Her Faithful Knight — page 256: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

252 Aylmer to the Rescue. men’s boots as yer carn’t mistake, don’t go ’anging about an “ouse if something ain’t wrong. Lor’ bless you, sir, I can see as far through a brick wall as most, and if ever a woman deserved burning alive as a witch it’s that there conceited, scowling, disagreeable old woman, the nage S servant, Crecwall % In the gathering fog and gloom Aylmer gazed at the empty house with the close-drawn blinds, fascinated by the thought that here she had lived, she whose beauty and refinement would.have graced, as he told himself, the palace of a queen. The demonstrative curiosity of the neighbors drove him at length from the spot, and strolling round the block, comprising the four semi-detached dwell- ing places, he made his way to the back, and stared into the garden through the iron spikes surmounting a portion of the wall. As he did so he became aware of the figure of a man lurking round the corner of the first of the cottages, clearly intent on watching him. Aylmer had already sur- mised that some sort of guard was being kept on the house, but for reasons of his own he was extremely curi- ous to ascertain for himself the identity of this particular spy. He loitered about, therefore, for some moments in the fog, and deliberately lighted his pipe and stopped a passing errand-boy to ask the way to the Fulham road. As soon as he had received the information he turned as though to walk in that direction, and then suddenly doubling, found himself, as he intended, face to face with the person who had been noting his movements. The man whom he so unexpectedly faced was clearly not an ordinary detective, A slim, gracefully built, well- dressed man, very pale, with vividly red lips under a slight golden mustache, and large melancholy blue eyes under curled black lashes—altogether an exceptionally Commicoooks (<©) im