"Undoubtedly. I could not possibly evade the duty, with three such links as a sudden death, a cremation instead of a burial, and a vast fortune on the issue."
"And if you were to add," I thought, "the experiences I have gone through, you would be still less inclined to rest till the mystery was unraveled." Aloud I said, "Do not let the matter flag for a few pounds. I am most anxious to work it out, if there is a possibility of doing so."
"It shall not flag. The mischief of it is, the most important clews are destroyed. Only through the principal agent can the crime--if one has been committed--be brought to light."
"Or through an accomplice," I suggested.
"Quite so. But where to look for this accomplice--there lies the difficulty. Still it is the unexpected that often happens. Well, good-day, Mr. Emery; I hope to hear from you to-morrow."
Theobald's Row, South Lambeth, if not so desolate a neighborhood as Lamb's Terrace, was sufficiently depressing in its general aspect to cause one to resolve to give it a wide berth unless special business called him to the spot. There were sad, melancholy railway arches which might serve for a chapter in a modern "Inferno"; there were timber yards stacked high with discolored lumber, which appeared to be piled up not for purposes of trade, but to add one more melancholy feature to a worn-out, dilapidated locality; there were workingmen's lodging houses, whose flat surface of stone walls resembled prisons in which every vestige of brightness in life was hopelessly entombed; there were rows of houses as hopeless and despairing, and as poverty-stricken and irremediably shabby; and there was the most leaden atmosphere of which even London could boast. The men, women, and children I saw there were in keeping with their surroundings; the youngsters were playing listlessly and with no heart in their games; the men smoked pipes and haunted street corners or wandered in and out the beer shops and public houses; the worn-faced women conversed jadedly and dispiritedly; and everywhere the spirit of discontent proclaimed itself. Even the dogs nosing the gutters were infected with the prevailing gloom.
In the center of Theobald's Row, which consisted of sixteen small houses, eight on each side, and all of a flat dead level, I came upon Dr. Cooper's place of business, a parlor window, with two large dust-covered bottles displayed therein, whose ghostly colors were green and red. Half a dozen ragged children were disporting themselves on the doorstep, and as I approached the shop a slatternly woman came to the door and swooped them all into the house. As she was turning to follow them I accosted her.
"Is Dr. Cooper at home?"
"What do you want of him?" she retorted.
"I wish to see him on a matter of business."