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A wait of several minutes brought no alarm, and he plucked up courage.
On the inner side of the house--away from Wordsworth Avenue--
a narrow paved passage led to an outside cellar-way with
old-fashioned slanting doors. He reconnoitred this warily.
A bright light was shining from a window in this alley.
He crept below it on hands and knees fearing to look in until he had
investigated a little. He found that one flap of the cellar door
was open, and poked his nose into the aperture. All was dark below,
but a strong, damp stench of paints and chemicals arose.
He sniffed gingerly. "I suppose he stores drugs down there,"
he thought.
Very carefully he crawled back, on hands and knees, toward the
lighted window. Lifting his head a few inches at a time, finally he got
his eyes above the level of the sill. To his disappointment he found
the lower half of the window frosted. As he knelt there, a pipe set
in the wall suddenly vomited liquid which gushed out upon his knees.
He sniffed it, and again smelled a strong aroma of acids.
With great care, leaning against the brick wall of the house,
he rose to his feet and peeped through the upper half of the pane.
It seemed to be the room where prescriptions were compounded.
As it was empty, he allowed himself a hasty survey. All manner
of bottles were ranged along the walls; there was a high counter
with scales, a desk, and a sink. At the back he could see the bamboo
curtain which he remembered having noticed from the shop.
The whole place was in the utmost disorder: mortars, glass beakers,
a typewriter, cabinets of labels, dusty piles of old prescriptions
strung on filing hooks, papers of pills and capsules, all strewn
in an indescribable litter. Some infusion was heating in a glass
bowl propped on a tripod over a blue gas flame. Aubrey noticed
particularly a heap of old books several feet high piled carelessly
at one end of the counter.
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