Explore "The Turnpike House" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mr. Julian Roper had an establishment in Golden-square, Soho. Although this gentleman was over eighty, he had not yet repented of his many iniquities, but callously continued to conduct his evil transactions. His offices -- two dingy rooms -- were on the ground floor of the house; the apartments overhead being occupied by himself and a crabbed old woman who acted as his housekeeper. The hag was, if possible, worse than her master; and from long years of association, she possessed considerable influence over him; she was a widow -- or at least it was as such that she described herself -- for her husband had left her many years before in sheer disgust at her tyranny. Mrs. Hutt was her name; and she had a son who acted as clerk to Julian.
When Geoffrey Heron arrived at this sordid temple of Mammon, he was received by the drudge -- a young-old person of no particular age, dressed in a suit of rusty black. He informed the visitor that his master was absent.