Dangerous Ground; or, The Rival Detectives

"But," queried Walter Parks, when question and comment had been exhausted, "are you sure that we have, even now, evidence enough to convict Krutzer, or Francoise, as you call him?"

He has made Mrs. French and Winnie such explanations as he could, and has promised them one more full and complete when he shall be able, himself, to understand, in all its deta...

When Alan Warburton reached the residence of Mr. Follingsbee, he found that legal gentleman sitting alone in his cosy library, very much, so Alan thought, as if expecting him. A...

"I can furnish you with dates and addresses that will enable you to make personal investigation. In fact, I am every moment expecting a visit from the gentleman who was Mr. Ulim...

At two P. M. of the same day, the day that witnessed Alan Warburton's return to his own, and the Chief's perplexity, there is an ominous stillness brooding about the Francoise d...

"Once more, and for the last time," she pleads, "I ask you to tell me the truth. Give up this claim of kinship. If you were my father, something in my heart would tell me so; Go...

When the door had closed behind Leslie and the old woman, Franz Francoise dropped his chin upon his breast, and leaning his broad shoulders against the door-frame, stood thinkin...

One more scene in this night's fateful masquerade remains to be described, and then the seemingly separate threads of our plot unite, and twine about our central figures a chain...

Van Vernet had planned well. By keeping himself informed as to the doings at police headquarters, he had been aware of all the efforts there being made in the search for the mis...

"Ye're the same whinin' old coward, ain't ye?" commented Franz, as he favored his father with a contemptuous glance. "I've seen a good many bad eggs, but blow me if I ever seed...

While he sat pondering over the discovery of Carnegie and Sanford, two visitors were announced: Walter Parks, the English patron of Stanhope and Vernet, and John Ainsworth, the...

Vernet fought valiantly, but he lay at last captive under the combined clutch of Papa and Franz, and menaced by the knife which Mamma, having snatched it from the hand of her ho...

While Alan and Winnie, protected by their temporary armistice, were hurrying toward the modest abode of Mrs. French, each intent upon solving as soon as possible the riddle of L...

In spite of the fact that the Warburton servants were a thoroughly disciplined corps, and that domestic affairs, above stairs and below, usually moved with mechanical regularity...

Others were seated about the room. He nodded silently to these, and went over to one of the windows near the desk occupied by the man he had addressed as Sanford.

In every city where splendor abounds and wealth rolls in carriages, can be found, also, squalor and wretchedness. If the rich have their avenues, and the good and virtuous their...

A crush of carriages about a stately doorway; a flitting of gorgeous, mysterious, grotesque and dainty figures through the broad, open portal; a glow of lights; a gleaming of vi...

When Winnie was the petted only daughter of "French, the rich merchant," she and Leslie Uliman had been firm friends. When Leslie Uliman, the adopted daughter of the aristocrati...

While Alan Warburton, closeted with Mr. Follingsbee, was slowly lowering the crest of the Warburton pride, and reluctantly submitting himself to the mysterious guidance of an un...

After the departure of the Sister of Mercy, an unnatural silence brooded over the room; a silence, not a stillness, for Mamma Francoise, uttering no word, dragged the unfortunat...

On Wednesday, the day following that which witnessed the arrival of Walter Parks and John Ainsworth, Mr. Follingsbee, seated at a late breakfast, perused a letter, which, judgin...

Left alone, Leslie Warburton faced her problem, and found herself mastered by it. She had believed herself already overwhelmed with misery--had fancied that in coming among thes...

Guided by Silly Charlie, Alan Warburton finds himself hurrying through crooked streets and dismal alleys, for what seems to him an interminable distance. Now they run forward sw...

A pure pale face, with a firm chin; a rare red mouth, proud yet sensitive; a pair of brown tender eyes, with a touch of sadness in their depths; and a broad low brow, over which...

Necessity had taught her how to enter and escape from the dangerous maze where the people who claimed a right in her existence dwelt. And on being forced to flee by her haughty...

"Hour appointed, between three and four--precisely, sir; _pre_cisely. But my time's valuable, Mr. Warburton; _valuable_, sir! And it's better too early than too late. Everything...

It was grey dawn when Stanhope left the hospital and turned his face homeward, and then it was not to sleep, but to pass the two hours that preceded his breakfast-time in profou...

Several days have passed since the visit of Mamma Francoise to the Warburton mansion, with all its attendant circumstances; since the flight from the Francoise tenement, and Van...

It is a half hour later. The light in the room is increased by a sputtering additional candle, and Papa Francoise, sitting by the deal table, is gazing toward the door, an eager...

In order to comprehend the cause of the alarm which stimulated to sudden action both the wise man and the fool, Van Vernet and Silly Charlie, let us turn back a little and enter...

It is characteristic of the metropolitan policeman; he is not a man to occupy middle ground. If he is not gruffly discourteous, he is pretty certain to be found patronizingly po...

An observer might have noted that the face of the crape-draped occupant was pressed close against the oval window, in the rear of the vehicle, watching the direction taken by Va...

Every servant of the household loved its fair mistress. And while those who could, bustled to and fro, commanded by Winnie, each eager to minister to so kind a mistress, and tho...

"Ye see," explains Franz, glancing toward Leslie, "the lady's kind o' hesitatin'. We'll give her a minute or two ter make up her mind." And he goes over and takes his stand besi...

This importunate fellow is determined to solve the mystery of his identity, to see him unmask. Ten minutes spent in an attempt to evade him will be moments of fate for the ambit...

While the stranger was thus communing with himself, and while Van Vernet was striding toward that fashionable quarter of the city which contained the splendid Warburton mansion,...

Entering the Agency when mere striplings, they had at once formed a friendship that had been strong and lasting. Their very differences of disposition and habits made them the b...

"I shall not weary you with a long story," began Leslie Warburton; "this is not the time for it, and I am not in the mood. My husband lies above us, hopelessly ill. My little st...

There may have been times in Alan Warburton's life--such times come to most fastidious city-bred people--when he doubted the wisdom of Providence in permitting the "street music...

Leslie dropped Winnie's hand and rose slowly, moving with a stately grace toward the entrance before which Alan stood. And Winnie, with a wrathful glance at the intruder, flung...

The discovery made by Van Vernet, on the day of his visit to the Warburton mansion, aroused him to wonderful activity, and made him more than ever eager to ferret out the hiding...

It is early in the evening of the day that has witnessed the events recorded in the preceding chapters, and the Chief of the detectives is sitting in his easiest office chair, l...

Five weeks have passed since the fateful masquerade. Five weeks since Vernet and Stanhope entered, in rivalry, the service of Walter Parks, the bearded Englishman. Five weeks si...

Doctor Bayless had predicted aright. Leslie continued to gain slowly, and in the third week of her illness, she could sit erect in her bed for an hour or two each day, listening...

While the previously related scenes of this fateful night are transpiring Richard Stanhope finds his silken-trained disguise a snare in which his own feet become entangled, both...

Franz had related the story of his escape and his subsequent adventures, and finished by telling them how, by the merest accident, he had espied Mamma and Nance upon their retur...

It is not a pleasing task to Alan Warburton, but, spurred on by Vernet, and acting according to his suggestions, it is undertaken and accomplished. Within twenty minutes, two ga...

It was past midnight when the muffled figures of Papa and Mamma Francoise emerged stealthily from the tenement house, and took their way toward the river. Now and then they look...

Little Daisy Warburton was missing. The blow that had prostrated Leslie at its first announcement, struck Archibald Warburton with still heavier force. It was impossible to keep...

While the discomfited Vernet kept watch alone with the dead, his men were running up and down the alleys, listening, peering, searching in by-places, in the hope of finding the...

Late in the afternoon of the day following that on which Carnegie the Expert had received his commission from the Chief of the detectives, he appeared again in the presence of t...

It is black with age, and guiltless of paint, but a careful observer would note that the door is newer than the dwelling, and that it is remarkably solid, considering the tumble...

Baffled in this first attempt to obtain the desired information, Alan sets his lips firmly, and plans a new mode of attack. And in the morning he made a second effort.

Savage Mamma Francoise was not an unskillful nurse, and Leslie was soon restored to consciousness. But not to strength; the little that she had gained was spent by that long int...

"Woman!" she cries passionately, "drop your mask of hypocrisy! Let us understand each other. I believe that you were in my house on the night of that wretched masquerade. I have...

Often she crept to the door of the inner room, where Leslie slumbered heavily. Often she glanced, with a grin of satisfaction, toward the couch where Franz lay breathing regular...

Soon the space before the doomed building is swarming with people running, vociferating, cursing, jesting. Drunken men are there, haggard women, dirty, ragged children, who clap...

Paying no further heed to the servant, and much to the surprise of that functionary, Van Vernet turned his gaze back upon the picture, and looked long and intently, shifting his...

Not a man among them but knew the result of an attack upon him. Bullets swift and sure, in the brains or hearts of some; certain vengeance, sooner or later, upon all.