Haunted houses -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
"I don't like the looks of the gentleman for one thing," replied Mr.
Rivers, "and for the second thing I don't like the little I've found
out about him since I've been here. But that's running ahead of my
story. I'll get back to the London part of it, and make a finish of
that. I suppose that is necessary, for my employer has written to me
to put myself into your hands entirely, and to tell you everything I
know. Well, in London a remarkable thing happened. There's a house in
Lamb's Terrace--79's the number--that is almost as lonely as any house
round about us now. On the first day I shadowed Mr. Nisbet he paid
three visits to Lamb's Terrace, and it was as much as I could do to
keep myself out of his sight. I succeeded, though, because I was on my
guard, and he never set eyes on me. The first visit he paid he did
nothing more than reconnoiter; I put a reason to that. There happened
to be an old man poking about the ground there for bits of rags and
bones, and Mr. Nisbet didn't seem to relish his company. So, after
reconnoitering ten or fifteen minutes, and as the old ragpicker didn't
seem as if he was going to leave in a hurry, Mr. Nisbet cut his lucky,
and walked out of the neighborhood. On his second visit there was no
one in sight, and Mr. Nisbet, looking carefully around, took a key
from his pocket, and let himself in. He remained in the house half an
hour by my watch, and he came out with a bundle. There was something
suspicious in that, I thought, but it was not my business to inquire
into it. My instructions were clear, and I couldn't go beyond them.
Besides, what call had I to tap the gentleman on the shoulder and say,
'I'll trouble you to tell me what you have under your arm?' I should
only have got myself in trouble, because our concern is a private one,
and we haven't got the law to back us up. He took the bundle with him
to the Métropole and left it there. He paid his third visit to Lamb's
Terrace in the night, and this time he didn't go into the house. He
didn't go to the front at all, but made his way to the back, and
scrambled over the wall. He kept in the garden there, which is just
choked up with weeds, for a precious long time, and all he did was to
look up at the windows. I thought his going into an empty house in
daylight and bringing out a bundle was queer, but I thought this last
move a good deal queerer, for he kept quite still, and never took his
eyes off the windows. When he'd had his fill he scrambled back over
the wall and came away. From there he went straight to Theobald Row,
South Lambeth, and knocked at the door of a chemist's shop kept by a
doctor. The name over the shop window was Cooper. He stayed there an
hour, and then returned to the Métropole. On the morning we left
London I hadn't the ghost of an idea that he intended to start for
Paris, and I followed him out of the Métropole to St. George's
Hospital, outside of which he met the gentleman who has traveled with
him to this place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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