The Brand of Silence: A Detective Story

Now the fog was clearing and the mist was lifting, and the bright sunshine was struggling to penetrate the billows of damp vapor and touch with its glory the things of the world...

Sidney Prale folded the piece of paper carefully and slipped it into his wallet. Winning a fortune in ten years in a foreign country had taught Prale many things, notably that e...

Sidney Prale obtained accommodations in a prominent hostelry on Fifth Avenue, bathed, dressed, ate luncheon, and then went out upon the streets, walking briskly and swinging his...

After settling himself in the other hotel, Prale ate a belated luncheon. For the first time that day, he looked at the newspapers. He had remembered that a New Yorker reads the...

An hour later, having parted with Detective Jim Farland, Sidney Prale walked slowly up Fifth Avenue, determined to go to his hotel suite and rest for the remainder of the evenin...

Instinct, intuition, or some similar faculty caused Prale to turn off the Avenue eastward toward the river. He was not angry now. His mind was in action. He had convinced himsel...

Many times in his life, Sidney Prale had been greatly surprised, astonished, shocked. But never had he experienced such a feeling as he did at this bald announcement of a police...

Sidney Prale waited in an adjoining office, a detective sitting in one corner of it and watching him closely. It was almost a prison room, for there were steel bars at the windo...

Once more Prale was taken to the room in which he had first waited--the room with the barred windows. This time the watching detective was missing. When Jim Farland entered, he...

Farland engaged a taxicab, bade Murk get into it, got in himself, and they started downtown. The detective leaned back against the cushions and regarded Murk closely. He knew th...

Given a definite trail to follow, Jim Farland was one of the best trackers in the business. He liked to know his quarry by sight, and conduct the hunt in a proper manner. And so...

Farland started moving slowly toward them, making his way through the crowd in such fashion that he did not attract too much attention to himself. He was feeling a sudden intere...

Naturally, a man facing prosecution on a murder charge is liable to be nervous, whether he is innocent or not. If an attempt is being made to gather evidence that will clear him...

Jim Farland went from the hotel to Coadley's office, to ascertain whether the attorney's private investigators, who were working independently of him, had unearthed anything of...

Because he wanted to think of his predicament, Prale crossed into the Park and began following one of the paths toward the south, making his way along it slowly, paying little a...

"They are working on me now, Sid," he said. "I got a telephone message when I was in the office, and the gent at the other end of the line informed me that it would be beneficia...

The next thing that impressed itself upon Murk's consciousness was the fact that he had a terrific pain in the back of his head. Many times during his career Murk had experience...

The masked man stepped forward, snarling behind his mask, his hands closing, and the two thugs stepped forward also, as if to use Murk roughly if the other gave the command.

Murk, compelled to ride back to the city in the taxicab with Marie, spent the time in ordinary conversation with the amazon, and told himself repeatedly that she was a great wom...

He found Prale pacing the floor angrily, and Murk sitting in a corner and watching him. The police detective, after doing duty for a few days, had been withdrawn, as it seemed e...

Through a maze of crossing and winding roads the car made its way, now over highways as smooth as a city pavement, and now over rough mileage that jolted the occupants and threa...

Waiting in anticipation of hearing good news, Sidney Prale paced the floor of the living room of his hotel suite until noon the following day, expecting Jim Farland to put in an...

"This is a painful subject for me, as you must be aware," Kate Gilbert said. "I shall tell the story in as few words as possible, and if you are a gentleman, you will not interr...

"Some pair of chickens!" Murk said. "That Marie girl may be a bear for size and strength, but she's got a lot of good common sense. I'm strong for her!"

"I have a pretty good idea," Farland said. "There are only a few men in the city, to my knowledge, who could be hired to do work like this, and it occurs to me that I have seen...

The knock was repeated, and Farland, still keeping his eyes on the man at the desk, backed to the door and turned the key. Then he took up a position where he could continue wat...