Category: Crime, Thrillers and Mystery

The Hollow of Her Hand

The train, which had roared through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station, and a reluctant porter opened his vestibule door to descend to the snow-swept platform: a solitary p...

Chapters

2. Chapter 2

The sheriff was right. Sara Wrandall was an extraordinary woman, if I may be permitted to modify his rather crude estimate of her. It is difficult to understand, much less to de...

1. Chapter 1

The train, which had roared through a withering gale of sleet all the way up from New York, came to a standstill, with many an ear-splitting sigh, alongside the little station,...

4. Chapter 4

The next day but one, in the huge old-fashioned mansion of the Wrandalls in lower Fifth Avenue, in the drawing-room directly beneath the chamber in which Challis was born, the i...

11. Chapter 11

She turned the page. He was watching her closely. As she looked upon the sketches of the half-nude figure a warm blush covered her face and neck. She did not speak for a full mi...

23. Chapter 23

To her secret amazement, the old lawyer did not offer a single protest when she repeated her convictions that the girl was innocent and should be protected against herself as we...

3. Chapter 3

At half-past six she went to the telephone and called for the morning newspapers. At the same time she asked that a couple of district messenger boys be sent to her room with th...

18. Chapter 18

Booth, restless with a vague uneasiness that had come over him during the night, keeping him awake until nearly dawn, was hard put during the early hours of the forenoon to find...

25. Chapter 25

The Wrandalls sat waiting and wondering. They had been sent for and they had deigned to respond, much to their own surprise. Redmond Wrandall occupied a place at the head of the...

7. Chapter 7

Sara Wrandall's house in the country stood on a wooded knoll overlooking the Sound. It was rather remotely located, so far as neighbours were concerned. Her father, Sebastian Go...

19. Chapter 19

They journeyed to Paris by the night mail. He was waiting for her on the platform when she descended from the wagon lit in the Gare du Nord. Sleepy passengers crowded with them...

10. Chapter 10

Brandon Booth took a small cottage on the upper road, half way between the village and the home of Sara Wrandall, and not far from the abhorred "back gate" that swung in the tee...

15. Chapter 15

Later on Sara, in sober reflection, endorsed what had appeared at the time to be a whimsical, quixotic proceeding on her part. She brought herself completely to the point where...

12. Chapter 12

The young men cooled their heels for an hour before word was brought down to them that Mrs. Wrandall begged to be excused for the afternoon on account of a severe headache. Miss...

5. Chapter 5

"You remember my sister-in-law, don't you, Brandy?" was the question that Leslie Wrandall put to a friend one afternoon, as they sat drearily in a window of one of the fashionab...

22. Chapter 22

He walked home swiftly through the early night, his brain seething with tumultuous thoughts. The revelations of the day were staggering; the whole universe seemed to have turned...

13. Chapter 13

Mr. Redmond Wrandall, grey and gaunt and somewhat wistful, rode slowly through the leafy lane, attended some little distance behind by Griggs the groom, who slumped in the saddl...

8. Chapter 8

Leslie Wrandall came out on the eleven-thirty. Hetty was at the station with the motor, a sullen resentment in her heart, but a welcoming smile on her lips. The sun shone bright...

24. Chapter 24

When Smith returned from the Far West, a few days after the events narrated in the foregoing chapter, he repaired at once to Sara's apartment, bringing with him not only the sig...

20. Chapter 20

Chief among Booth's virtues was his undeviating loyalty to a set purpose. He went back to America with the firm intention to clear up the mystery surrounding Hetty Castleton, no...

16. Chapter 16

"My dear," said Mrs. Redmond Wrandall, as she stood before Hetty's portrait at the end of the long living-room, "I must say that Brandon has succeeded in catching that lovely li...

21. Chapter 21

Again Sara Wrandall found herself in that never-to-be-forgotten room at Burton's Inn. On that grim night in March, she had entered without fear or trembling because she knew wha...

9. Chapter 9

Booth and Leslie returned to the city on Tuesday. The artist left behind him a "memory sketch" of Sara Wrandall, done in the solitude of his room long after the rest of the hous...

17. Chapter 17

Booth trudged rapidly homeward after leaving Hetty at the lodge. He was throbbing all over with the love of her. The thrill of conquest was in his blood. She had raised a myster...

14. Chapter 14

Smith arrived at eleven, somewhat after the fashion of the Hawkshaws of "yellow back" fame, who, if our memory serves us right, were so punctual that their appearance anywhere w...

26. Chapter 26

On the third day after the singular trial of Hetty Castleton in Sara's library, young Mrs. Wrandall's motor drew up in front of a lofty office building in lower Broadway; its ow...

6. Chapter 6

"No, no! It is the forbidden subject! I know all that I should know--all that I care to know. We have not said so much as this in months--in ages, it seems. Let sleeping dogs li...