The houses along the cross-street through which he walked were as dead
as so many blank walls, and only here and there a lace curtain waved
out of the open window where some honest citizen was sleeping. The
street was quite deserted; not even a cat or a policeman moved on it
and Van Bibber's footsteps sounded brisk on the sidewalk. There was a
great house at the corner of the avenue and the cross-street on which
he was walking. The house faced the avenue and a stone wall ran back
to the brown stone stable which opened on the side street. There was a
door in this wall, and as Van Bibber approached it on his solitary
walk it opened cautiously, and a man's head appeared in it for an
instant and was withdrawn again like a flash, and the door snapped to.
Van Bibber stopped and looked at the door and at the house and up and
down the street. The house was tightly closed, as though some one was
lying inside dead, and the streets were still empty.
Van Bibber could think of nothing in his appearance so dreadful as to
frighten an honest man, so he decided the face he had had a glimpse of
must belong to a dishonest one. It was none of his business, he
assured himself, but it was curious, and he liked adventure, and he
would have liked to prove his friend the reporter, who did not believe
in adventure, in the wrong.
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