The fierce sunlight of a sultry afternoon in the early part of July forced its way through every crevice and cranny of the closely drawn shutters in the luxurious private offices of Mainwaring & Co., Stock Brokers, and slender shafts of light, darting here and there, lent a rich glow of color to the otherwise subdued tones of the elegant apartments. A glance at the four occupants of one of these rooms, who had disposed themselves in various attitudes according to their individual inclinations, revealed the fact that three out of the four were Englishmen, while the fourth might have been denominated as a typical American from the professional class. Of rather slender form, with a face of rare sensitiveness and delicacy, and restless, penetrating eyes, his every movement indicated energy and alertness. On the present occasion he had little to say, but was engaged in listening attentively to the...
"Mr. Venner, sir?" "Mr. Venner—yes, certainly. You will find him in his private office—that way, sir. The door to the right. Venner is in his private office, Joseph, is he not?" "I don't think so, Mr. Garside, unless he has just returned. I saw him go out some time ago." "Is that so? Wait a moment, young man." The young man halted, and then turned back to face Mr. Garside, with an inquiring look in his frank, brown eyes. "Not here, sir, do I understand?" he asked, politely. Mr. Garside shook his head. He was a tall, slender man of forty, and was the junior partner of the firm of Rufus Venner & Co., a large retail jewelry house in New York City, with a handsome store on Fifth Avenue, not far from Madison Square. It was in their store that this introductory scene occurred, and proved to be the...
The very beginning of this affair, which involved me, before I was aware of it, in as much villainy and wickedness as ever man heard of, was, of course, that spring evening, now ten years ago, whereon I looked out of my mother's front parlour window in the main street of Berwick-upon-Tweed and saw, standing right before the house, a man who had a black patch over his left eye, an old plaid thrown loosely round his shoulders, and in his right hand a stout stick and an old-fashioned carpet-bag. He caught sight of me as I caught sight of him, and he stirred, and made at once for our door. If I had possessed the power of seeing more than the obvious, I should have seen robbery, and murder, and the very devil himself coming in close attendance upon him as he crossed the pavement. But as it was,...
The man in the corner pushed aside his glass, and leant across the table. "Mysteries!" he commented. "There is no such thing as a mystery in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation." Very much astonished Polly Burton looked over the top of her newspaper, and fixed a pair of very severe, coldly inquiring brown eyes upon him. She had disapproved of the man from the instant when he shuffled across the shop and sat down opposite to her, at the same marble-topped table which already held her large coffee (3d.), her roll and butter (2d.), and plate of tongue (6d.). Now this particular corner, this very same table, that special view of the magnificent marble hall—known as the Norfolk Street branch of the Aërated Bread Company's depôts—were Polly's own corner, table, and view. Here she had partaken of eleven pennyworth of luncheon and...
OR CLEVER BUT CROOKED BY NICHOLAS CARTER Author of “The Barrel Mystery,” “The Blood-red Badge,” “The Crown Diamond,” etc. STREET & SMITH CORPORATION PUBLISHERS 79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York Copyright, 1902-1903 By STREET & SMITH The Photographer’s Evidence All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. Printed in the U.S.A. THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S EVIDENCE. “Mr. Carter, can I trust you?” It was in the great detective’s own house that this question was asked. “Well,” was Nick’s quiet answer, “if you had any doubt on that matter, why did you come to me?” His caller looked nervously at the floor. “There’s no use in talking to me,” Nick went on, “unless you do trust me. A detective can do nothing for a client who does not give him his confidence absolutely.” “Of course,” the other assented; “I did not mean to offend you.” “You haven’t offended me.”...
“There’s some mystery about that girl—I’m certain of it.” “What makes you suspect that?” “Well, first, she’s evidently a lady—the daughter of a man who has come down in the world most probably: and secondly—” “Ah! You mean the secret lover—the man who was here yesterday and bought a twenty-guinea evening gown of her to send to his sister—eh?” exclaimed Mr Warner, “buyer” of the costume department of the great drapery house of Cunnington’s, in Oxford Street, that huge store which, as everybody knows, competes with Whiteley’s and Harrod’s for the premier place of the middle-class trade in London. “Yes,” laughed Miss Thomas, the rather stout middle-aged woman who was head saleswoman of the department, as she stood in the small, glass-partitioned office of the buyer, a pleasant-faced man of forty-five who was an expert in ladies’ costumes, and twice yearly bought his stock personally in Paris and in Berlin....
In the midst of the great wilderness—we might almost say the wilds—of that comparatively unknown region which lies on the Surrey side of the Thames, just above London Bridge, there sauntered one fine day a big bronzed seaman of middle age. He turned into an alley, down which, nautically speaking, he rolled into a shabby little court. There he stood still for a few seconds and looked around him as if in quest of something. It was a miserable poverty-stricken court, with nothing to commend it to the visitor save a certain air of partial-cleanliness and semi-respectability, which did not form a feature of the courts in its neighbourhood. “I say, Capting,” remarked a juvenile voice close at hand, “you’ve bin an sailed into the wrong port.” The sailor glanced in all directions, but was unable to see the owner of the voice until a slight cough—if not a suppressed...
The wind, storming up from the sea, beat against the frail little wooden building till every rafter creaked and groaned. The canvas sides flapped and strained madly at the imprisoning ropes. Those hanging lamps which were not already extinguished swung in perilous arcs. In the auditorium of the frail little temporary theatre, only one man lingered near the entrance, and he, as we well knew, with sinister purpose. In the little make-up room behind the stage, we three performers, shorn of our mummer's disguise, presented perhaps the most melancholy spectacle of all. The worst of it was that Leonard and I were all broken up with trying to make the best of the situation for Rose's sake, yet prevented by circumstances from altogether ignoring it. "Seems to me we're in rather a tightish corner, Leonard," I ventured, watching that grim figure in the doorway through a hole in the curtain....
"But, damme, sir, the thing's an outrage! I don't mince my words, Mr. Narkom—I say plump and plain the thing's an outrage, a disgrace to the police, an indignity upon the community at large; and for Scotland Yard to permit itself to be defied, bamboozled, mocked at in this appalling fashion by a paltry burglar—" "Uncle, dear, pray don't excite yourself in this manner. I am quite sure that if Mr. Narkom could prevent the things—" "Hold your tongue, Ailsa—I will not be interfered with! It's time that somebody spoke out plainly and let this establishment know what the public has a right to expect of it. What do I pay my rates and taxes for—and devilish high ones they are, too, b'gad—if it's not to maintain law and order and the proper protection of property? And to have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and people's houses...
A man stood irresolutely before the imposing portals of Cainbury House, a large office building let out to numerous small tenants, and harbouring, as the indicator on the tiled wall of the vestibule testified, some thirty different professions. The man was evidently poor, for his clothes were shabby and his boots were down at heel. He was as evidently a foreigner. His clean-shaven eagle face was sallow, his eyes were dark, his eyebrows black and straight. He passed up the few steps into the hall and stood thoughtfully before the indicator. Presently he found what he wanted. At the very top of the list and amongst the crowded denizens of the fifth floor was a slip inscribed: "THE GOSSIP'S CORNER" He took from his waistcoat pocket a newspaper cutting and compared the two then stepped briskly, almost jauntily, into the hall, as though all his doubts and uncertainties had vanished,...
“Heaven and earth,” sang the tenor, Mr. Henry Wallace, owner of the Wallace garage. His larynx, which gave him somewhat the effect of having swallowed a crab-apple and got it only part way down, protruded above his low collar. “Heaven and earth,” sang the bass, Mr. Edwin Goodno, of the meat market and the Boy Scouts. “Heaven and earth, are full—” His chin, large and fleshy, buried itself deep; his eyes were glued on the music sheet in his hand. “Are full, are full, are full,” sang the soprano, Clare Rossiter, of the yellow colonial house on the Ridgely Road. She sang with her eyes turned up, and as she reached G flat she lifted herself on her toes. “Of the majesty, of Thy glory.” “Ready,” barked the choir master. “Full now, and all together.” The choir room in the parish house resounded to the twenty voices of the choir....
The Stratford is a hotel for men only, and has the air of quiet seclusion that usually is associated with a conservative club. The lobby is small and far from ornate. The smoking-room is large and comfortable. The dining-room is low-ceilinged and quaint,—a place where one can smoke comfortably,—and the kitchen produces viands that are worth a special trip to taste. Altogether, the Stratford is a place for those who want comfort, quiet, and the best of everything. James Craig, from his air of well-being, had enjoyed it to the full. An hour before, he had arisen from his table with that sensation of internal comfort that can come only from a well-ordered and well-cooked meal. He had chosen a cigar with discrimination, and lighted it with care. He had spent possibly twenty minutes or more in the smoking-room, idling over his newspaper in comfortable repletion, and then had scribbled...
At six o'clock in the evening of the first day of March, in the year of Grace, 1898, Abel Death, a man of middle age, with a face appropriate to his name--which should never be given to any living human being--was sitting at his desk, employed in the task of writing the last of a number of letters, in accordance with the instructions of his employer, Mr. Samuel Boyd, of No. 6, Catchpole Square, in the North district of London. The letters all referred to Money: to Money due for principal and interest, and to warnings and threats of what would be done in case prompt payment was not made at such and such an hour on such and such a day. Uncompromising and relentless to the point of cruelty, debtors were told in plain terms that ruin was their portion if Mr. Boyd's demands were not complied with. Abel...
The radiance of a clear September morning lay over Vienna. The air was so pure that the sky shone in brightest azure even where the city’s buildings clustered thickest. On the outskirts of the town the rays of the awakening sun danced in crystalline ether and struck answering gleams from the dew on grass and shrub in the myriad gardens of the suburban streets. It was still very early. The old-fashioned steeple clock on the church of the Holy Virgin in Hietzing had boomed out six slow strokes but a short time back. Anna, the pretty blonde girl who carried out the milk for the dwellers in several streets of this aristocratic residential suburb, was just coming around the corner of the main street into a quiet lane. This lane could hardly be dignified by the name of street as yet, it was so very quiet. It had been opened...
O N more than one account the 25th of April will always be a notable anniversary in the calendar of Mr. Arthur Ripley. To begin with, on that day he pocketed his first serious retainer as a lawyer. He got down-town a little late that morning. The weather was superb—blue sky and summer temperature. Central Park was within easy walking distance. His own engagements, alas, were not pressing. So he had treated himself to an afterbreakfast ramble across the common. On entering his office, toward eleven o’clock, he was surprised to find the usually empty chairs already tenanted. Mr. Mendel, the brewer, was established there, in company with two other gentlemen whom Arthur did not recognize. The sight of these visitors caused the young man a palpitation. Could it be—? He dared not complete the thought. That a client had at last sought him out, was too agreeable an hypothesis...
Half-way along the one straggling street of Savilestowe a narrow lane suddenly opened out between the cottages and turned abruptly towards the uplands which rose on the northern edge of the village. Its first course lay between high grey walls, overhung with ivy and snapdragon. When it emerged from their cool shadowings the church came in view on one hand and the school on the other, each set on its own green knoll and standing high above the meadows. Once past these it became narrower and more tortuous; the banks on either side rose steeply, and were crowned by ancient oaks and elms. In the proper season of the year these banks were thick with celandine and anemone, and the scent of hedge violets rose from the moss among the spreading roots of the trees. Here the ruts of the lane were deep, as if no man had any particular...
Books by ARTHUR B. REEVE Honora Wilford THE SOUL SCAR A CRAIG KENNEDY SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY NOVEL BY ARTHUR B. REEVE AUTHOR OF "The Treasure Train" "The Adventuress" "The Panama Plot" and other Craig Kennedy Stories HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Soul Scar Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published May, 1919 THE SOUL SCAR "It's the most perplexing case I've been up against, Kennedy, for a long time." Doctor Leslie, now medical adviser to the district attorney, had dropped in at the laboratory, and, to tell the truth, I was glad of the interruption. For from a retort Kennedy was evolving an olfactory offense which was particularly annoying to me, especially as I was struggling with an article on art for The Star . The things were incongruous, and the article suffered. "A case?" repeated Kennedy, mechanically. "Here—stick your...
The tempo was increasing to its highest pitch for the day. That highly complicated organism, a daily newspaper, which is apparently conceived in the wildest disorder, was about to "go to bed." Twenty typewriters were hammering out their finishing touches and concluding paragraphs to new stories. New leads were being written to old stories. News machines, telegraph machines, two tickers were adding their quota to the infernal din. Male and female voices were punctuating the grimy air with yells of "copy boy". The men at the horseshoe shaped copy desk were echoing the cry. Boys rushed up to some of the typewriters, and, almost before the type bars ceased their clicking on the last words of a sentence, snatched out the sheet of copy paper from the machine. The floor, tables, desks, chairs presented an appearance that would have made the owner of a respectable junk shop blush. Discarded copy...
“Just in time, wasn’t it?” asked Mary Arkroyd. “Two days before the—the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?” “Only once—in Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat , and dashed in one Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don’t you remember?” “Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I’d gone into colors. Oh, of course I’ve gone back into mourning now! And everything was ready—settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. And then it all came out!” “How?” “Well, Eustace—Captain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and—and the bank wouldn’t...
IT was drawing towards the close of the last day of the year. A few hours more, and 1836 would be no more. It was a cold day. There was no snow on the ground, but it was frozen into stiff ridges, making it uncomfortable to walk upon. The sun had been out all day, but there was little heat or comfort in its bright, but frosty beams. The winter is a hard season for the poor. It multiplies their necessities, while, in general, it limits their means and opportunities of earning. The winter of 1836-37 was far from being an exception to this rule. It was worse than usual, on account of the general stagnation of business. In an humble tenement, located on what was then the outskirts of New York, though to-day a granite warehouse stands on the spot, lived Timothy Crump, an industrious cooper. His family consisted...