A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)Speight, T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson)
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A Secret of the Sea: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Speight, T. W. (Thomas Wilkinson)
English fiction -- 19th century
Five minutes later they left their hiding-place. Byrne, taking his
companions through several short cuts and narrow ways, brought them
presently to another part of the city, and came to a halt close
against a tall, substantial-looking house. It stood in a narrow way
intended for foot-passengers only, that led from one great artery of
city traffic to another. One side of this footway was bounded by the
blank wall of a range of huge warehouses that had their frontage in
another street. The opposite boundary of the footway consisted of a
low stone wall, crowned with rusty railings, that shut in an ancient
graveyard. The church that once on a time had appertained to the
graveyard had been demolished years ago; but the dilapidated
tombstones, with their "forlorn Hic jacets" all overgrown with rank
and frowsy herbage, were still there, together with a miscellaneous
assortment of old shoes, broken bottles, and other rubbish. As usual,
it was Nobody's business to bring about a different state of things,
and Nobody did his business thoroughly by leaving it altogether
undone.
The house to which Byrne had brought his companions was built into the
graveyard, and its front door was in a line with the raised wall
already spoken of. It was an old-fashioned, red-brick house, and had
doubtless at one time been the residence of the rector, or of some
other functionary connected with the church that was no longer there.
From the windows, both back and front, the view must have been dismal
in the extreme. To-night the whole house looked as dark and deserted
as the graveyard in which it stood. Not a single glimmer of light was
visible in any of its windows. Byrne, after taking a cautious look
round, drew his companions forward. There was a square brass plate let
into the door, on which, by the light of a lamp near at hand, they all
three read these words:
MAX VAN DUREN.
General Agent, &c.
"He has changed his name!" said Murray, turning suddenly on Byrne.
"There's nothing to wonder at in that," said Byrne, with a shrug. "In
London one comes across queer changes every day."
CHAPTER X.
IN HARLEY STREET.
By the end of the first week in February Sir Thomas Dudgeon and his
family were comfortably settled in Harley Street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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