Best laid schemes

Susan Parker was twenty-six and nothing had ever happened. To speak more accurately, plenty of things had happened, but Man had never happened. As a college girl and afterward,...

Mrs. Burgess, proud of her reputation for meeting emergencies, did not wait for her guest to be presented. Her quick scrutiny discovered nothing alarming in this young person. W...

“Well, I think I’ll be happier to tell you, and then the slate will be cleaned off a little bit anyhow. A sample copy of the Seven Seas’ Review had strayed into the house; and,...

Burgess knew Vevay Street, for he owned a business block at its intersection with Senate Avenue. Beyond the avenue it deteriorated rapidly and was filled with tenements and chea...

The three were now on the ice of the canal, spreading out to distribute their weight. The day had been warm enough to soften the ice and it cracked ominously as the trio sped al...

Helen Ward was quite as admirable and interesting as her brother. The finishing school had done her no harm and she returned to Kernville without airs, assumptions or affectatio...

“The point we want to hammer in is that we--the Ward family--are the only people in Sycamore county who are in touch with the Campbell power, social and financial,” John elucida...

Mr. Elwell Parker had frequently played the role of confidential investigator for Walter Scott Campbell, and established the following evening at the Kipperly House he began his...

He delayed answering that she might poise the spoonful of tea over the pot as long as possible. Hers was an unusual hand; in his tales he had tried often to describe that partic...

As he reached the steps that led up to the broad main entrance he became panic-stricken at the thought of entering a house the owner of which he did not know from Adam, on an er...

He looked at his watch. It was only nine-thirty, though it seemed that eternity had rolled by since his first encounter with Gadsby. He had taken a pistol away from a detective...

When Webster G. Burgess asked ten of his cronies to dine with him at the University Club on a night in January they assumed that the president of the White River National had be...

“Yes; I have some little proof of it, quite a bit of proof, in fact. I have even had the wastebasket of the suspect examined for a considerable period. Knowing Burgess’s interes...

“Well, it won’t take long to tell it. After the governor signed the pardon I told the warden to take Avery downstairs and get him a drink: the poor devil was all in. And then Ta...

“We’ll go down and see him. Remember, he don’t need to know anything; just do what I tell him. There’s a hundred in this for you, Pete, if you pull it right; expenses extra.”