The Mystery of M. Felix

Through the whole of the night, chopping, shifting winds had been tearing through the streets of London, now from the north, now from the south, now from the east, now from the west, now from all points of the compass at once; which last caprice--taking place for at least the twentieth time in the course of the hour which the bells of Big Ben were striking--was enough in itself to make the policeman on the beat doubtful of his senses.

"What a chap hears in weather like this," he muttered, "and what he fancies he hears, is enough to drive him mad."

He had sufficient justification for the remark, for there were not only the wild pranks of Boreas to torment and distract him, but there was the snow which, blown in fine particles from roofs and gables, and torn from nooks where it lay huddled up in little heaps against stone walls (for the reason that being blown there by previous winds it could get no further), seemed to take a spiteful pleasure in whirling into his face, which was tingling and smarting with cold, and as a matter of course into his eyes, which it caused to run over with tears. With a vague idea that some appeal had been made officially to him as a representative of law and order, he steadied himself and stood still for a few moments, with a spiritual cold freezing his heart, even as the temporal cold was freezing his marrow.

"Help!"

The bells of Big Ben were still proclaiming the hour of midnight. If a man at such a time might have reasonably been forgiven the fancy that old Westminster's tower had been invaded by an army of malicious witches, how much more readily might he have been forgiven for not being able to fix the direction from which this cry for help proceeded? Nay, he could scarcely have been blamed for doubting that the cry was human.