One “cool” evening old England got us accustomed to, when all you had to do was stay inside your warm house roaming the land of dreams, Officer Gangsley Taylor, and two other Scotland Yard officers, wandered the dark streets of London.
Beside them there was nobody there, which was more than normal on such weather and at such late hour. It wasn’t their wish to walk down the streets. Still, to achieve their goal they had to take this unusual action.
They were wet to the bone because of the water flowing from the dark sky, ceaselessly hit by huge drops of rain stinging them like needles. To their distress, the gusty wind blew off their cap of police community support officers. The three ran towards Moon Street. They knew nothing about this street. It was a line on the map for them, very far from the city centre on the outskirts of London.
Scotland Yards were used to such unpleasant moments. Yet, walking down the darkest and strangest streets of the city on such night it was too much even for them.
Considering the weather, it was clear that anyone except the Scotland Yard officers minded their own business. One could say the weather was triggered by unusual happenings, mysterious, meaningless recent events. Something at least as puzzling as horror stories often shared by folks who like scaring people.
Officer Gangsley Taylor and probably the other two joining him, Jones W. Carpenter and Smith Smithson, have seen far too many atrocities in their career to scare them off. They took part in real events, when the only strange thing was how humans could express so much hatred, violence, indifference, throughout history. Therefore, they left without hesitation for the place of their mission.
They faced heroically the rushing stream coming from the sky. Rain wasn’t an enigma at all. It was common for that April time when customary rainy days settled over England. Still, the three were increasingly impatient to reach the location they were looking for.
That road was so badly cobbled that one risked breaking leg at any step taken. It was flanked on both sides by tiny houses looking as if they were built just before Stonehenge. They were crummy and sloppy, crammed as if trying to transfer heat to one another in the wind blowing harder and harder. The shape and appearance of the houses killed any passer-by’s mood to visit a friend or someone in the family living in this slum.
Even Scotland Yard officers didn’t want to be in the middle of that incipient apocalypse. However, they didn’t give up.
“Good evening ...” Gangsley said, surprised at the sound of his voice.
He didn’t realize at first that it was neither the place nor the moment to be polite. The officer got silent because he noticed there was no one in front of him. He just seemed to have seen someone.
Anyhow, he saw someone's face before him. His gaze met a face so beautiful and young, like a fairy face. Despite that, it was so white, foreshadowing death, bloodcurdling only thinking of it. Not to speak of really seeing it.
Yet, Gangsley smiled as usual, somewhat calmly, for that face seemed far too odd; therefore, it was just a product of his mind.
“I think I’m going mad because of the weather”, he mumbled. “That must be!”
Officer Gangsley looked at the other two officers who almost ran in front of him and had no intention to look back, so he shook head as if he wanted to let go a disturbing thought and hurried up to catch up with them.
He looked once more behind in the dark to be sure no one passed by him and continued walking with the other two. In order to calm down, he shifted thoughts to the heat and the cigars waiting for him in the office he left for some time.
The darkness so deep, luckily for the officers, was lightened up here and there by the glow of some lamps, surviving the tempest and the bitter weather out there. At any rate, the lamps could go out at any time, like other dozen broken lamps on the side roads leading to the main street. These roads were so inky that they seemed to show them to the end of the world.
Taking advantage of those small sources of light the officers tried to read on the signposts the names of the streets they were on. Though, this wasn’t easy at all because hardly anyone could see at a distance of more than a yard, two in front of him because of the heavy rain. And for this reason, until they could read the text on the panels, they managed to absorb more and more cold and unwanted water, to their despair.
Around such a light one could see that Mr. Gangsley was as tall as a tree, a young poplar to be more precise. He had a moustache and handsome sideburns usually neat, but now they formed the background needed for the mini rain-waterfalls flowing from his cap.
In his daily life he was considered for sure a funny and charismatic guy. Even when no one saw anything exciting, he could make a little joke, taking the best of an unpleasant job.
“We can’t stop, Jones W. Carpenter. We can't drink coffee and smoke a pipe, because I didn't take any with me. Maybe next time, I'll take both. Per contra, now let's move more airily. We almost got there.”
Gangsley Taylor's sober, firm voice somewhat revived Jones, so the officer regained his strength to go on with the same efficiency, along with the other two fellows in misery.
The officers looked for the house at number 3, on one of the most insignificant and unknown streets, Moon Street, a street down which neither of them had ever walked before. Someone else would probably look for it in the morning, waiting for daylight to come and maybe with a little luck the bothering rain to stop.
In whatever way, not Gangsley Taylor. As he got that desperate call from a Mrs. Stone, who said she heard people yelling and screaming in the apartment above her home, he and his aides headed to the address mentioned.
“Another conflict between spouses that I have to calm down. The third one I go to this week. You’d say I’m a social worker for family conflicts. And this weather ...”, Officer Gangsley complained to himself, because he had no one else to complain to. Even though he could stay at the warm headquarters with his cigars, he decided to leave with the other two without saying anything. When he took the oath to protect anyone in need, he didn’t set the condition to be there only when he liked it, or when it was clear and warm outside. No, the condition was: whenever needed. And anyone would agree with him - who could live thinking that he could rescue someone in a difficult situation, but he decided not to do it? Any situation, even trivial at first, could eventually degenerate remarkably, so Mr. Gangsley decided to do everything in his power to save that misunderstanding between spouses. Not only once had he saved a man's life, arrived in time where his presence wa
Howbeit the strangest thing was that the dog seemed to be hiding from someone. Probably from the people inside, because when the curtain was touched letting sparks of light from inside out, the wolf-dog pulled away into a murky corner so he couldn’t be seen. After a few moments, he returned to the same place where he was a few moments ago.An event, somehow interesting for Gangsley, in which if he let himself trapped, he’d surely go insane. Fortunately, everything ended when the three officers got close to the animal less than twenty steps, and he, feeling spotted, briefly looked at the officers and went away as if his reaction were normal.Impossible to be a wolf, because there can’t be wolves there, not even on the outskirts of London. And in no case so gentle. But ... if I were to think better ... his behaviour was unusual, even for a dog, Officer Taylor kept getting lost in his thoughts anxiously.Nonetheless, he calmed down and interrupted
Officer Wheatstone, however, looked at the stylish guy, inquiring.“Excuse me ... did you say something Mr. Dragoesti?”“No”, he said sharply.So Officer Wheatstone went on:“There’s never been a similar case in London before. You can imagine, all newspapers will write about ...”Anyhow, Mr. Vlad didn’t listen to the police officer. He got close to the nightstand the policeman hit, next to which several things were spread.He picked up a notebook that looked like a diary with golden cover, but there wasn’t anything written there. Vlad opened it and saw only blank pages as white as freshly milked moo juice. He dropped it back on the floor, because it was useless to him.He then picked up a photo frame that was facedown. The glass protecting the photo was broken because of that young officer’s awkwardness ... and because of the Commander who yelled at him, of course.The
As he went out of the building he noticed that the rain stopped. Outside, near that neat building, there were some police officers busy with evidence loading into their carriages.He walked away from those officers and looked around as if he searched for someone. He couldn’t see anyone, but he heard a voice:“Here I am, my count ...”Vlad Dragoesti turned his head and even behind him, he saw the person he looked for and who popped up out of the blue. His face was covered, probably to protect it against the cold. But he still seeme to have something to hide.“Come on! We are leaving,” said Mr. Vlad as he made a sign with the staff to the carriage in which he came.The carriage moved closer. The two got in and sat on the bench in the posh carriage, drawn by two horses that were equally high-class and stunning.The man with covered face asked:“Master, how about the child? He might mess with us a
It was a starry, bright sky, unexpected to see in central London. We all know there are billions of stars on the stellar sky ... but that night they seemed to be at least twice as many. There was almost no need for street lamps or moonlight. The moon looked like a big carriage lazing in the sky trying to throw her weight around the little stars.It was so nice outside, even though it was so cold, that anyone lying on the roof of the orphanage “Angel’s hand”, did not regret that light show in the sky.“It's wonderful ...” the silence was broken by a crystalline voice of a little girl. It was Elizabeth Catherine Edwards, who was to celebrate the fine and wonderful age of nine.Yet, her face could not be seen, because it was completely covered just like a Bedouin’s in the desert, covered in thick, old blankets from head to toe because of the biting cold outside.“Yes ... and you didn't want to come up here. It'
It was the shadow of the person who followed the two girls as they were lying on the roof of the orphanage lost in their thoughts of the constellations.A shadow projected by a body covered with a black cape, under which only the ends of a dress could be seen and under the hood of which a large, snub nose, full of warts stuck out.The person hiding under that cape so that no one could discover who she was started to move down that narrow corridor. Two people next to each other could hardly be able to go through.That person stopped softly at every door, listening to check if there was any noise from the rooms where the children slept.She lingered some more time by the door of the bedroom where Elizabeth and Dorothy slept. As she did not hear anything, she opened the door very slowly, as it used to make strange noises when opened and stuck her odious and monstrous nose into the room, as if she sniffed around.The truth is that eyes couldn’t h
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Some girls, about thirteen years old, gathered in a bedroom by one bed, although time to sleep was announced by Miss Blackwood’s yells and screams more than fifteen minutes ago.The children gathered around Elizabeth's bed. The bed where she would sleep for the first time without Dorothy, her best friend.The blonde girl, unable to sleep, kept herself busy with a thing she used to do most of the time when she felt restless.She organized some stuff in that bed. There was a narrow, pinched pot on the bed, its upper part being covered with a canvas that had some small figures cut into it. The bottom of that old and parched pot was completely missing, and on one side it had a bigger crack. At the bottom the pot had a piece of a blurred and broken mirror, with the mirror facing the upper part. There were some more pieces of mirror on the windowsill and on a small almost damaged nightstand. The one on the cold sill faced the dusty window, and the one on the nig