—Nunca culpo a nadie —dijo Kemp—. Está completamente pasado de moda. ¿Qué hiciste después?
“I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese—more than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and water, and then went up past my impromptu bag—he was lying quite still—to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside the day was bright—by contrast with the brown shadows of the dismal house in which I found myself, dazzlingly bright. A brisk traffic was going by, fruit carts, a hansom, a four-wheeler with a pile of boxes, a fishmonger’s cart. I turned with spots of colour swimming before my eyes to the shadowy fixtures behind me. My excitement was giving place to a clear apprehension of my position again. The room was full of a faint scent of benzoline, used, I suppose, in cleaning the garments.
“I began a systematic search of the place. I should judge the hunchback had been alone in the house for some time. He was a curious person.
Everything that could possibly be of service to me I collected in the clothes storeroom, and then I made a deliberate selection. I found a handbag I thought a suitable possession, and some powder, rouge, and sticking-plaster.
“Había pensado en pintarme y empolvarme la cara y todo lo que quedaba de mí a la vista, con objeto de hacerme visible, pero el inconveniente de esto residía en el hecho de que necesitaría trementina y otros avíos, además de una cantidad considerable de tiempo, antes de poder desvanecerme de nuevo. Finalmente elegí una máscara de las de mejor tipo, ligeramente grotesca pero no más que muchos seres humanos, gafas oscuras, patillas grisáceas y una peluca.