The abandoned tannery had three occupied neighbors.
Lucian Voss learned that before deciding ona position from which to watch it.
A dye shop shared the eastern wall. Its rear yard remained active until sunset, when workers rinsed vats and hung dark lengths of cloth beneath a covered frame. A cooper's warehouse occupied the building across the alley. The warehouse doors closed at dusk, but a night clerk checked the loading yard every hour. The third neighbor was a four-story residence whose upper windows overlooked the tannery roof.
The building he was supposed to watch was surrounded by busy citizens.
People crossed its rear alley without looking at the broken windows. A vegetable seller stored his handcart beneath one overhanging floor. Two dye workers smoked beside its blocked side door during their meal break. Children used the front step until an adult called them home.
Anyone watching from the same place for six hours would become part of the neighborhood.
