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It may come from a corridor into which other wards are ventilated, from a hall, always unaired, always full of the fumes of gas, dinner, of various kinds of mustiness; from an underground kitchen, sink, washhouse, water-closet, or even, as I myself have had sorrowful experience, from open sewers loaded with filth; and with this the patient's room or ward is aired, as it is called poisoned, it should rather be said.
A grotesque old spinster, simple, childish, penniless, very humble at heart, but rigidly conscious of her pedigree; an amiable bachelor, of an epicurean temperament and an enfeebled intellect, who has passed twenty years of his life in penal confinement for a crime of which he was unjustly pronounced guilty; a sweet-natured and bright-faced young girl from the country, a poor relation of these two ancient decrepitudes, with whose moral mustiness her modern freshness and soundness are contrasted; a young man still more modern, holding the latest opinions, who has sought his fortune up and down the world, and, though he has not found it, takes a genial and enthusiastic view of the future: these, with two or three remarkable accessory figures, are the persons concerned in the little drama.
And by his side, with the same hopeless dejection in his face, straightening his bent back, his hands clasped behind him, diffusing an odour of rye bread and mustiness, not hearing a single word that was being said around him, stood the model servant, his grandfather's decrepit old valet. Mashurina sat smoking silently all the way, but when they reached the town gates she gave a loud sigh.
A spark glowed for an instant to his right; Thorvald was ready to go, so Shann had no time to try and recall the animals. He fumbled for those balls of soaked moss in his leaf bag. The chemical smell from them blotted out that alien mustiness which the wind brought from the campsite.
Cave was so startled and so impressed by the absolute reality of these eyes, that he drew his head back from the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watching that he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of his little shop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. And, as he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded, and went out.
The room had all the chilly discomfort of the farmhouse parlour, unused, save on state occasions a funereal gloom which no sunlight could pierce, a mustiness which savoured almost of the grave. One by one they obeyed the stern forefinger of Gideon Strong, and took their seats on comfortless chairs and the horse-hair sofa.
A dreadful mustiness pervaded the atmosphere. The dirt, too, the heavy deposit of guano upon the floor, made it almost revolting. There was no furniture of any sort, while yet it conveyed the suggestion that, at some remote period, it had been the habitation of man. A rough boarding lined the walls of logs very nearly up to the sloping roof.
A few minutes' fumbling until the prongs of the skeleton key had found its corresponding wards, and then the door swung open, emitting a scent of mustiness and decay. "Marchez!" said the stranger, and Raoul walked forward and heard the door slam behind him. The house was not empty, in the sense that it was unfurnished.
"The door with Mr. Loeb's name on it. Knock and walk right in." Feuerstein followed the directions and found himself in a dingy little room, smelling of mustiness and stale tobacco, and lined with law books, almost all on crime and divorce. Loeb, Lynn, Levy and McCafferty were lawyers to the lower grades of the criminal and shady only.
But these ashes looked old, nor could I detect any evidence of tobacco smoke in the general mustiness pervading the place. Was the man who died here a fortnight since accountable for these ashes? If so, his unfinished cigar must be within sight. Should I search for it? No, for this would take me to the hearth and that was quite too deadly a place to be heedlessly approached.
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