Category: Novels

Miss Maitland, Private Secretary

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 the Prices and the Janneys said it was inevitable, and people who didn’t know them but read about them...

Chapters

29. CHAPTER XXIX—MISS MAITLAND EXPLAINS

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...

20. CHAPTER XX—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

1. CHAPTER I—THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

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...

25. CHAPTER XXV—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

7. CHAPTER VII—CONCERNING DETECTIVES

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...

22. CHAPTER XXII—SUZANNE FINDS A FRIEND

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...

13. CHAPTER XIII—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

18. CHAPTER XVIII—THE HOUSE IN GAYLE STREET

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...

11. CHAPTER XI—FERGUSON’S IDEA

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...

6. CHAPTER VI—POOR MR. JANNEY!

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...

8. CHAPTER VIII—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

21. CHAPTER XXI—SIGNED "CLANSMEN

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...

19. CHAPTER XIX—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

17. CHAPTER XVII—MISS MAITLAND IN A NEW LIGHT

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...

30. CHAPTER XXX—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

9. CHAPTER IX—GOOD HUNTING IN BERKELEY

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...

2. CHAPTER II—MISS MAITLAND GETS A LETTER

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...

28. CHAPTER XXVIII—THE MAN IN THE BOAT

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...

16. CHAPTER XVI—MOLLY’S STORY

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.

3. CHAPTER III—ANOTHER LETTER AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT

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...

24. CHAPTER XXIV—CARDS ON THE TABLE

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...

27. CHAPTER XXVII—NIGHT ON THE CRESSON PIKE

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...

26. CHAPTER XXVI—THE COUNTER PLOT

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...

23. CHAPTER XXIII—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

12. CHAPTER XII—THE MAN WHO WOULDN’T TELL

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...

4. CHAPTER IV—THE CIGAR BAND

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...

5. CHAPTER V—ROBBERY IN HIGH PLACES

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...

10. CHAPTER X—MOLLY’S STORY

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...

15. CHAPTER XV—WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY

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...

14. CHAPTER XIV—A CHAPTER ABOUT BAD TEMPERS

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...