"The Gerrard Street mystery (1888) by John Charles Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dent John Charles)

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THE GERRARD STREET MYSTERY,
and other weird tales
by John Charles Dent
Toronto:
Rose Publishing Company 1888.
The Gerrard Street Mystery

I
My name is William Francis Furlong. My occupation is that of a commission
merchant, and my place of business is on St. Paul Street, in the City of
Montreal. I have resided in Montreal ever since shortly after my marriage in
1862, to my cousin, Alice Playter, of Toronto. My name may not be familiar to
the present generation of Torontonians, though I was born in Toronto, and passed
the early years of my life there. Since the days of my youth my visits to the
Upper Province have been few, and--with one exception--very brief; so that I
have doubtless passed out of the remembrance of many persons with whom I was
once on terms of intimacy. Still, there are several residents of Toronto whom I
am happy to number among my warmest personal friends at the present day. There
are also a good many persons of middle age, not in Toronto only, but scattered
here and there throughout various parts of Ontario, who will have no difficulty
in recalling my name as that of one of their fellow-students at Upper Canada
College. The name of my late uncle, Richard Yardington, is of course well known
to all old residents of Toronto, where he spent the last thirty-two years of his
life. He settled there in the year 1829, when the place was still known as
Little York. He opened a small store on Yonge Street, and his commercial career
was a reasonably prosperous one. By steady degrees the small store developed
into what, in those times, was regarded as a considerable establishment. In the
course of years the owner acquired a competency, and in 1854 retired from
business altogether. From that time up to the day of his death he lived in his
own house on Gerrard Street.
After mature deliberation, I have resolved to give to the Canadian public an
account of some rather singular circumstances connected with my residence in
Toronto. Though repeatedly urged to do so, I have hitherto refrained from giving
any extended publicity to those circumstances, in consequence of my inability to
see any good to be served thereby. The only person, however, whose reputation
can be injuriously affected by the details has been dead for some years. He has
left behind him no one whose feelings can be shocked by the disclosure, and the
story is in itself sufficiently remarkable to be worth the telling. Told,
accordingly, it shall be; and the only fictitious element introduced into the
narrative shall be the name of one of the persons most immediately concerned in
it.
At the time of taking up his abode in Toronto--or rather in Little York--my
uncle Richard was a widower, and childless; his wife having died several months
previously. His only relatives on this side of the Atlantic were two maiden
sisters, a few years younger than himself He never contracted a second