J. K. Rowling - The Goblet of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowling J. K)

unmistakable bewilderment), the Riddles all appeared to be in perfet health -- apart from the fact
that they were all dead. The doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with


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the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face -- but as the
frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being frightened to death?
As there was no proof that the Riddles had been murdered at all, the police were forced to
let Frank go. The Riddles were buried in the Little Hangleton churchyard, and their graves
remained objects of curiosity for a while. To everyone's surprise, and amid a cloud of suspicion,
Frank Bryce returned to his cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House.
"'S far as I'm concerned, he killed them, and I don't care what the police say," said Dot
in the Hanged Man. "And if he had any decency, he'd leave here, knowing as how we knows he did
it."
But Frank did not leave. He stayed to tend the garden for the next family who lived in
the Riddle House, and then the next -- for neither family stayed long. Perhaps it was partly
because of Frank that the new owners said there was a nasty feeling about the place, which, in the
absence of inhabitants, started to fall into disrepair.

The wealthy man who owned the Riddle House these days neither lived there nor put it to
any use; they said in the village that he kept it for "tax reasons," though nobody was very clear
what these might be. The wealthy owner continued to pay Frank to do the gardening, however.
Frank was nearing his seventy-seventh birthday now, very deaf, his bad leg stiffer than ever, but
could be seen pottering around the flower beds in fine weather, even though the weeds were
starting to creep up on him, try as he might to suppress them.
Weeds were not the only things Frank had to contend with either. Boys from the village
made a habit of throwing stones through the windows of the Riddle House. They rode their bicycles
over the lawns Frank worked so hard to keep smooth. Once or twice, they broke into the old house
for a dare. They knew that old Frank's devotion to the house and the grounds amounted almost to
an obsession, and it amused them to see him limping across the garden, brandishing his stick and
yelling croakily at them. Frank, for his part, believed the boys tormented him because they, like
their parents and grandparents, though him a murderer. So when Frank awoke one night in August
and saw something very odd up at the old house, he merely assumed that the boys had gone one step
further in their attempts to punish him.
It was Frank's bad leg that woke him; it was paining him worse than ever in his old age.
He got up and limped downstairs into the kitchen with the idea of refilling his hot-water bottle
to ease the stiffness in his knee. Standing at the sink, filling the kettle, he looked up at the
Riddle House and saw lights glimmering in its upper windows. Frank knew at once what was going
on. The boys had broken into the house again, and judging by the flickering quality of the light,
they had started a fire.
Frank had no telephone, in any case, he had deeply mistrusted the police ever since they
had taken him in for questioning about the Riddles' deaths. He put down the kettle at once,
hurried back upstairs as fast as his bad leg would allow, and was soon back in his kitchen, fully
dressed and removing a rusty old key from its hook by the door. He picked up his walking stick,
which was propped against the wall, and set off into the night.
The front door of the Riddle House bore no sign of being forced, nor did any of the
windows. Frank limped around to the back of the house until he reached a door almost completely
hidden by ivy, took out the old key, put it into the lock, and opened the door noiselessly.