Containing THREE COMPLETE STORIES THE AFTER HOUSE LOCKED DOORS THE RED LAMP NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers By arrangement with Farrar & Rinehart By arrangement with Farrar & Rinehart COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1925, BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ALL RIGHTS RESERVED...

“You promised,” I reminded Mr. Patton, “to play with cards on the table.” “My dear young lady,” he replied, “I have no cards! I suspect a game, that’s all.” “Then—do you need me?” The detective bent forward, his arms on his desk, and looked me over carefully. “What sort of shape are you in? Tired?” “No.” “Nervous?” “Not enough to hurt.” “I want you to take another case, following a nurse who has gone to pieces,” he said, selecting his words carefully. “I don’t want to tell you a lot—I want you t

The Reed house is on Beauregard Square. It is a small, exclusive community, the Beauregard neighborhood; a dozen or more solid citizens built their homes there in the early 70’s, occupying large lots, the houses flush with the streets and with gardens behind. Six on one street, six on another, back to back with the gardens in the center, they occupied the whole block. And the gardens were not fenced off, but made a sort of small park unsuspected from the streets. Here and there bits of flowering

Some time after four o’clock my door was unlocked from without; the bolt slipped as noiselessly as it had been shot. I got a little sleep until seven, when the boys trotted into my room in their bathrobes and slippers and perched on my bed. “It’s a nice day,” observed Harry, the elder. “Is that bump your feet?” I wriggled my toes and assured him he had surmised correctly. “You’re pretty long, aren’t you? Do you think we can play in the fountain to-day?” “We’ll make a try for it, son. It will do

At ten minutes after eight I was back in the house. Mr. Reed admitted me, going through the tedious process of unlocking outer and inner vestibule doors and fastening them again behind me. He inquired politely if I had had a pleasant walk, and without waiting for my reply fell to reading the evening paper. He seemed to have forgotten me absolutely. First he scanned the headlines; then he turned feverishly to something farther on and ran his fingers down along a column. His lips were twitching, b

It seemed to me that I had hardly dropped asleep before the children were in the room, clamoring. “The goldfish are dead!” Harry said, standing soberly by the bed. “They are all dead with their stummicks turned up.” I sat up. My head ached violently. “They can’t be dead, old chap.” I was feeling about for my kimono, but I remembered that when I had found my way back to the nursery after my fright on the back stairs I had lain down in my uniform. I crawled out, hardly able to stand. “We gave them

I find that my notes of that last night in the house on Beauregard Square are rather confused, some written at the time, some just before. For instance, on the edge of a newspaper clipping I find this: “Evidently this is the item. R—— went pale on reading it. Did not allow wife to see paper.” The clipping is an account of the sudden death of an elderly gentleman named Smythe, one of the Beauregard families. The next clipping is less hasty and is on a yellow symptom record. It has been much folde