The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
General
The Lock and Key Library: Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Old Time English
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction; Ghost stories
Just then he heard a sound of feet behind him. On turning round,
he beheld three more men in the room; one was fastening the outer
door; one was drawing some arms from a cupboard, and two others
were whispering together. He himself was disturbed and perplexed,
and felt that all was not right. Such was his confusion, that
either all the men's faces must have been muffled up, or at least
he remembered nothing distinctly but one fierce pair of eyes
glaring upon him. Then, before he could look round, came a man
from behind and threw a sack over his head, which was drawn tight
about his waist, so as to confine his arms, as well as to impede
his hearing in part, and his voice altogether. He was then pushed
into a room; but previously he had heard a rush upstairs, and words
like those of a person exulting, and then a door closed. Once it
opened, and he could distinguish the words, in one voice, "And for
THAT!" to which another voice replied, in tones that made his heart
quake, "Aye, for THAT, sir." And then the same voice went on
rapidly to say, "O dog! could you hope"--at which word the door
closed again. Once he thought that he heard a scuffle, and he was
sure that he heard the sound of feet, as if rushing from one corner
of a room to another. But then all was hushed and still for about
six or seven minutes, until a voice close to his ear said, "Now,
wait quietly till some persons come in to release you. This will
happen within half an hour." Accordingly, in less than that time,
he again heard the sound of feet within the house, his own bandages
were liberated, and he was brought to tell his story at the police
office. Mr. Heinberg was found in his bedroom. He had died by
strangulation, and the cord was still tightened about his neck.
During the whole dreadful scene his youthful wife had been locked
into a closet, where she heard or saw nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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