CHAPTER II“Welcome, Georgie!”
Knobs rattled. Chains rattled. Locks clicked. And Simon Stannard stood in front of me.
He had a round, deacon-like face, with unusually close-set eyes framed in large tortoise-shell spectacles that made him look even more pious. The eyes gazing out from back of those lenses were as hard and cold as his soul. About 60 years of age, he was—perhaps I should have known his exact age, but I confess I didn’t. His suit was rusty black, with long coat lapels cut like those of an undertaker; his shirt, on the other hand, was spotlessly white and gleaming, and a thin—almost shoelace-like—black string tie, dropping from his batwing collar, cut vertically down it.
His right foot was bound up in, evidently, yards and yards of gauze, surmounting, plainly, a bulky mass of
