The Corner House

by Fred M. White

Evidently it was going to be a night of surprises. If Bruce had any astonishment he concealed it behind his professional manner. For the corner house was dark and deserted no longer. A brilliant light burnt in the hall. The door was opened presently by a woman who had a Spanish mantilla over her head. Her hair was down, and in the gleam of the lamplight Bruce could see that it was wonderfully long and fair and beautiful. Bruce spoke to her, but she only replied in what he deemed to be Spanish.

So far as he could see there were no signs of dust or desolation about the corner house. The hall was clean and bright, there was a thick carpet on the stairs. Every door was shut save one on the first floor, into which the fair beauty with the lovely hair led the way. Four or five gas jets were flaring away with a hissing roar. A draught from somewhere made them flicker restlessly on a large room absolutely devoid of furniture save for an old-fashioned four-post bedstead in the middle. The air was close and stuffy, as if the window had not been opened for months. There were barred shutters before them.

The Spanish beauty said something, and pointed to the bed. A man in a deep sleep lay there--so deep a sleep that at first Bruce took him to be dead. But there was just the slightest flicker of a pulse, a quiver of the eyelids. On a table close by was a glass containing, from the odour of it, laudanum. A half-empty phial of it was clenched in the patient's hand.

A small, twisted man, with a nose all crooked on one side, and fingers covered with huge orange-coloured freckles! Bruce choked down a cry of amazement. It was indeed proving a night of surprises.

Here was the very man whom Hetty had seen at the window of the corner house--the very man whose features, as seen from the morning room, had been reflected in the mirror. It was impossible that there could be any coincidence here. Once seen the man could never be forgotten. It looked as if the new mystery of the corner house was going to be explained.

Just for a moment Bruce almost lost his self-possession. The beauty with the fair hair was regarding him curiously. He felt half annoyed that he had been so near betraying himself. The medical man was uppermost now. Evidently the patient was in a state of almost collapse from alcoholic poisoning. As is usual in such instances, sleep had forsaken the wretched man, and he had had recourse to drugs. He had taken an overdose and medical aid had been summoned just in the nick of time.

The corner house, the mystery--everything was now forgotten. Bruce called for hot water, he made a sign for it, he simulated the mixing of mustard in a pot. Fortunately his companion's native intelligence was equal to the strain. She vanished with a quick nod of her head.

The house was wonderfully quiet; not a sound came from anywhere. The repulsive figure of the man lay there like some new and hideous form of death. Who he was and why he came there Bruce did not dare to think for the present. Perhaps the dark owner of the house had returned; perhaps this was the very man himself. Certainly there was no foul play here, no audacious criminal invasion of the house, seeing that the light in the hall could be seen from the street.

Surely they were a long time getting that hot water. In such a case as this hurry was everything. Bruce crept from the room and looked over the banisters. The whole place was in darkness!

Bruce caught his breath sharply. He had scarcely time to consider what it all meant when the light flared up again, and the fair woman returned with a kettle and basin and a tin of mustard.