WITCHING HILL
BY E. W. HORNUNG
AUTHOR OF "RAFFLES"
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
Reprinted, 1914.
"You won't improve his chances by keeping anything back."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. UNHALLOWED GROUND
CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE WITH RED BLINDS
CHAPTER III. A VICIOUS CIRCLE
CHAPTER IV. THE LOCAL COLOUR
CHAPTER V. THE ANGEL OF LIFE
CHAPTER VI. UNDER ARMS
CHAPTER VII. THE LOCKED ROOM
CHAPTER VIII. THE TEMPLE OF BACCHUS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"You won't improve his chances by keeping anything back."
I saw a bedizened beauty go mad before my eyes.
A handsome, sinister creature, in a brown flowing wig and raiment asfine as any on the walls.
Trying to tug the fierce moustache out of his mild face.
A heavy blackthorn held in murderous poise.
His thin arms locked round the neck of the young nurse.
CHAPTER I
Unhallowed Ground
The Witching Hill Estate Office was as new as the Queen Anne houses ithad to let, and about as worthy of its name. It was just a wooden boxwith a veneer of rough-cast and a corrugated iron lid. Inside there wasa vast of varnish on three of the walls; but the one opposite my counterconsisted of plate-glass worth the rest of the structure put together.It afforded a fine prospect of Witching Hill Road, from the levelcrossing by the station to the second lamp-post round the curve.
Framed and glazed in the great window, this was not a picture calculatedto inspire a very young man; and yet there was little to distract abrooding eye from its raw grass-plots and crude red bricks and tiles;for one's chief duties were making out orders to view the still emptyhouses, hearing the complaints of established tenants, and keeping suchan eye on painters and paperhangers as was compatible with "being on thespot if anybody called." An elderly or a delicate man would have foundit nice light work; but for a hulking youth fresh from the breeziestschool in Great Britain, where they live in flannels and only work whenit is wet or dark, the post seemed death in life. My one consolation wasto watch the tenants hurrying to the same train every morning, in thesame silk hat and blacks, and crawling home with the same evening paperevery night. I at any rate enjoyed comparatively pure air all day. I hadnot married and settled down in a pretentious jerry-building wherenothing interesting could