Category: Novels
|JOHN BRUCE, stretched at full length on a luxurious divan in the most sumptuous apartment of the Bayne-Miloy, New York's newest and most pretentious hostelry, rose suddenly to his feet and switched off the lights. The same impulse carried him in a few strides to the window. T...
|DEAD! The girl was on her knees beside John Bruce. Dead--he did not move! It was the man who had pawned his watch-fob hardly half an hour before! What did it mean? What did tho...
21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE--THE LAST CHANCE|JOHN BRUCE closed the door of Larmon's suite, and, taking the elevator, went up to his own room in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, two floors above. Here, he flung himself almost wearil...
14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN--THE TWO PENS|JOHN BRUCE stared for a moment longer at the revolver that held a steady bead between his eyes, and at the evil face of Crang that leered at him from the opposite seat; then he...
15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE CLEW|PAUL VENIZA, propped up in bed on his pillows, followed Claire with his eyes as she moved about the room. It was perhaps because he had been too ill of late to notice anything,...
2. CHAPTER TWO--THE MILLIONAIRE PLUNGER|JOHN BRUCE left the hotel and entered a taxi. A little later, in that once most fashionable section of New York, in the neighborhood of Gramercy Square, he was admitted to a st...
3. CHAPTER THREE--SANCTUARY|THE car started off. It turned the corner. John Bruce looked around him. He was standing on precisely the same spot from which he had entered the car. He had been driven around...
18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN--THE HOSTAGE|AS Crang disappeared through the doorway, John Bruce stepped noiselessly forward across the earthen floor. With the door half open and swung inward, it left a generous aperture...
12. CHAPTER TWELVE--THE FIGHT|FOR a long time John Bruce stared at the closed door; first a little helplessly because the bottom seemed quite to have dropped out of things, and then with set face as the old...
13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN--TRAPPINGS OF TINSEL|UNDER the shaded light on his table, in his private sitting room in the Bayne-Miloy Hotel, John Bruce had been writing steadily for half an hour--but the sheets of paper over w...
22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO--THROUGH THE NIGHT|A GAUNT and haggard figure stalked through the night; around him only shuttered windows, darkened houses, and deserted streets. The pavements rang hollow to the impact of his b...
8. CHAPTER EIGHT--ALLIESHawkins was no longer twisting his shapeless hat nervously in his fingers; instead, he held it now in one clenched hand, while with the other he closed the door behind him as he...
6. CHAPTER SIX--THE ALIBI|JOHN BRUCE opened his eyes dreamily, unseeingly; and then his eyelids fluttered and closed again. There was an exquisite sense of languor upon him, of cool, comfortable repose;...
19. CHAPTER NINETEEN--CABIN H-14|FOR a time, Crang lay passive. Fear was dominant. He could move his head a little, and he kept screwing it around to cast furtive glances at the cabin door. He was sure that Br...
9. CHAPTER NINE--THE CONSPIRATORS“Yes--in a moment,” said John Bruce slowly. “I've been thinking a good deal while you were talking. I can only see things one way; and that is that the time has come when you sh...
7. CHAPTER SEVEN--THE GIRL OF THE TRAVELING PAWN-SHOP|JOHN BRUCE abstractedly twirled the tassel of the old and faded dressing gown which he wore, the temporary possession of which he owed to Paul Veniza, his host. From the chair...
24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR--THE RIDE|JOHN BRUCE turned the corner, and, on the opposite side of the street, drew back under the shelter of a door porch where he could command a view of the entrance to Paul Veniza'...
17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN--ALIAS MR. ANDERSONDOCTOR Sydney Angus Crang looked at his watch, as he stepped from a taxi the next afternoon, and entered the Bayne-Miloy Hotel. It was fifteen minutes of two. He approached the...
5. CHAPTER FIVE--HAWKINS|IN the outer room, the door closed behind them, Paul Veniza and Hawkins stared into each other's eyes. Hawkins' face had lost its ruddy, weatherbeaten color, and there was a st...
1. CHAPTER ONE--ALADDIN'S LAMP|JOHN BRUCE, stretched at full length on a luxurious divan in the most sumptuous apartment of the Bayne-Miloy, New York's newest and most pretentious hostelry, rose suddenly to...
20. CHAPTER TWENTY--OUTSIDE THE DOOR|HAWKINS very cautiously got out of bed, and consulted his watch. It was five minutes after nine. He stole to the door and listened. There was no sound from below. Mrs. Hedges,...
16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN--A WOLF LICKS HIS CHOPS|OUTSIDE the house Crang continued to run. He was unconscious that he had forgotten his hat. His face worked in livid fury. Alternately he burst out into short, ugly gusts of la...
23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE--THE BEST MAN|HAWKINS sat at the table in his room, and twined and twined one old storm-beaten hand over the other. For hours he had sat like that. It was light in the room now, for it was l...
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN--THE RENDEZVOUSJohn Bruce in turn stole a look at Claire. His lips tightened a little. Since she had been told nothing, she was quite unconscious, of course, that it mattered at all because it...
10. CHAPTER TEN--AT FIVE MINUTES TO EIGHT|BEFORE the rickety washstand and in front of the cracked glass that served as a mirror and was suspended from a nail driven into the wall, Hawkins was shaving himself. Perhaps...