Read "The Piccadilly Puzzle" by Fergus Hume online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Primrose Crescent lies just off Tottenham Court Road, and though a short distance away the great thoroughfare is full of noise and bustle, everything is comparatively silent in this crescent. Milk-carts are the most frequent vehicles, and occasionally a rakish-looking hansom makes its appearance, while ragged mendicants sometimes pay the neighbourhood a visit, and troll out lively ditties in gin-cracked voices. The organ-grinder is not an unknown personage either, and his infernal machine may frequently be heard playing the latest music-hall melodies as he glances round in search of the humble brown.
The houses are somewhat dismal; tall -- very tall, built of dull-hued red brick, with staring windows and little iron balconies, meant for show, not use. No Bloomsbury Juliet can lean over the ornamental ironwork and whisper sweet nothings to Romeo; if she did, Juliet would forthwith be precipitated into the basement, where dwells the servant of the house in company with the domestic cat, and the love-scene would end within the prosaic walls of a hospital.