It was not a nice quarter of Paris, nor was the night—the one that followed John Crane’s departure from Havre—a nice one in any particular. There was an intermittent drizzle, and the street lights showed merely as curiously suspended globules through the blanket of greyish mist that lay upon the city. Here and there a yellow glow was discernible from a lighted window or perchance from a doorway, but these were few and far between. It was a locality very prone to closed shutters.
The fiacre was archaic, a ramshackle affair that creaked in every joint and made complaint at every inequality in the road; the horse was old and unenthusiastic; the cocher who drove the vehicle was down at the heels in appearance, slovenly clothed and coarse of feature.
cocherAnne Walton, a slim and dainty figur
