Читать книгу The Inquisitor. A Novel онлайн

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'There's no one in the house,' she said.

He stood there, staring about him. He realized a number of things—one that the place was lit by gas, another that the hall, the stairs were dry and clean like an old yellow bone. Yes, dryness and cleanliness and a faint, a very faint odour in the air of mortality, as though far away in the heights or depths of the house someone were lying awaiting burial. It was not altogether unpleasant, this very faint odour; it was chemical, perhaps, rather than corporeal. Yes, the odour of a chemist's shop, many degrees rarefied. He was sharp and observant in any new place because he had, in his life, travelled so far and encountered so many adventures. He noticed that once the wallpaper of the hall and staircase had been a bright yellow with crimson roses. Now the walls were dim as things are that have been kept underground away from the light. The only furniture of the hall was an umbrella-stand, very ancient, leaning a little away from the door as though it feared the draught; above this a looking-glass and at the side of the glass some coats hanging like corpses. Only one picture hung on the wall, a photogravure of Father Christmas arriving in a family of excited, clapping, laughing children and pouring from his sack a multitude of gifts. One other thing he noticed, and that was that at the head of the stair, was a high window, its glass of yellow-and-green lozenges.