The Welfare of the Dead
“Opposite the locked gates of Abney Park, two figures stand together in a shop doorway, watching the cemetery’s entrance. The night still possesses a vaporous hint of fog, such that the glow of the nearby tall gas-lights, which line the High Street, seem to glow a muted brown, as if filtered through the medium of a dirty beer bottle. Nonetheless, for all that, the two men can still make out the opposite side of the road from their hiding place, and observe the twin lodges that guard the cemetery... gates and courtyard. For, despite its many defects, the suburb of Stoke Newington lies a good four miles north of the Thames, and is not, therefore, subject to the same soot-heavy atmosphere that suffocates the heart of the metropolis.
Sergeant Bartleby shuffles uncomfortably, flapping his arms against the sides of his great-coat.
‘We could be over there, sir, enjoying a shot of something,’ says the sergeant, nodding in the direction of the Three Crowns public house. It is an old-fashioned coaching inn of middling size, its illuminated sign visible in the darkness, not a hundred yards or so distant from where the two men stand.MoreLess
Sergeant Bartleby shuffles uncomfortably, flapping his arms against the sides of his great-coat.
‘We could be over there, sir, enjoying a shot of something,’ says the sergeant, nodding in the direction of the Three Crowns public house. It is an old-fashioned coaching inn of middling size, its illuminated sign visible in the darkness, not a hundred yards or so distant from where the two men stand.MoreLess
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