Elephant and Castle, a reconstruction

by R. C. Hutchinson

On This Page

Description

Excerpt from Elephant and Castle: A ReconstructionBoard of Trade and he let me in (which cost Shagan two quid). On the whole I wished he hadn't. Anyone who wants to study the interior architecture of Mickett Lane can do so without fear of being jostled by me. The Scene of the Crime was a bedroom upstairs. They had drawn the curtains, and there was one electric bulb burning over the bed, but the curtains let in quite a lot of daylight, giving the room the show more neither-the-one-damned-thing-nor-the-other appearance which you get in an empty theatre with the stage set and the curtain up. There was a smell of disuse and disinfectants, with a lingering stink of face-powder. At my age I am not, I hope, sensitive to what the half-baked call atmosphere but I. Found the cheapness of the whole set-up quite disagreeable. There were two or three seedy little men in smart three guinea suits doing exactly what they do in whodunits, taking photo graphs with micro-cameras and making measurements, one fellow with a cigarette stuck to his lip was calling out the figures just as a tailor does. N 0 one took any notice of me, and I had the impression that if I'd started to intone the burial service in a high, childish treble or to unleash a brace of bloodhounds from my brief-case they still wouldn't have taken any notice. It was that sort of scene, by Tchehov out of Madame Tussaud. There was a rheumy-eyed old man who I suppose was the police doctor examining the body. So feeling that I ought to give Shagan his money's worth I examined it too. The medical was kind enough to point out the wounds in the throat, which I could per fectly well have seen for myself. A wheezy old bore in love with footling technicalities.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. show less

Tags

Recommendations

Members

Recently Added By

Author Information

Picture of author.
20 Works 197 Members

Awards and Honors

Classifications

Genres
Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
DDC/MDS
823.9Literature & rhetoricEnglish & Old English literaturesEnglish fiction1900-
LCC
PZ3 .H9734Language and LiteratureFiction and juvenile belles lettresFiction and juvenile belles lettresFiction in English
BISAC

Statistics

Members
33
Popularity
856,401
Languages
English
Media
Paper
ISBNs
4
ASINs
3