16

DOUBT

I prayed uncle that we might be driven home by the way of Eighty-sixth Street.
I wanted to look at the Fairbrother house. I had seen it many times, but I felt
that I should see it with new eyes after the story I had just heard in the
inspector's office. That an adventure of this nature could take place in a New
York house taxed my credulity. I might have believed it of Paris, wicked,
mysterious Paris, the home of intrigue and every redoubtable crime, but of our
own homely, commonplace metropolis-the house must be seen for me to be
convinced of the fact related.

Many of you know the building. It is usually spoken of with a shrug, the sole
reason for which seems to be that there is no other just like it in the city. I
myself have always considered it imposing and majestic; but to the average man
it is too suggestive of Old-World feudal life to be pleasing. On this
afternoon-a dull, depressing one-it looked undeniably heavy as we
approached it; but interesting in a very new way to me, because of the great
turret at one angle, the scene of that midnight descent of two men, each in
deadly fear of the other, yet quailing not in their purpose,-the one of
flight, the other of pursuit.