The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

by Wardon Allan Curtis

Nor since. Mr. Middleton found himself asking himself if anybody had seen any of the women since. Had the girl in this chance remark unwittingly hit upon a terrible mystery? Nor since, nor since.

The man who had so suddenly assumed an interest in Mr. Middleton’s eyes, arose, and going to the window, looked out at the street above, which was spattered with a sudden shower. He began to lament that he had not brought an umbrella and said he would go after one, when the storm so increased in violence that even a person provided with an umbrella—as was Mr. Middleton—would not care to venture into it, for such was the might of the wind now filling the air with its shrieks, that the rain swept in great lateral sheets which made an umbrella a futile protection. Yet notwithstanding this fury of the elements, the man of many women went out.

A half hour went by. An hour, and the storm did not abate and the man did not return. The good-looking waitress invited Mr. Middleton to sit at ease by a table in a rear part of the room, where lolling on the opposite side, with charming unconsciousness she let her hand lie stretched more than half across the board, a rampart of crumpled newspapers concealing it from the view of the eighth guest of the mulierose man. But whatever Mr. Middleton had done on previous occasions and might do on occasions yet to come, he now wished to avoid all appearances that might cause the eighth woman to regard him as at all inclined to other than discreet and modest conduct, for he was resolved to find out what he could about the man and eight women. So affecting not to note the hand temptingly disposed, he discoursed in a voice which was plainly audible in every corner of the room, not so much because of its loudness—for he had but little raised it—as because of a distinct and precise enunciation. This very precision, which always implies a regard for the rules, proprieties and amenities of life, seemed to stamp him as a man worthy of confidence, even had not his sentiments been of the most high-minded character. He described the great flood of 1882, which wrought such havoc in Missouri, in which cataclysm his Uncle Henry Perkins had suffered great loss. He extolled the commendable conduct of his uncle in sacrificing valuable property that he might save a woman; letting a flatboat loaded with twenty-five hogs whirl away in the raging flood, in order to rescue a woman from Booneville, Missouri, the wife of a county judge, who was floating in the waste of waters upon a small red barn. The dullest could infer from the approval he gave this act of his Uncle Henry, unwisely chivalrous as it might seem in view of the fact that whoever rescued the judge’s wife farther down stream, would return her to the judge, while no one would return the hogs to Mr. Perkins—the dullest could infer from his praise that he was himself a chivalrous and tender young man whom any woman could trust.

The hour was become an hour and a half and both the pretty waitress and the eighth woman had grown very fidgetty. The waitress saw she was to beguile the tedious period of emprisonment by the tempest with no dalliance with Mr. Middleton. The eighth woman was worried by the absence of her escort. Mr. Middleton stepped to her side, where she stood staring out at the wind-swept street, and addressed her.

“Madame, it would almost seem as if some accident had detained your escort. May I not offer to call a cab and see you home? I have an umbrella with me.”

The lady thanked him almost eagerly, saying that she would wait fifteen minutes more and at the elapse of that time, her escort not appearing, would gladly avail herself of his kind offer.

Twenty minutes later, they were whirling away northward. Crossing the Wells Street bridge, they turned eastward only a few blocks from the river. The rain had suddenly ceased. The wind having relaxed nothing of its fierceness, it occasionally parted the scudding clouds high over head to let glimpses of the moon escape from their wrack, and Mr. Middleton saw he was in a region whence the invasion of factories and warehouses had driven the major portion of the inhabitants forth, leaving their dwellings untenanted, white for rent signs staring out of the empty casements like so many ghosts. The lady signaling the driver to stop, Mr. Middleton assisted her to alight, and glanced about him. Here the work of exile had been very thorough. Not yet had the factories come into this immediate neighborhood, but the residents had retreated before the smoke of their advancing lines, leaving a wide unoccupied space behind the rear guard. Up and down the street, in no house could he perceive a light. The moon shining forth clear and resplendent, its face unobstructed by clouds for a moment, he saw stretching away house after house with white signs that grimly told their loneliness. Indeed, quite deserted did appear the very house to whose door they splashed through the pools in the depressions of the tall flight of stone steps. The lady threw open the door and stepped briskly in, and her footfalls rang sharply upon a bare floor and resounded in a hollow echo that told it was an empty house!

An empty house! An empty house! What danger might lurk here and how easy might losels lure victims to their door! Mr. Middleton paused on the threshold, staring into the gloom, but whatever irresolute thoughts he had entertained of retreat were dispelled by the sound of a wail from the lady, and the sight of her face, white in the moonlight, as she rushed out to him.

“Oh, oh,” she moaned, gibbering a gush of words which, despite their incoherence of form, in their tone proclaimed fear, consternation, and despair.

Lighting a match, Mr. Middleton stepped into the house. Standing in the little circle of dull yellow light, he saw beneath his feet windrows of dust and layers of newspapers that had rested beneath a carpet but lately removed, and beyond, dusk emptiness, and silence. He advanced, looking for a chandelier, but though he found two, the incandescent globes had been removed from them. Throwing a mass of the papers from the floor into the grate and lighting them, a bright glare brought out every corner of the room. There was nothing but the four bare walls.