House of Death

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It was not a very attractive neighborhood.

Off to the east were warehouses, loft buildings, poor-looking brick structures in which families lived two to a room, and, finally, second-class apartment houses. To the west, only a block or two, the dark dock areas began, and from the Hudson River came hoots of foghorns as the mist of midnight deepened over river traffic.

The street was more like an alley than a street. The man walking down it seemed to have a tendency to walk on the street rather than on the sidewalk. The sidewalk, his movements made it appear, was much too close to dark doorways from which trouble could come.

Altogether, the man acted as though bearing something very valuable. And yet his looks did not confirm such a supposition.

He looked almost like a bum.

He wore a serge suit that had once been fairly good but now had spots where the process of fraying had gone beyond the shiny stage and into the condition where loose threads showed. His shoes were scuffed and thin of sole. His felt hat was as shapeless, and his shirt was not too clean and had frayed spots at the collar.

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