It was nearly one o’clock, and the sun was high, as I walked beneath the dingy brick walls which separate each short garden from the pavement. In some gardens were stunted trees, blackened by the London smoke, while the houses were mostly large and comfortable, for it is still considered a “genteel,” if somewhat decayed neighbourhood.
Before that house of horror I paused for a moment. The dingy blinds of yellow holland were drawn at each of the soot-grimed windows, blackened by age and dirt. The garden was weedy and neglected, for the grass grew high on the patch of lawn, and the dead leaves of the tulips and daffodils of spring had not been removed.
The whole place presented a sadly neglected, sorry appearance—a state of uncared-for disorder which, in the darkness of night, I had, of course, not noticed.
As I looked within the garden I saw lying behind the wall an old weather-beaten notice-board which bore the words “To be let, Furnished,” and giving the name of a well-known firm of estate agents in Pall Mall.
The house next door was smart and well kept, therefore I resolved to make inquiry there.
Of the tall, thin, old man-servant who answered my ring, I inquired the name of the occupant of Althorp House.
“Well, sir,” he replied, “there hasn’t been an occupant since I’ve been in service here, and that’s ten years last March. An old lady lived there, I’ve heard—a rather eccentric old lady. They’ve tried to let it furnished, but nobody has taken it. It is said that the old lady left instructions in her will that the furniture was to be left just as it was for twenty years after her death. I expect the place must be fine and dirty! An old woman goes there once every six weeks or so, I believe, just to open the doors and let in a little air. But it’s never cleaned.”
“And nobody has been over it with a view to renting it?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”