I should not myself have cared to live in Camford Street, though it had many residents. It was in the heart, if not exactly of a slum, then certainly of an unsavoury district. Its surroundings, residentially speaking, were about as undesirable as they could have been. Camford Street itself was long, dreary, out-at-elbows, old enough to look as if it would be improved by being rebuilt. Painters, whitewashers, people of that kind, had not been down that way for years; that was obvious from the fronts of the houses. Buildings stretched from end to end in one continuous depressing row. Half-a-dozen houses, then a shop; half-a-dozen more, and a blacking manufactory; three more, and a public-house; another six and a “wardrobe dealer’s,” doubtful third and fourth hand garments dimly visible through dirty panes of glass, and so on, for a good half mile.
Eighty-four looked, what it undoubtedly was, an abode of mystery, as grimy an edifice as the street contained. I know nothing of the value of property thereabouts; whatever it might have been it was not the kind of house I should care to have bequeathed to me. Especially if I had to reside in it. I would rather pass it on to someone who was more deserving. Shutters were up at all the windows. There was not a trace of a blind or curtain. At the front door there was neither bell nor knocker. It seemed deserted. I rapped at the panels with the handle of my stick; once, and then again. An urchin addressed me from the kerb.
“There ain’t no one living in that ’ouse, guv’nor.”
I thanked him for the information; it never occurred to me to shed a shadow of doubt on it. I felt sure that he was right. I crossed to a general shop on the other side of the way.
“Excuse me,” I said to the individual whom I took for the proprietor—“Kennard” was the name over the shop front—“Can you tell me who lives at No. 84?”
“No one.”
Mr. Kennard—I was convinced it was he—was a short, paunchy man, with a bald head and a club foot. He pursed his lips and screwed up his eyes in a fashion which struck me as rather comical.
“Who is the landlord?”
“No one knows.”
“No one?” I smiled. “I presume you mean that you don’t know. Someone must; the local authorities, for instance.”