“You will see that presently,” said he, “and meanwhile you must not confuse Miller’s beliefs with mine. However,” he added, as we crossed a bridge over a canal—presumably the Regent’s Canal—“we will adjourn the discussion for the moment. Do you know what street that is ahead of us?”
“No,” I answered; “I have never been here before, so far as I know.”
“That is Field-street,” said he.
“The street that the late Mr. Crile lived in?”
“Yes,” he answered; and as we passed on into the street from the foot of the bridge, he added, pointing to a house on our left hand: “And that is the residence of the late Mr. Crile—empty, and to let, as you observe.”
As we walked past I looked curiously at the house, with its shabby front and its blank, sightless windows, its desolate condition emphasized by the bills which announced it; but I made no remark until we came to the bottom of the street, when I recognized the cross road as the one along which I used to pass on my way to the Morrises’ house. I mentioned the fact to Thorndyke, and he replied: “Yes. That is where we are going now. We are going to take a look over the premises. That house also is empty, and I have got a permit from the agent to view it and have been entrusted with the keys.”
In a few minutes we turned into the familiar little thoroughfare, and as we took our way past its multitudinous stalls and barrows I speculated on the object of this exploration. But it was futile to ask questions, seeing that I had but to wait a matter of minutes for the answer to declare itself. Soon we reached the house and halted for a moment to look through the glazed door into the empty shop. Then Thorndyke inserted the key into the side door and pushed it open.
There is always something a little melancholy in the sight of an empty house which one has known in its occupied state. Nothing, indeed, could be more cheerless than the Morris household; yet it was with a certain feeling of depression that I looked down the long passage (where Cropper had bumped his head in the dark) and heard the clang of the closing door. This was a dead house—a mere empty shell. The feeble life that I had known in it was no more. So I reflected as I walked slowly down the passage at Thorndyke’s side, recalling the ungracious personalities of Mrs. Morris and her husband and the pathetic figure of poor Mr. Bendelow.
When from the passage we came out into the hall, the sense of desolation was intensified, for here not only the bare floor and vacant walls proclaimed the untenanted state of the house. The big curtain that had closed in the end of the hall, and to a great extent furnished it, was gone, leaving the place very naked and chill. Incidentally, its disappearance revealed a feature of whose existence I had been unaware.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “they had a second street door. I never saw that. It was hidden by a curtain. But it can’t open into Market-street.”