Haunted houses -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
"Well said. We shall get along all right till Monday morning. There
was a little furniture in one or two of the rooms, and I do not
suppose it has been removed. When my wife was here we only examined
the front room on the second floor; the rooms I have not seen may be
habitable. I expect we shall have to go out and buy some necessaries.
What have you got in your bag?"
"You shall see presently."
The cat entered the house with us, but it did not remain with us in
the lobby. I saw it pass down to the basement, and it gave no sign of
expectation that I should accompany it.
"That's a comfort," I remarked.
I had to explain my meaning to Bob, and he seemed to regard the
departure as a significant commencement of our enterprise. We did not
follow our spectral companion to the basement, but proceeded upstairs
to the apartments I had already seen. In all, with the exception of
the front room on the second floor, in which I had rang the bell which
summoned the apparitions, there was some furniture left, and Bob
expressed his astonishment that it had not been removed or sold by the
last tenant.
"It would have been a simple matter," he said, "to call in a broker,
who would very soon have cleared the house of every stick in it."
"He must have had his reasons," I observed. "Perhaps his coming into
possession of a large fortune made him careless of these trifles."
"They are not exactly trifles," said Bob, who was better able than I
to speak on the subject. "A broker would give at least fifty pounds
for what is on this floor. The wonder is that the place has not been
robbed."
We had not yet reached the second floor, and we now ascended to the
room in which my wife and I had met with our appalling experience.
Before entering it we examined the back rooms, and in one, a bedroom,
we found two beds, which we determined to occupy for the night. Bob,
having lived a bachelor life for many years, now showed his handiness.
He examined the stove, to see that the register was up, and then he
opened his Gladstone bag, the contents of which surprised me. He
produced first a bundle of wood, then a remarkable case which
contained within its exceedingly limited space a kettle with a folding
handle, a gridiron, two tin pannikins, knives, forks, and spoons, and
a spirit lamp, fitting in each other.
"Bravo, Bob," I said; "living alone has taught you something."
He smiled, and proceeded to further surprise me, fishing out a loaf of
bread, tea, sugar, a tin of condensed milk, sausages, salt, pepper, a
revolver, a pack of cards, and a Bible--a motley collection of
articles.
"A bachelor's _multum in parvo_," he said, adding, as he touched the
revolver, "wouldn't be bad for the bush. We are short of two things,
coal and water. But look here--we are in luck. A scuttle nearly full.
There will be no water in the house fit to drink. We shall have to go
and market, but there will not be so much to get in as I expected."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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