A Case of Eavesdropping
Jim Shorthouse was the sort of fellow who always made a mess of things.Everything with which his hands or mind came into contact issued fromsuch contact in an unqualified and irremediable state of mess. Hiscollege days were a mess: he was twice rusticated. His schooldays were amess: he went to half a dozen, each passing him on to the next with aworse character and in a more developed state of mess. His early boyhoodwas the sort of mess that copy-books and dictionaries spell with a big"M," and his babyhood--ugh! was the embodiment of howling, yowling,screaming mess.At the age of forty, however, there came a change in his troubled life,when he met a girl with half a million in her own right, who consentedto marry him, and who very soon succeeded in reducing his most messyexistence into a state of comparative order and system.Certain incidents, important and otherwise, of Jim's life would neverhave come to be told here but for the fact that in getting into his"messes" and out of them again he succeeded in drawing himself into theatmosphere of peculiar circumstances and strange happenings. Heattracted to his path the curious adventures of life as unfailingly asmeat attracts flies, and jam wasps. It is to the meat and jam of hislife, so to speak, that he owes his experiences; his after-life was allpudding, which attracts nothing but greedy children. With marriage theinterest of his life ceased for all but one person, and his path becameregular as the sun's instead of erratic as a comet's.The first experience in order of time that he related to me shows thatsomewhere latent behind his disarranged nervous system there lay psychicperceptions of an uncommon order. About the age of twenty-two--I thinkafter his second rustication--his father's purse and patience hadequally given out, and Jim found himself stranded high and dry in alarge American city. High and dry! And the only clothes that had noholes in them safely in the keeping of his uncle's wardrobe.Careful reflection on a bench in one of the city parks led him to theconclusion that the only thing to do was to persuade the city editor ofone of the daily journals that he possessed an observant mind and aready pen, and that he could "do good work for your paper, sir, as areporter." This, then, he did, standing at a most unnatural anglebetween the editor and the window to conceal the whereabouts of theholes."Guess we'll have to give you a week's trial," said the editor, who,ever on the lookout for good chance material, took on shoals of men inthat way and retained on the average one man per shoal. Anyhow it gaveJim Shorthouse the wherewithal to sew up the holes and relieve hisuncle's wardrobe of its burden.Then he went to find living quarters; and in this proceeding his uniquecharacteristics already referred to--what theosophists would call hisKarma--began unmistakably to assert themselves, for it was in the househe eventually selected that this sad tale took place.There are no "diggings" in American cities. The alternatives for smallincomes are grim enough--rooms in a boarding-house where meals areserved, or in a room-house where no meals are served--not evenbreakfast. Rich people live in palaces, of course, but Jim had nothingto do with "sich-like." His horizon was bounded by boarding-houses androom-houses; and, owing to the necessary irregularity of his meals andhours, he took the latter.It was a large, gaunt-looking place in a side street, with dirty windowsand a creaking iron gate, but the rooms were large, and the one heselected and paid for in advance was on the top floor. The landladylooked gaunt and dusty as the house, and quite as old. Her eyes weregreen and faded, and her features large."Waal," she twanged, with her electrifying Western drawl, "that's theroom, if you like it, and that's the price I said. Now, if you want it,why, just say so; and if you don't, why, it don't hurt me any."Jim wanted to shake her, but he feared the clouds of long-accumulateddust in her clothes, and as the price and size of the room suited him,he decided to take it."Anyone else on this floor?" he asked.She looked at him queerly out of her faded eyes before she answered."None of my guests ever put such questions to me before," she said; "butI guess you're different. Why, there's no one at all but an old gentthat's stayed here every bit of five years. He's over thar," pointingto the end of the passage."Ah! I see," said Shorthouse feebly. "So I'm alone up here?""Reckon you are, pretty near," she twanged out, ending the conversationabruptly by turning her back on her new "guest," and going slowly anddeliberately downstairs.The newspaper work kept Shorthouse out most of the night. Three times aweek he got home at 1 a.m., and three times at 3 a.m. The room provedcomfortable enough, and he paid for a second week. His unusual hours hadso far prevented his meeting any inmates of the house, and not a soundhad been heard from the "old gent" who shared the floor with him. Itseemed a very quiet house.One night, about the middle of the second week, he came home tired aftera long day's work. The lamp that usually stood all night in the hall hadburned itself out, and he had to stumble upstairs in the dark. He madeconsiderable noise in doing so, but nobody seemed to be disturbed. Thewhole house was utterly quiet, and probably everybody was asleep. Therewere no lights under any of the doors. All was in darkness. It was aftertwo o'clock.After reading some English letters that had come during the day, anddipping for a few minutes into a book, he became drowsy and got readyfor bed. Just as he was about to get in between the sheets, he stoppedfor a moment and listened. There rose in the night, as he did so, thesound of steps somewhere in the house below. Listening attentively, heheard that it was somebody coming upstairs--a heavy tread, and the ownertaking no pains to step quietly. On it came up the stairs, tramp, tramp,tramp--evidently the tread of a big man, and one in something of ahurry.At once thoughts connected somehow with fire and police flashed throughJim's brain, but there were no sounds of voices with the steps, and hereflected in the same moment that it could only be the old gentlemankeeping late hours and tumbling upstairs in the darkness. He was in theact of turning out the gas and stepping into bed, when the house resumedits former stillness by the footsteps suddenly coming to a dead stopimmediately outside his own room.With his hand on the gas, Shorthouse paused a moment before turning itout to see if the steps would go on again, when he was startled by aloud knocking on his door. Instantly, in obedience to a curious andunexplained instinct, he turned out the light, leaving himself and theroom in total darkness.He had scarcely taken a step across the room to open the door, when avoice from the other side of the wall, so close it almost sounded in hisear, exclaimed in German, "Is that you, father? Come in."The speaker was a man in the next room, and the knocking, after all, hadnot been on his own door, but on that of the adjoining chamber, which hehad supposed to be vacant.Almost before the man in the passage had time to answer in German, "Letme in at once," Jim heard someone cross the floor and unlock the door.Then it was slammed to with a bang, and there was audible the sound offootsteps about the room, and of chairs being drawn up to a table andknocking against furniture on the way. The men seemed wholly regardlessof their neighbour's comfort, for they made noise enough to waken thedead."Serves me right for taking a room in such a cheap hole," reflected Jimin the darkness. "I wonder whom she's let the room to!"The two rooms, the landlady had told him, were originally one. She hadput up a thin partition--just a row of boards--to increase her income.The doors were adjacent, and only separated by the massive upright beambetween them. When one was opened or shut the other rattled.With utter indifference to the comfort of the other sleepers in thehouse, the two Germans had meanwhile commenced to talk both at once andat the top of their voices. They talked emphatically, even angrily. Thewords "Father" and "Otto" were freely used. Shorthouse understoodGerman, but as he stood listening for the first minute or two, aneavesdropper in spite of himself, it was difficult to make head or tailof the talk, for neither would give way to the other, and the jumble ofguttural sounds and unfinished sentences was wholly unintelligible.Then, very suddenly, both voices dropped together; and, after a moment'spause, the deep tones of one of them, who seemed to be the "father,"said, with the utmost distinctness--"You mean, Otto, that you refuse to get it?"There was a sound of someone shuffling in the chair before the answercame. "I mean that I don't know how to get it. It is so much, father. Itis too much. A part of it--""A part of it!" cried the other, with an angry oath, "a part of it, whenruin and disgrace are already in the house, is worse than useless. Ifyou can get half you can get all, you wretched fool. Half-measures onlydamn all concerned.""You told me last time--" began the other firmly, but was not allowed tofinish. A succession of horrible oaths drowned his sentence, and thefather went on, in a voice vibrating with anger--"You know she will give you anything. You have only been married a fewmonths. If you ask and give a plausible reason you can get all we wantand more. You can ask it temporarily. All will be paid back. It willre-establish the firm, and she will never know what was done with it.With that amount, Otto, you know I can recoup all these terrible losses,and in less than a year all will be repaid. But without it. . . . You mustget it, Otto. Hear me, you must. Am I to be arrested for the misuse oftrust moneys? Is our honoured name to be cursed and spat on?" The oldman choked and stammered in his anger and desperation.Shorthouse stood shivering in the darkness and listening in spite ofhimself. The conversation had carried him along with it, and he had beenfor some reason afraid to let his neighbourhood be known. But at thispoint he realised that he had listened too long and that he must informthe two men that they could be overheard to every single syllable. So hecoughed loudly, and at the same time rattled the handle of his door. Itseemed to have no effect, for the voices continued just as loudly asbefore, the son protesting and the father growing more and more angry.He coughed again persistently, and also contrived purposely in thedarkness to tumble against the partition, feeling the thin boards yieldeasily under his weight, and making a considerable noise in so doing.But the voices went on unconcernedly, and louder than ever. Could it bepossible they had not heard?By this time Jim was more concerned about his own sleep than themorality of overhearing the private scandals of his neighbours, and hewent out into the passage and knocked smartly at their door. Instantly,as if by magic, the sounds ceased. Everything dropped into uttersilence. There was no light under the door and not a whisper could beheard within. He knocked again, but received no answer."Gentlemen," he began at length, with his lips close to the keyhole andin German, "please do not talk so loud. I can overhear all you say inthe next room. Besides, it is very late, and I wish to sleep."He paused and listened, but no answer was forthcoming. He turned thehandle and found the door was locked. Not a sound broke the stillness ofthe night except the faint swish of the wind over the skylight and thecreaking of a board here and there in the house below. The cold air of avery early morning crept down the passage, and made him shiver. Thesilence of the house began to impress him disagreeably. He looked behindhim and about him, hoping, and yet fearing, that something would breakthe stillness. The voices still seemed to ring on in his ears; but thatsudden silence, when he knocked at the door, affected him far moreunpleasantly than the voices, and put strange thoughts in hisbrain--thoughts he did not like or approve.Moving stealthily from the door, he peered over the banisters into thespace below. It was like a deep vault that might conceal in its shadowsanything that was not good. It was not difficult to fancy he saw anindistinct moving to-and-fro below him. Was that a figure sitting on thestairs peering up obliquely at him out of hideous eyes? Was that a soundof whispering and shuffling down there in the dark halls and forsakenlandings? Was it something more than the inarticulate murmur of thenight?The wind made an effort overhead, singing over the skylight, and thedoor behind him rattled and made him start. He turned to go back to hisroom, and the draught closed the door slowly in his face as if therewere someone pressing against it from the other side. When he pushed itopen and went in, a hundred shadowy forms seemed to dart swiftly andsilently back to their corners and hiding-places. But in the adjoiningroom the sounds had entirely ceased, and Shorthouse soon crept into bed,and left the house with its inmates, waking or sleeping, to take care ofthemselves, while he entered the region of dreams and silence.Next day, strong in the common sense that the sunlight brings, hedetermined to lodge a complaint against the noisy occupants of the nextroom and make the landlady request them to modify their voices at suchlate hours of the night and morning. But it so happened that she was notto be seen that day, and when he returned from the office at midnight itwas, of course, too late.Looking under the door as he came up to bed he noticed that there was nolight, and concluded that the Germans were not in. So much the better.He went to sleep about one o'clock, fully decided that if they came uplater and woke him with their horrible noises he would not rest till hehad roused the landlady and made her reprove them with thatauthoritative twang, in which every word was like the lash of a metallicwhip.However, there proved to be no need for such drastic measures, forShorthouse slumbered peacefully all night, and his dreams--chiefly ofthe fields of grain and flocks of sheep on the far-away farms of hisfather's estate--were permitted to run their fanciful course unbroken.Two nights later, however, when he came home tired out, after adifficult day, and wet and blown about by one of the wickedest storms hehad ever seen, his dreams--always of the fields and sheep--were notdestined to be so undisturbed.He had already dozed off in that delicious glow that follows the removalof wet clothes and the immediate snuggling under warm blankets, when hisconsciousness, hovering on the borderland between sleep and waking, wasvaguely troubled by a sound that rose indistinctly from the depths ofthe house, and, between the gusts of wind and rain, reached his earswith an accompanying sense of uneasiness and discomfort. It rose on thenight air with some pretence of regularity, dying away again in the roarof the wind to reassert itself distantly in the deep, brief hushes ofthe storm.For a few minutes Jim's dreams were coloured only--tinged, as it were,by this impression of fear approaching from somewhere insensibly uponhim. His consciousness, at first, refused to be drawn back from thatenchanted region where it had wandered, and he did not immediatelyawaken. But the nature of his dreams changed unpleasantly. He saw thesheep suddenly run huddled together, as though frightened by theneighbourhood of an enemy, while the fields of waving corn becameagitated as though some monster were moving uncouthly among the crowdedstalks. The sky grew dark, and in his dream an awful sound camesomewhere from the clouds. It was in reality the sound downstairsgrowing more distinct.Shorthouse shifted uneasily across the bed with something like a groanof distress. The next minute he awoke, and found himself sittingstraight up in bed--listening. Was it a nightmare? Had he been dreamingevil dreams, that his flesh crawled and the hair stirred on his head?The room was dark and silent, but outside the wind howled dismally anddrove the rain with repeated assaults against the rattling windows. Hownice it would be--the thought flashed through his mind--if all winds,like the west wind, went down with the sun! They made such fiendishnoises at night, like the crying of angry voices. In the daytime theyhad such a different sound. If only--Hark! It was no dream after all, for the sound was momentarily growinglouder, and its cause was coming up the stairs. He found himselfspeculating feebly what this cause might be, but the sound was still tooindistinct to enable him to arrive at any definite conclusion.The voice of a church clock striking two made itself heard above thewind. It was just about the hour when the Germans had commenced theirperformance three nights before. Shorthouse made up his mind that ifthey began it again he would not put up with it for very long. Yet hewas already horribly conscious of the difficulty he would have ofgetting out of bed. The clothes were so warm and comforting against hisback. The sound, still steadily coming nearer, had by this time becomedifferentiated from the confused clamour of the elements, and hadresolved itself into the footsteps of one or more persons."The Germans, hang 'em!" thought Jim. "But what on earth is the matterwith me? I never felt so queer in all my life."He was trembling all over, and felt as cold as though he were in afreezing atmosphere. His nerves were steady enough, and he felt nodiminution of physical courage, but he was conscious of a curious senseof malaise and trepidation, such as even the most vigorous men have beenknown to experience when in the first grip of some horrible and deadlydisease. As the footsteps approached this feeling of weakness increased.He felt a strange lassitude creeping over him, a sort of exhaustion,accompanied by a growing numbness in the extremities, and a sensation ofdreaminess in the head, as if perhaps the consciousness were leaving itsaccustomed seat in the brain and preparing to act on another plane. Yet,strange to say, as the vitality was slowly withdrawn from his body, hissenses seemed to grow more acute.Meanwhile the steps were already on the landing at the top of thestairs, and Shorthouse, still sitting upright in bed, heard a heavy bodybrush past his door and along the wall outside, almost immediatelyafterwards the loud knocking of someone's knuckles on the door of theadjoining room.Instantly, though so far not a sound had proceeded from within, heheard, through the thin partition, a chair pushed back and a man quicklycross the floor and open the door."Ah! it's you," he heard in the son's voice. Had the fellow, then, beensitting silently in there all this time, waiting for his father'sarrival? To Shorthouse it came not as a pleasant reflection by anymeans.There was no answer to this dubious greeting, but the door was closedquickly, and then there was a sound as if a bag or parcel had beenthrown on a wooden table and had slid some distance across it beforestopping."What's that?" asked the son, with anxiety in his tone."You may know before I go," returned the other gruffly. Indeed his voicewas more than gruff: it betrayed ill-suppressed passion.Shorthouse was conscious of a strong desire to stop the conversationbefore it proceeded any further, but somehow or other his will was notequal to the task, and he could not get out of bed. The conversationwent on, every tone and inflexion distinctly audible above the noise ofthe storm.In a low voice the father continued. Jim missed some of the words at thebeginning of the sentence. It ended with: " . . . but now they've all left,and I've managed to get up to you. You know what I've come for." Therewas distinct menace in his tone."Yes," returned the other; "I have been waiting.""And the money?" asked the father impatiently.No answer."You've had three days to get it in, and I've contrived to stave off theworst so far--but to-morrow is the end."No answer."Speak, Otto! What have you got for me? Speak, my son; for God's sake,tell me."There was a moment's silence, during which the old man's vibratingaccents seemed to echo through the rooms. Then came in a low voice theanswer--"I have nothing.""Otto!" cried the other with passion, "nothing!""I can get nothing," came almost in a whisper."You lie!" cried the other, in a half-stifled voice. "I swear you lie.Give me the money."A chair was heard scraping along the floor. Evidently the men had beensitting over the table, and one of them had risen. Shorthouse heard thebag or parcel drawn across the table, and then a step as if one of themen was crossing to the door."Father, what's in that? I must know," said Otto, with the first signsof determination in his voice. There must have been an effort on theson's part to gain possession of the parcel in question, and on thefather's to retain it, for between them it fell to the ground. A curiousrattle followed its contact with the floor. Instantly there were soundsof a scuffle. The men were struggling for the possession of the box. Theelder man with oaths, and blasphemous imprecations, the other with shortgasps that betokened the strength of his efforts. It was of shortduration, and the younger man had evidently won, for a minute later washeard his angry exclamation."I knew it. Her jewels! You scoundrel, you shall never have them. It isa crime."The elder man uttered a short, guttural laugh, which froze Jim's bloodand made his skin creep. No word was spoken, and for the space of tenseconds there was a living silence. Then the air trembled with the soundof a thud, followed immediately by a groan and the crash of a heavy bodyfalling over on to the table. A second later there was a lurching fromthe table on to the floor and against the partition that separated therooms. The bed quivered an instant at the shock, but the unholy spellwas lifted from his soul and Jim Shorthouse sprang out of bed and acrossthe floor in a single bound. He knew that ghastly murder had beendone--the murder by a father of his son.With shaking fingers but a determined heart he lit the gas, and thefirst thing in which his eyes corroborated the evidence of his ears wasthe horrifying detail that the lower portion of the partition bulgedunnaturally into his own room. The glaring paper with which it wascovered had cracked under the tension and the boards beneath it bentinwards towards him. What hideous load was behind them, he shuddered tothink.All this he saw in less than a second. Since the final lurch against thewall not a sound had proceeded from the room, not even a groan or afoot-step. All was still but the howl of the wind, which to his earshad in it a note of triumphant horror.Shorthouse was in the act of leaving the room to rouse the house andsend for the police--in fact his hand was already on the door-knob--whensomething in the room arrested his attention. Out of the corner of hiseyes he thought he caught sight of something moving. He was sure of it,and turning his eyes in the direction, he found he was not mistaken.Something was creeping slowly towards him along the floor. It wassomething dark and serpentine in shape, and it came from the place wherethe partition bulged. He stooped down to examine it with feelings ofintense horror and repugnance, and he discovered that it was movingtoward him from the other side of the wall. His eyes were fascinated,and for the moment he was unable to move. Silently, slowly, from side toside like a thick worm, it crawled forward into the room beneath hisfrightened eyes, until at length he could stand it no longer andstretched out his arm to touch it. But at the instant of contact hewithdrew his hand with a suppressed scream. It was sluggish--and it waswarm! and he saw that his fingers were stained with living crimson.A second more, and Shorthouse was out in the passage with his hand onthe door of the next room. It was locked. He plunged forward with allhis weight against it, and, the lock giving way, he fell headlong into aroom that was pitch dark and very cold. In a moment he was on his feetagain and trying to penetrate the blackness. Not a sound, not amovement. Not even the sense of a presence. It was empty, miserablyempty!Across the room he could trace the outline of a window with rainstreaming down the outside, and the blurred lights of the city beyond.But the room was empty, appallingly empty; and so still. He stood there,cold as ice, staring, shivering listening. Suddenly there was a stepbehind him and a light flashed into the room, and when he turned quicklywith his arm up as if to ward off a terrific blow he found himself faceto face with the landlady. Instantly the reaction began to set in.It was nearly three o'clock in the morning, and he was standing therewith bare feet and striped pyjamas in a small room, which in themerciful light he perceived to be absolutely empty, carpetless, andwithout a stick of furniture, or even a window-blind. There he stoodstaring at the disagreeable landlady. And there she stood too, staringand silent, in a black wrapper, her head almost bald, her face white aschalk, shading a sputtering candle with one bony hand and peering overit at him with her blinking green eyes. She looked positively hideous."Waal?" she drawled at length, "I heard yer right enough. Guess youcouldn't sleep! Or just prowlin' round a bit--is that it?"The empty room, the absence of all traces of the recent tragedy, thesilence, the hour, his striped pyjamas and bare feet--everythingtogether combined to deprive him momentarily of speech. He stared at herblankly without a word."Waal?" clanked the awful voice."My dear woman," he burst out finally, "there's been something awful--"So far his desperation took him, but no farther. He positively stuck atthe substantive."Oh! there hasn't been nothin'," she said slowly still peering at him."I reckon you've only seen and heard what the others did. I never cankeep folks on this floor long. Most of 'em catch on sooner orlater--that is, the ones that's kind of quick and sensitive. Only youbeing an Englishman I thought you wouldn't mind. Nothin' really happens;it's only thinkin' like."Shorthouse was beside himself. He felt ready to pick her up and drop herover the banisters, candle and all."Look there," he said, pointing at her within an inch of her blinkingeyes with the fingers that had touched the oozing blood; "look there, mygood woman. Is that only thinking?"She stared a minute, as if not knowing what he meant."I guess so," she said at length.He followed her eyes, and to his amazement saw that his fingers were aswhite as usual, and quite free from the awful stain that had been thereten minutes before. There was no sign of blood. No amount of staringcould bring it back. Had he gone out of his mind? Had his eyes and earsplayed such tricks with him? Had his senses become false and perverted?He dashed past the landlady, out into the passage, and gained his ownroom in a couple of strides. Whew! . . . the partition no longer bulged.The paper was not torn. There was no creeping, crawling thing on thefaded old carpet."It's all over now," drawled the metallic voice behind him. "I'm goingto bed again."He turned and saw the landlady slowly going downstairs again, stillshading the candle with her hand and peering up at him from time to timeas she moved. A black, ugly, unwholesome object, he thought, as shedisappeared into the darkness below, and the last flicker of her candlethrew a queer-shaped shadow along the wall and over the ceiling.Without hesitating a moment, Shorthouse threw himself into his clothesand went out of the house. He preferred the storm to the horrors of thattop floor, and he walked the streets till daylight. In the evening hetold the landlady he would leave next day, in spite of her assurancesthat nothing more would happen."It never comes back," she said--"that is, not after he's killed."Shorthouse gasped."You gave me a lot for my money," he growled."Waal, it aren't my show," she drawled. "I'm no spirit medium. You takechances. Some'll sleep right along and never hear nothin'. Others, likeyourself, are different and get the whole thing.""Who's the old gentleman?--does he hear it?" asked Jim."There's no old gentleman at all," she answered coolly. "I just toldyou that to make you feel easy like in case you did hear anythin'. Youwere all alone on the floor.""Say now," she went on, after a pause in which Shorthouse could think ofnothing to say but unpublishable things, "say now, do tell, did you feelsort of cold when the show was on, sort of tired and weak, I mean, as ifyou might be going to die?""How can I say?" he answered savagely; "what I felt God only knows.""Waal, but He won't tell," she drawled out. "Only I was wonderin' howyou really did feel, because the man who had that room last was foundone morning in bed--""In bed?""He was dead. He was the one before you. Oh! You don't need to getrattled so. You're all right. And it all really happened, they do say.This house used to be a private residence some twenty-five years ago,and a German family of the name of Steinhardt lived here. They had a bigbusiness in Wall Street, and stood 'way up in things.""Ah!" said her listener."Oh yes, they did, right at the top, till one fine day it all bust andthe old man skipped with the boodle--""Skipped with the boodle?""That's so," she said; "got clear away with all the money, and the sonwas found dead in his house, committed soocide it was thought. Thoughthere was some as said he couldn't have stabbed himself and fallen inthat position. They said he was murdered. The father died in prison.They tried to fasten the murder on him, but there was no motive, or noevidence, or no somethin'. I forget now.""Very pretty," said Shorthouse."I'll show you somethin' mighty queer any-ways," she drawled, "if you'llcome upstairs a minute. I've heard the steps and voices lots of times;they don't pheaze me any. I'd just as lief hear so many dogs barkin'.You'll find the whole story in the newspapers if you look it up--notwhat goes on here, but the story of the Germans. My house would beruined if they told all, and I'd sue for damages."They reached the bedroom, and the woman went in and pulled up the edgeof the carpet where Shorthouse had seen the blood soaking in theprevious night."Look thar, if you feel like it," said the old hag. Stooping down, hesaw a dark, dull stain in the boards that corresponded exactly to theshape and position of the blood as he had seen it.That night he slept in a hotel, and the following day sought newquarters. In the newspapers on file in his office after a long search hefound twenty years back the detailed story, substantially as the womanhad said, of Steinhardt & Co.'s failure, the absconding and subsequentarrest of the senior partner, and the suicide, or murder, of his sonOtto. The landlady's room-house had formerly been their privateresidence.
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