St Ann’s Road has slightly gone to decay.
We find, sometimes, in the most prosperous districts, roads or streets that do not prosper; for some mysterious reason they go down in the world, premature age touches them, lichen and shabby-genteel people invade them, milk cans hang like tin fruit on the iron railings, and barrel organs infest them as buzz-flies infest carrion.
The houses in St Ann’s Road were semi-detached, with considerable gardens back and front; drunken-looking notice boards leaned here and there over the railings, setting forth the fact that here and there a house was to let.
Hellier was coming along the road, seeking an exit to the High Street, and determining in his own mind to make inquiries of all the house agents in the neighbourhood as to the studios to be let and the streets where such studios might be found.
He was feeling acutely the almost utter hopelessness of this wild-goose chase, when, coming out of one of the shabby-genteel gardens just in front of him, he saw a man.
The man looked up and down the road. He must have seen Hellier, but he showed no sign of having done so. Then he walked rapidly away in the direction in which Hellier was going.
Hellier walked rapidly too, although he found some difficulty in doing so, for, at the sight of the man’s face, which he beheld for only a few seconds, his heart paused in its beating and then became furiously agitated.
St Ann’s Road just here is cut by Malpas Road, leading down to the High Street.
The stranger turned the corner into Malpas Road and was lost to sight.
Hellier ran.