Chapter Thirteen.
The Catspaw.
Just as the dusk had deepened into grey on the following evening I alighted from a tram in the Lower Clapton Road, and, accompanied by Hartwig, we turned up a long thoroughfare of uniform houses, called Powerscroft Road, until we reached Blurton Road, where, nearly opposite the Mission House, we found the house of which we were in search.
Hartwig had altered his appearance wonderfully, and looked more like a Devonshire farmer up in London on holiday than the shrewd, astute head of the Sûreté of the Russian Empire. As for myself, I had assumed a very old suit and wore a shabby hat.
The drab, dismal house, which we passed casually in order to inspect, was dingy and forbidding, with curtains that were faded with smoke and dirt, holland blinds once yellow, but the ends of which were now dark and stained, and windows which had not been cleaned for years, while the front door was faded and blistered and some of the tops of the iron railings in front had been broken off. The steps leading to the front door had not been hearthstoned as were those of its neighbour, while in the area were bits of wastepaper, straw, and the flotsam and jetsam of the noisy, overcrowded street.
Unkempt children were romping or playing hopscotch on the pavement, while some were skipping and others playing football in the centre of the road—all pupils of the great County Council Schools in the vicinity.
At both the basement window and that of the room above—the front parlour—were short blinds of dirty muslin, so that to see within while passing was impossible. In that particular it differed in no way from some of its neighbours; for in those parts front parlours are often turned into bedrooms, and a separate family occupies every floor. Only one fact was apparent—that it was the dirtiest and most neglected house in the whole of that working-class road, bordering upon the Hackney Marsh.
To me that district was as unfamiliar as were the wilds of the Sahara. Indeed, to the average Londoner Lower Clapton is a mere legendary district, the existence of which is only recorded by the name written upon tramcars and omnibuses.
Together we strolled to the bottom of Blurton Road, to where Glyn Road crosses it at right angles, and then we stopped to discuss our plans.