The Gates of Chance

I THE GENTLEMAN'S VISITING-CARD II THE RED DUCHESS III HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BLOCK IV THE PRIVATE LETTER-BOX V THE NINETY-AND-NINE KISSES VI THE QUEEN OF SPADES VII THE OPA...

"Hym! That is unfortunate. Still, if Madame la Duchesse will permit, and you, Thorp, have no objection--Good! Ask Mr. Blake to do me the favor of joining us at dinner."

Mr. Colman Hoyt had departed without further formality, and we followed our host into the room adjoining the hall on the right. It looked like the study of a man of science; cha...

The young man's story was very simple. He had held until lately the position of cashier in the firm of Sandford & Sands, stock-brokers. On January 15th a shortage of fifty thous...

Back of the musicians' platform was a small wall cupboard holding the usual apparatus for controlling the incandescent lights with which the hall was illuminated. "Pull down bot...

Now the opera, on the night preceding the Countess's departure for Europe, had been Tschaikowsky's "Queen of Spades"; the inference was inevitable that here was the first materi...

"I delivered my letter to the Countess, and she was most obliged. She asked me to stay on, but I had a previous engagement to plead: you remember that I had agreed to go on a tr...

"Two days later George and Betty were married, for they stuck to the original date in spite of the fact that George, with a lump on his forehead as big as the cricket-ball itsel...

Panama common had closed at 50, a drop of twenty points; there was a fortune to be made in selling even a few thousand shares short of the market. It was Harding's day, indeed.

"Oh, do we!" retorted Ellison, smartly. "Just stand back there." He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the trunk. An irresistible curiosity drew us forward again. Ellison s...

"The alarm mechanism must have been wound up and set just before the clock left Redfield & Company's yesterday morning. Possibly a practical joke on some clerk's part, but that...

I looked at the immovable figures of two footmen at the door and then walked out to breakfast. An excellent meal it was, although I recognized that the food was only an ingeniou...

Indiman drew from a locked drawer in the big centre-table the long strip of bluish paper covered with its incomprehensible dashes. "One of the oldest of devices for secret writi...

"The currents of air in the upper regions first accelerated and then retarded the progress of the vaporous island. It seemed to stop; then it hung for an instant directly on the...