Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

297 страница из 895

It was very tempting, not to say inviting, to the burglar.

Peace had played his violin at a beershop in the neighbourhood—​that is how he came to notice the Gothic cottage, as it was termed.

To obtain an entrance would be matter of no great difficulty. Most of the inhabitants in the neighbourhood went to bed early, and rose with the lark.

It was between ten and eleven o’clock at night when Peace arrived at the villa in question.

A flight of steps led up to the front door. A bay window, with stone balustrading in front and a portico above, jutted out from the first storey of the habitation.

When Peace had reached the lawn in front of the house, he hesitated for a short time, before he made up his mind as to which was the easiest mode of access.

He came to the conclusion that it would be best to perform on the door. He had but little difficulty in picking the look of this. The door yielded to his pressure, but he found that it was fastened by an inner chain, the end of which ran into a hollow tube.