It was a quiet street at all times, and that day it was unusually quiet: scarcely a cab, scarcely a tradesman's cart passed all that morning.

Now and then men went by--without any distinctive air of events--now and then a little group of children, a nursemaid and a woman going shopping, and so forth.

They came on to the stage right or left, up or down the street, with an exasperating suggestion of indifference to any concerns more spacious than their own; they would discover the police-guarded house with amazement and exit in the opposite direction, where the great trusses of a giant hydrangea hung across the pavement, staring back or pointing.

Now and then a man would come and ask one of the policemen a question and get a curt reply ...
Opposite the houses seemed dead.

A housemaid appeared once at a bedroom window and stared for a space, and it occurred to Redwood to signal to her.