Cobra

In the moonlight the rocky shore line for half a mile or more was almost as clearly defined as by day. A hundred precipitous feet below, the oily waters of the bay gleamed like...

The morning sun flooded the bedroom of the Torrianis. It glinted off the massive antique furniture, revealing its beauty and the need of an immediate dusting. It invaded the reg...

Maria's gnarled knuckles beat vigorously upon her young master's door. When her tattoo failed to bring results, she opened the door and walked boldly in. Waddling to the floor-l...

The great floating hotel glided steadily ahead over the smooth, black waters of the Mediterranean. Somewhere within her hull, boiler fires were roaring and a labyrinth of machin...

Like most of its neighbors in the gold-plated Fifth Avenue shopping district intersected by the Fifties, Dorning and Son resembled, from the pavement, more a monastery than a bu...

The next few weeks were probably the most tranquil Rodrigo Torriani had ever known. To his own surprise, he enjoyed them. His liking for John Dorning deepened as he saw in what...

When Rodrigo reached his office the next morning, his exasperatingly efficient spinster secretary had long since opened his mail and had the letters, neatly denuded of their env...

For an enormous bribe, the head waiter at the Quartier Latin removed the "Reserved" sign from a cozy table very near the dance floor and assisted the two ladies in draping their...

Elise Van Zile owed her dark beauty to her Spanish mother. Her olive skin, her smouldering black eyes, her slim, svelte body whose liquid grace made the fact that she was a litt...

They dined at a little French restaurant just off Madison Avenue. In this quiet atmosphere of good food, simple furnishings and honest citizens and their wives and sweethearts,...

Rodrigo attended a private auction of Flemish art the next morning and did not reach the office until noon-time. Having glanced through his mail, he thrust his head into John's...

One glorious morning, three weeks later, when the June sunshine bathed Fifth Avenue in a benevolent light and the staff of Dorning and Son edged over as near the doors and windo...

About a week later, Rodrigo had a business conference that resulted in an unexpected meeting and a pleasant adventure compensating in some measure for his ill success in thwarti...

"The dread summons has come," John announced. "Ferris wants me to be in Philadelphia in the morning. The painting and pieces are there and he wants to see me about arranging the...

She had changed her costume. A gauzy black wrap covered her black evening gown, from which her white shoulders could be seen rising. Her small, tight-fitting black hat was drape...

Rodrigo flung himself into his berth on the midnight train to Philadelphia with no idea of sleep. One resolve kept pounding in his head. He would tell John Dorning everything wh...

Rodrigo sat on the edge of a chair in the living room of Henry Dorning's house at Greenwich. Near him, his frail body sunk deeply in the cushions of a large chair especially com...

The weather, for the winter season, was unusually fine during the first five or six days of the voyage eastward, and Rodrigo kept closely to his cabin. He slept much. It seemed...

Rodrigo nodded his way through the surprised, cheerful greetings of Dorning and Son's staff stationed out in the exhibition rooms and approached the open door of John Dorning's...

Rodrigo walked slowly into the offices of the Italian-American Line late the next morning, like a man lately condemned to the scaffold, and booked passage on a vessel sailing fo...

But, after all, Rodrigo sailed for Italy the next Saturday. Though he had changed his booking from a single to a double cabin and the passenger list read: The Count and Countess...