The Disappearing Eye by Fergus Hume — Read

Here indeed was an adventure, less romantic than tragical. I was locked up in the back room of a village shop in company with the corpse of a dead woman, and some thief had gone off with my motor car. Undoubtedly the person who had stolen the Rippler, was the one who had locked the door. Indeed it would seem that the person had laid a trap, for in the first instance the door had been locked; in the second, it had been open; and in the third, it had been locked again. But the individual who had gone off with the car -- as presumably was the case -- had not lured me into the trap, since the moan of the now dead woman had led me on to exploring the back premises. But the unknown might have counted upon that. If such was the case, why, then -- here in the darkness fumbling for the handle of the locked door a terrible thought flashed into my mind, a vague elusive thought, which I could not put into words. With a sudden terror knocking at my heart, I shook the door and cried for help.

"Hi! what's that? " asked a rough, uncultured voice in the shop; "what's wrong wi' ye, Mrs. Caldershaw?"