Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3

Kennedy's suit-case was lying open on the bed, and he was literally throwing things into it from his chiffonier, as I entered after a hurried trip up-town from the _Star_ office...

from reading this clipping. Either the X-ray or radium had caused her dermatitis and nervousness. Which was it? I wished to be sure that I would make no mistake. Of course I kne...

"You'd fool the devil himself, Jemmy," said his captor. "And now I'll thank you to pass over to me those five little packets which my friend here left on that desk up yonder."

Lady Bazelhurst was right. Penelope was making her way through the blackest of nights toward the home of Randolph Shaw. In deciding upon this step, after long deliberation, she...

Lord and Lady Bazelhurst, with the more energetic members of their party, spent the day in a so-called hunting excursion to the hills south of the Villa. Toward nightfall they r...

Penelope was a perverse and calculating young person. She was her own mistress and privileged to ride as often as she pleased, but it seemed rather odd--although splendidly deco...

Mr. Shaw was a tall young man of thirty or thereabouts, smooth-faced, good-looking and athletic. It was quite true that he wore a red coat when tramping through his woods and va...

This narrative has quite as much to do with the Bazelhurst side of the controversy as it has with Shaw's. It is therefore but fair that the heroic invasion by Lord Cecil should...

"Never mind, Tompkins. He had no right to fish on this side of that log. The insufferable ass may own the land on the opposite side, but confound his impertinence, I own it on t...

Any one who hopes to find in what is here written a work of literature had better lay it aside unread. At Yale I should have got the sack in rhetoric and English composition, le...

It was raining when I left my apartment at the Marathon that night--a cold and disagreeable drizzle--and the thought occurred to me as I turned up my coat collar and stepped int...

At that point my importance ceased. Apparently seeing that the game was up, Mr. Camp later in the morning asked Mr. Cullen to give him an interview, and when he was allowed to p...

The bells of the Chapel of St. Mark were striking the hour of eight o'clock when, Frà Giovanni stepped from his gondola, and crossed the great square toward that labyrinth of na...

I stood pondering, for no explanation that would fit the facts seemed possible. I should have considered the young fellow's story only an attempt to gain a little reputation for...

The position of confidential family adviser is not without its drawbacks, and it was with a certain reluctance that I told the office boy to show Mrs. Magnus in. For Mrs. Magnus...

The impulse which drove Penelope out for the second time that night may he readily appreciated. Its foundation was fear; its subordinate emotions were shame, self-pity and consc...

Frà Giovanni stepped from his gondola, and stood at the door of the Palazzo Pisani exactly at a quarter to ten o'clock. Thirty minutes had passed since he had talked with the _b...

I made up for my three nights' lack of sleep by not waking the next morning till after ten. When I went to 218, I found only the _chef_, and he told me the party had gone for a...

Miss Cullen was sitting on a rock apart from her brother and Hance, as I had asked her to do when I helped her dismount. I went over to where she sat, and said, boldly--

On the third day a despatch came from Frederic Cullen telling his father he would join us at Lamy on No. 8 that evening. I at once ordered 97 and 218 coupled to the connecting t...

In another minute I was on my front platform. Dropping down between the two cars, I crept along beside--indeed, half under--Mr. Cullen's special. After my previous conclusion, m...

Before my ideas had had time to straighten themselves out, I was lifted to my feet, and half pushed, half lifted to the station platform. Camp was already there, and as I took t...

But she declined to do so, saying she wanted to know what I was going to telegraph; and he left us, for which I wasn't sorry. I told her of the good news I had to send, and she...

Within five minutes we had a big surprise, for the sheriff and Mr. Baldwin came back, and the former announced that Fred and Lord Ralles were free, having been released on bail....

If ever a fellow was bewildered by a single speech, it was Richard Gordon. I walked up and down that platform till I was called to breakfast, trying to decide what Miss Cullen h...

We did not reach Flagstaff till seven, and I told the stageload to take possession of their car, while I went to my own. It took me some time to get freshened up, and then I ate...

"Not right here?" I heard Madge cry, but I had too much to do to take in what followed. I was lying close to the loose plank, and even before the station-master had completed hi...

What seemed at the moment an incomprehensible puzzle had, as we afterward learned, a very simple explanation. One of the G.S. directors, Mr. Baldwin, who had come in on Mr. Camp...

Looking at my watch, I found it was a little after three, which meant six in Washington: allowing for transmission, a telegram would reach there in time to be on hand with the o...

Before I had ceased chuckling over the sheriff's indignant declaration of the canons of etiquette, I heard Mr. Cullen's voice demanding to know what the trouble was, and it was...

The sun was setting on the second day of June, in the year 1701, when Pietro Falier, the Captain of the Police of Venice, quitted his office in the Piazzetta of St. Mark and set...

For an instant, with the thought of spirits still upon me, I tried to shake away the hand; then, as I started around at my assailant, I saw that it was Godfrey.

I suppose the student of the supernatural always has to fight against the excitement of the unknown--an excitement which clouds the judgment and confuses reason. Certainly, as I...