The Avalanche: A Mystery Story

Price Ruyler knew that many secrets had been inhumed by the earthquake and fire of San Francisco and wondered if his wife's had been one of them. After all, she had been born in...

Ruyler sighed as he heard his wife walk down the hall. There had been a time when she came running like a child at his summons, but in these days she walked with a leisurely dig...

On the following day Ruyler, who had looked upon the whirlwind of passion that had swept him into a romantic and unworldly marriage, as likely to remain the one brief drama of h...

Ruyler had half promised to go to a dinner that night at the house of John Gwynne, whose wife would chaperon his wife afterward to the last of the Assembly dances.

"And you won't take me to the party?" Helene pouted charmingly as her husband laid her pink taffeta wrap over her shoulders. "I thought you said you might make it, and it would...

On the following day at six o'clock Ruyler went to Long's to meet Jake Spaulding. By a supreme effort of will he had put his private affairs out of his mind and concentrated on...

"Do you think I'd leave you--to come home to a dreary house every night? Even if I don't see much of you, at least you know I'm there; and that if you have an evening off you ha...

He arrived at home on the following afternoon at six and was immediately rung up by Spaulding, who demanded an interview. It was not worth while going down town again, as Helene...

They had intended to go to the theater but Ruyler put her to bed at once. He offered to read to her, but she turned her back on him with cold disdain, and he went to the little...

During the next few days Ruyler saw little of his wife. He was obliged to take two business trips out of town and as he could not return until ten o'clock at night he advised he...

It was half-past eleven when Ruyler and Spaulding, masked and wearing colored silk dominoes, entered the great gates of the Thornton estate in San Mateo, the detective merely di...

They walked rapidly up the close avenue--planted far back in the Fifties by Ford Thornton's grandfather--the blaze of light at the end of the long perspective growing wider and...

Aileen had shrieked and fled. Ruyler stood in the room with the ruby in his open hand. He saw that Helene was standing quite erect before him. She had made no attempt to leave t...

There was silence for a moment and then Price said awkwardly: "It is a pity you haven't the chain or you could wear the ruby for the rest of the evening."