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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories"

It was always a hobby of his. But the chances are twenty to
one against his attempting violence. I only wished to warn you--in
case--I mean, so that you may be on the watch."
He handed his secretary a Smith and Wesson revolver as he spoke.
Shorthouse slipped it into his hip pocket and went out of the room.
* * * * *
A drizzling cold rain was falling on fields covered with half-melted
snow when Shorthouse stood, late in the afternoon, on the platform of
the lonely little Long Island station and watched the train he had just
left vanish into the distance.
It was a bleak country that Joel Garvey, Esq., formerly of Chicago, had
chosen for his residence and on this particular afternoon it presented a
more than usually dismal appearance. An expanse of flat fields covered
with dirty snow stretched away on all sides till the sky dropped down to
meet them. Only occasional farm buildings broke the monotony, and the
road wound along muddy lanes and beneath dripping trees swathed in the
cold raw fog that swept in like a pall of the dead from the sea.


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