Penny Dreadfuls, 1923 · page 75 of 116
The Taking of Helen by John Masefield — page 75: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# A Page from a Victorian Penny Dreadful This is a page of running prose (page 63) from "The Taking of Helen," a serialized sensation story. The dialogue shows an authority figure (apparently named Nireus) interrogating a woman named Myrtle about missing items. Suspecting they are hidden in the building, he orders a search of a woolens store that has already been thoroughly examined. When Myrtle asserts her innocence, he suddenly has an idea and walks toward the door, where he pauses to examine the structure above—noting there should be a space between the poles and roof, suggesting the items may be concealed in the ceiling or roof cavity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TAKING OF HELEN 63 somewhere here; my instinct tells me they are. But where, is the problem.”’ “T hope, sir,’ Myrtle said, “that you would not suspect me of having anything to do with them?” ‘“‘T’m not so sure,”’ he said. “Tf you’re not sure, sir, please search the place and clear me.”’ “That’s what I am going to do, my girl.” But still he hesitated and seemed uncertain. He made one or two sharp turns, and then said: “T’ll have that woollen store turned out.” “Sir,” said his underling, ‘‘the store was turned out from top to bottom under my eyes, and I had up a plank of the floor and probed beneath it.”’ ‘“As you were, with the store, then. But they are somewhere here.”’ ‘“‘T have an idea,’ he added suddenly. Nireus started and Myrtle looked hard at him; they thought for an instant that he had seen the truth. “Come,” he said, ‘‘ we'll be out of this.”? He walked rapidly to the door of the room, as though going out of it, and then, on the very threshold, he paused and looked up. ‘““What is above these poles?” he asked. ‘Just the roofing, sir,’ Myrtle said. ‘There should be a space between the poles and the roof.” ‘Look there, sir, where the pole has gone. You can connicaooKs (C(O)