"Machen, Arthur - [07] - B Coney Court" - читать интересную книгу автора (Machen Arthur)

solicitor, suggested that enquiries should be made at Mr.Carver's bank.

"Sometimes you can bluff a bank," he said hopefully. But Mr. Carver banked at
Tellson's, and the ancient should have known better. Hemmings received the
curtest of letters from the House, informing him that Messrs. Tellson were not
in the habit of discussing their client's affairs with outsiders; and so, for
the time being, the matter dropped. Next quarter day the usual Carver cheque was
received, and with it an extremely stiff letter, pointing out that no notice had
been taken of the writer's request, and that, in consequence the damp had spread
all over the ceiling, and threatened to drip on the carpet. "I shall be obliged
if you will remedy the defect immediately," the letter ended. The President and
the Ancients again considered the matter. One suggested that the whole thing was
the work of a practical joker, and another uttered the word "Mad," but these
explanations were considered unsatisfactory, and the society, in the
circumstances, resolved that there was nothing to be done.

The next quarter day brought no cheque. There was a letter, declaring that
the tenant's furniture was covered with mould, and that in wet weather he was
obliged to put a bowl on the floor to catch the water. Mr.Carver said finally
that he had determined to cease all payment of rent until the necessary repairs
were seen to. And then something still queerer happened, and this is the point
at which the history would have become libellous - if there were such a place as
Curzon's Inn, or if there were such a court as Coney Court. The third pair
chambers (right) of No. 7, Coney Court, had just been vacated by the tenants,
solicitors or agents, and a widow lady and her daughter had moved in - "dingy,
but so quiet," as the lady told her friends. And now she found her chambers very
far from quiet. Night after night, at twelve, one, two, or three o'clock, she
and her daughter were awoke by thunderous piano music, always the same music,
which rendered sleep out of the question. The widow complained to the Steward,
and he came round, with the Inn carpenter, and said he couldn't understand it at
all.

"We never had any complaints from Jackson and Dowling," he declared, and the
lady pointed out that Jackson and Dowling left the Inn every night at six.
The Steward went over the set carefully. He noticed a sort of crazy flight of
steps, leading out of one of the rooms.

"What's that?" he asked the carpenter, and the man said it was a sort of
lumber place, used by tenants for odds and ends.

They went up, and found themselves in a garret, lighted by one pane of glass
in the roof. Here was a broken-down old piano with hardly a dozen notes
sounding, a mouldy gladstone bag, two odd men's socks, a pair of trousers, and
some ragged copies of Bach's Fugues, in paper wrappers. There was a leak in the
roof, and all reeked with damp.

The rubbish was removed, the place was turned out and whitewashed. There were
no more disturbances. But a year later, the widow lady, being at a concert with
a friend, suddenly gasped and choked, and whispered to the friend: