That Affair Next Door

Need to correct description on Payhip Next morning as soon as modesty would permit me to approach the window, I surveyed the neighboring house minutely. Not a blind was open, nor a shutter displaced. As I am an early riser, this did not disturb me at the time, but when after breakfast I looked again and still failed to detect any evidences of life in the great barren front beside me, I began to feel uneasy. But I did nothing till noon, when going into my rear garden and observing that the back windows of the Van Burnam house were as closely shuttered as the front, I became so anxious that I stopped the next policeman I saw going by, and telling him my suspicions, urged him to ring the bell. No answer followed the summons. “There is no one here,” he said. “Ring again.” I begged. And he rang again but with no better result. “Don’t you see the house is shut up?” he grumbled. “We have had orders to watch the place, but none to take the watch off.” “There is a young woman inside,” I insisted. “The more I think over last night’s occurrence, the more I am convinced the matter should be looked into.” He shrugged his shoulders and was moving away when we both observed a common-looking woman standing in front looking at us. She had a bundle in her hand, and her face, unnaturally ruddy though it was, had a scared look which was all the more remarkable from the fact that it was one of those wooden-like countenances which under ordinary circumstances are capable of but little expression. She was not a stranger to me. That is I had seen her before in or about the house in which we were at that moment so interested; and not stopping to put any curb on my excitement, I rushed down to the pavement and accosted her. “Who are you?” I asked. “Do you work for the Van Burnams, and do you know who the lady was who came here last night?”