The Dark Clue by James Wilson Page A

recollections of the day before – and it was easy enough to imagine that all three had been ordained by some great force with the express purpose of thwarting me!
    I soon put such unworthy thoughts behind me, however (and it was not just the fear of Marian’s mockery that made me do so!), and resolved that, rather than seeing these set-backs as a deterrent, I would take them as a spur to further action. I therefore busied myself with reading and correspondence until, a little after four o’clock, the rain relented sufficiently for me to venture out of doors without being immediately soaked to the skin.
    Perhaps, as it turned out, it would have been better if I had been more credulous, and stayed at home all day after all.
    Maiden Lane is a narrow little street lying between Covent Garden and the Strand. I must have passed it a hundred times, on my way to and from the theatre; yet I am ashamed to own that, before today, I scarcely knew of its existence. It is, in truth, a mean, poor, dingy kind of a place – yet not entirely abject, for two or three of the houses still have vestiges of respectability, which cling to them like the shreds of some finery passed on by one of their richer neighbours in Buckingham Street or Villiers Street. This afternoon, however, it looked desolate enough: for the rain seemed to have swept down all the detritus fromCovent Garden market, and knots of children squatted in the gutters, patiently making little mountains of mud and old cabbage leaves and broken fruit. They turned and looked at me as I approached; and then, as I passed, returned without a word to their game.
    Turner’s father, I knew, had kept a barber’s shop on the corner of Hand Court; but whether Hand Court still existed, and, if so, which of the half-dozen or so gloomy little entrances (crammed here and there between the houses at odd angles, as if a giant dentist had prised the bricks apart to accommodate them) might lead to it, I had no idea. As I looked about for someone to ask, my eye fell on a girl of twelve or thirteen, standing a little apart from the rest.
    â€˜Good afternoon,’ I said.
    She stared at me, but said nothing. Her large eyes, I noticed, were brown, and flecked with amber. Her dark hair was matted, and there was a grey smudge on one cheek; but had you washed her, and dressed her in new clothes, and placed her in any drawing room in Harley Street or Berkeley Square, she would have been counted very striking, and made much of by the ladies.
    â€˜Can you tell me’, I said, ‘which is Hand Court?’
    Again, she did not speak; but continued to stare, as if trying to find some meaning in my face that she had not heard in my words. At length she wiped her hand on her grubby pinafore, and jerked her cracked thumb towards a gloomy passage on the other side of the street. It was barred by an iron gate, beyond which nothing was visible save a line of discoloured wooden slats that seemed to dissolve, after a few yards, into pitch-blackness.
    â€˜Is that a barber’s shop?’ I asked, pointing at the corner building.
    She hesitated a moment, then at last broke her silence. ‘No, sir,’ she said, in a flat, weary voice. ‘It belongs to Parkin.’
    â€˜Parkin?’
    â€˜The grocer, sir. ‘E keeps it for a warehouse.’
    I walked to the window, wiped a film of soot from one of the little panes, and peered in. All I could see to start with was a heavy metal grille, but as my eyes adjusted to the meagre greylight I at length made out a row of shadowy tea chests stacked against the far wall. So much for my hope of finding the shop unchanged, and perhaps even occupied by a member of the same family.
    â€˜Does anyone live in the court?’ I said, turning back to the girl.
    She looked at me as if I had asked her whether the sun was warm, or water wet. ‘Why, yes, sir.’ She started to laugh. “Unnerds of ‘em!’
    For the life of me