When London Sleeps — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LWO WOMEN AND A MAN. - 133 “— CHAPTER XIII. TWO WOMEN AND A MAN. In a small street leading from one of London’s most famous and aristocratic thoroughfares was situ- ated the place known as the Helliwell Mansion. It was a large and handsome house which had for- merly belonged to one of the nobility. There was nothing in its external appearance to indicate its character, nothing to show how many lives had been wrecked there, how many had entered its portals, happy and well-to-do, only to be thrown out in the gray dawn, ruined and hopeless. A shrewd looker-on, however, who should stand across the street for half an hour any evening in the week, would have forined a pretty clear idea of the nature of the place. All the curtains were closely drawn, but still there were gleams of light from every ‘window. ‘The number of visitors was large, too large for a private house, and while many of the men were irreproachable so far as their appearance went, all the women were too flashily dressed and wore too many jewels. Moreover, the policeman on that beat, watched the house narrowly, pausing fre- quently before it. All of which, to the initiated, would be suspicious, to say the least of it. The interior of the house was gorgeous in the ex- treme, resplendent with gilding, mirrors and furni- —— comicbooks co