Miss Maitland, Private Secretary

On Saturday afternoon several telephone messages were sent to Esther Maitland at O’Malley’s flat. They came from Ferguson, from Grasslands, and the Whitney office. In the two la...

The next morning, in the hall, right after breakfast I told her what I had to tell—I mean who I was. It gave her a start—held her listening with her eyes hard on mine—then when...

Chapman Price was leaving Grasslands. Events had been rapidly advancing to that point for the last three months, slowly advancing for the last three years. Everybody who knew th...

The morning after that talk with Ferguson I rose up "loaded for bar." At breakfast I led Dixon round to the old subject—we were good friends now and he’d drop his professional m...

Kissam kept his word and the interest in the Janney robbery began to languish. Detectives still came and went, morning trains still disgorged reporters, but it was not as it had...

On Monday evening Ferguson heard from Molly of the scene in the Whitney office. He was incredulous and enraged, refusing to accept what she insisted were irrefutable proofs of E...

One of the chief features of detective work is that you must be able to change your mind. That may not sound hard—especially when the owner of the mind happens to be a female—bu...

The Janney party left the office soon after Molly and Esther. They had decided to stay at the St. Boniface hotel where rooms had already been engaged, and, with Suzanne swathed...

During these days Dick Ferguson thought a good deal and said very little. Like the rest of his world he wondered over the unsolved mystery of the Janney robbery, but his wonderi...

The peace and aristocratic calm of the Janney household was disrupted. Into its dignified quietude burnt an irruption of alien activity and the great white light of publicity. K...

I’ve been asked to tell the part of this story in which I figure. I’ve done that kind of work before, so I’m not as shy as I was that first time, and since then I’ve studied som...

The consultation in the office resulted in Esther Maitland being taken to O’Malley’s flat in Stuyvesant Square, where his wife and sister agreed to be responsible for her. This...

It was nearly seven when we got back to Grasslands. We alighted as silent as we started, and I was following Miss Maitland into the hall, Ferguson behind me, when she turned in...

At the entrance of the great building which housed the Whitney office the two motors came to a halt. Ferguson went in with the others saying he would see if he could be of any u...

It’s my place to finish, tell the end of the story and straighten it all out. Some of it’s been cleared up clean, with the people on the spot to give the evidence, some of it we...

Two days after his interview with Suzanne, Mr. Larkin came to Berkeley and took a room at the Berkeley Arms. He registered as Henry Childs, and described himself to the clerk as...

It was Thursday morning, three days after her husband’s departure, and Suzanne was sitting in the window seat of her room looking across the green distances to where the roof of...

Price took Bébita to Grasslands, handed her over to Annie and telephoned in to the Janneys. Then he left to rejoin Ferguson who was to go to the shore and find out the meaning o...

That Friday—gee, shall I ever forget it!—opening so quiet and natural and suddenly bang, in the middle of it, the sort of thing you read in the yellow press.

Suzanne, her letter crumpled in her hand, had gone directly to her own room. There she read it for the second time, its baleful import sinking deeper into her consciousness with...

In spite of Molly’s excited certainty that Willitts was the thief, Ferguson was not convinced. He met her impetuous demand for the valet’s arrest with a recommendation for a ful...

At half-past eight the roadster, with Ferguson driving, glided into the little village of North Cresson and swung out into the Cresson Turnpike. Ten minutes behind him was his t...

Ferguson’s knock on Suzanne’s door was promptly answered by the lady herself, still in her hat and wrap. She clutched at him as she had done when he came to her in her dark hour...

After that Monday night when he went off in a rage, Ferguson didn’t show up at Grasslands for several days and I had the place to myself and all the time I wanted. Believe me, I...

Mr. Larkin had lingered on at Cedar Brook. He said that he needed a holiday, the prosperity of the last year had worn him out, also the bungalow sites were many and a decision d...

Esther and Ferguson walked across the open spaces of lawn and then entered the woods. Ferguson had set the pace as slow, but he noticed that she quickened it, faring along besid...

The next morning Mr. Janney had to read the papers to himself for Miss Maitland went to town on the 8:45. He sat on the balcony and missed her, for the Chicago murder had develo...

As soon as I had the notes of that ’phone message down I wrote a report for the Whitney office—just an outline—and posted it myself in the village. The answer with instructions...

The Friday morning when Suzanne was to go to town broke auspiciously bright and cloudless. As Annie was not the proper person to take Bébita to the oculist, and as Suzanne would...

Things were not going Mr. Larkin’s way. What had begun with such bright promise was declining to a twilight uncertainty. The morning after his ignominious failure with Willitts...