The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales

Chapter I

THE PLACE AND THE MAN.

Near the centre of one of the most flourishing of the western counties of Ontario, and on the line of the Great Western branch of the Grand Trunk Railway, stands a pleasant little town, which, for the purposes of this narrative, may be called Millbrook. Not that its real name is Millbrook, or any thing in the least similar thereto; but as this story, so far as its main events are concerned, is strictly true, and some of the actors in it are still living, it is perhaps desirable not to be too precise in the matter of locality. The strange disappearance of Mr. Savareen made a good deal of noise at the time, not only in the neighborhood, but throughout Upper Canada. It was a nine days' wonder, and was duly chronicled and commented upon by the leading provincial newspapers of the period; but it has long since passed out of general remembrance, and the chain of circumstances subsequently arising out of the event have never been made known beyond the limited circle immediately interested. The surviving members of that circle would probably not thank me for once more dragging their names conspicuously before the public gaze. I might certainly veil their personalities under the thin disguise of initial letters, but to this mode of relating a story I have always entertained a decided objection. The chief object to be aimed at in story-telling is to hold the attention of the reader, and, speaking for myself, I am free to confess that I have seldom been able to feel any absorbing interest in characters who figure merely as the M. or N. of the baptismal service. I shall therefore assign fictitious names to persons and places, and I cannot even pretend to mathematical exactness as to one or two minor details. In reporting conversations, for instance, I do not profess to reproduce the ipsissima verba of the speakers, but merely to give the effect and purport of their discourses. I have, however, been at some pains to be accurate, and I think I may justly claim that in all essential particulars this story of Savareen's disappearance is as true as any report of events which took place a good many years ago can reasonably be expected to be.