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Updated: June 6, 2025
"To whom does it belong?" asked Lucian. "Mr. Peacock; he owns most of the property round about here, having bought up the land when the place was first built on. He's seventy years of age, you know, Mr. Denzil," continued Miss Greeb conversationally, "and rich! Lord! I don't know how rich he is!
"Begging your pardon, I'm sure," cried the pertinacious woman, "but he does. Mrs. Kebby has been all over the house, and there isn't another soul in it. No, Mr. Denzil, take it what way you will, there's something that ain't right about Mr. Berwin if that's his real name, which I don't believe it is." "Why, Miss Greeb?" "Just because I don't," replied the landlady, with feminine logic.
Lucian hesitated, as he rather dreaded the chattering tongue of his landlady, and did not wish his connection with the Vrain case to become public property in Geneva Square. Still, Miss Greeb was a valuable ally, if only for her wide acquaintance with the neighbourhood, its inhabitants, and their doings.
"Well, then, tell me," continued the barrister, "is the house built with a full frontage like those in this square? I mean, to gain Mrs. Bensusan's back yard is it necessary to go through Mrs. Bensusan's house?" "No," replied Miss Greeb, shutting her eyes to conjure up the image of her friend's premises. "You can go round the back through the side passage which leads in from Jersey Road."
Again Miss Greeb shook her head. "I know the back of No. 13 as well as I know my own face," she declared. "There's a yard and a fence, but no entrance. To get in there you have to go in by the front door or down the aiery steps; and you can't do neither without coming past Blinders at the square's entrance, and that," finished Miss Greeb triumphantly, "these visitors don't do."
Then, seeing that there was no chance for her beside this splendid lady, she consoled herself with a dismal little proverb, and looked forward to the time when it would be necessary to put a ticket in the parlour window. Meanwhile, to have some one on whose bosom she could weep, Miss Greeb went round to see Mrs.
Poor brainless, silly, pitiful Miss Greeb; she would have made a good wife and a fond mother, but by some irony of fate she was destined to be neither; and the comedy of her husband-hunting youth was now changing into the lonely tragedy of disappointed spinsterhood. She was one of the world's unknown martyrs, and her fate merits tears rather than laughter.
"And if you think of having anything to do with this mystery, Mr. Denzil, I beg of you not to, else you may come to something as is too terrible to consider that you may." "Such as " "Oh, I don't know," cried Miss Greeb, tossing her head and gliding towards the door. "It ain't for me to say what I think. I am the last person in the world to meddle with what don't concern me that I am."
I therefore left the stiletto which I had brought with me on the table, and returned to my house in Jersey Street. I never saw him alive again. I went to bed and slept all night, so I was aware of nothing in connection with the death until late on Christmas Day. Then Mrs. Bensusan was told by Miss Greeb, the landlady of Denzil, that the tenant of No. 13 had been murdered.
Bensusan prefers gentlemen, who are out of doors all day, to ladies muddling and meddling all day about the house. I must say I do, too, Mr. Denzil," ended the lady, with a fascinating glance. "What is his name, Miss Greeb?" repeated Lucian, quite impervious to the hint. "Let me see," said Miss Greeb, discomfited at the result of her failure. "A queer name that had to do with payments.
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