England -- Fiction; Gothic fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
give an exact description of the man who had been dogging the deceased;
the particulars were as follows:--"
Here I arrest my quotation, for I need not recapitulate the details of
the tall man's features, dress, and figure, which are already familiar
to the reader.
* * * * *
In a court off High Holborn there was, and perhaps is, a sort of
coffee-shop, in the small drawing-rooms of which, thrown into one room,
are many small and homely tables, with penny and halfpenny papers, and
literature with startling woodcuts. Here working mechanics and others
snatch a very early breakfast, and take their dinners, and such as can
afford time loiter their half-hour or so over this agreeable literature.
One penny morning paper visited that place of refection, for three hours
daily, and then flitted away to keep an appointment elsewhere. It was
this dull time in that peculiar establishment--namely, about nine
o'clock in the morning--and there was but one listless guest in the
room. It was the identical tall man in question. His flat feet were
planted on the bare floor, and he leaned a shoulder against the
window-case, with a plug of tobacco in his jaw, as, at his leisure, he
was getting through the coroner's inquest on Pierre Lebas. He was
smiling with half-closed eyes and considerable enjoyment, up to the
point where Mr. Longcluse's evidence was suddenly directed upon him.
There was a twitching scowl, as if from a sudden pain; but his smile
continued from habit, although his face grew paler. This man, whose name
was Paul Davies, winked hard with his left eye, as he got on, and read
fiercely with his right. His face was whiter now, and his smile less
easy. It was a queerish situation, he thought, and might lead to
consequences.
There was a little bit of a looking-glass, picked up at some rubbishy
auction, as old as the hills, with some tarnished gilding about it, in
the narrow bit of wall between the windows. Paul Davies could look at
nothing quite straight. He looked now at himself in this glass, but it
was from the corners of his eyes, askance, and with his sly, sleepy
depression of the eye-lids, as if he had not overmuch confidence even in
his own shadow. He folded the morning paper, and laid it, with formal
precision, on the table, as if no one had disturbed it; and taking up
the _Halfpenny Illustrated Broadsheet of Fiction_, and with it
flourishing in his hand by the corner, he called the waiter over the
bannister, and paid his reckoning, and went off swiftly to his garret in
another court, a quarter of a mile nearer to Saint Paul's--taking an
obscure and devious course through back-lanes and sequestered courts.
When he got up to his garret, Mr. Davies locked his door and sat down on
the side of his creaking settle-bed, and, in his playful phrase, "put on
his considering cap."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account