The Red House on Rowan Street

When Hugh Burton stepped from the train at High Ridge, he wondered (in his ignorance of the events that were about to engage him) whether he would be able to catch a return trai...

Burton could have found his way to the Red House without any further direction than the clerk had given him, and it was chiefly curiosity that made him try another experiment on...

Burton had jumped to his feet. "Let me help you to a couch," he said, offering his arm as a support. "Not into this room," Dr. Underwood sputtered, wincing with pain as he spoke...

It was a curious meal, that dinner. Burton often thought afterwards that in all the varied experiences of his life, and he had had a good many, first and last, he had never met...

If Dr. Underwood awaited his investigating committee with any special anxiety, his mobile face did not show it. Burton read excitement, interest, even satirical amusement in it,...

Half an hour later Burton returned--most unostentatiously. In fact, he made himself think of a beginner in burglary as he hugged the shadowy side of the street and sought the sh...

Burton awoke from his short and uneasy sleep with a sudden start and the feeling that some one had been near him. The room was, however, empty and gray in the early morning ligh...

It was nearing noon when Burton left Dr. Underwood's. He took the street that ran by the Sprigg house, though it led him somewhat out of the most direct road to the hotel. He wa...

Burton did not know exactly what he expected to happen, or what he would gain by staying, but something more than a sense of his responsibility to Rachel made him want to see th...

Burton had reason to congratulate himself on having formed a clear idea of the location of his new room, for he had occasion to use that knowledge in a hurry.

Burton's policeman picked up two other men on the way, and, thus reënforced, they made their way to Rowan street. It was away past midnight and as they went through the silent s...

Burton awoke the next morning in a new frame of mind. His half reluctant interest in the Underwood situation had suddenly been touched with enthusiasm. If Henry was innocent, th...

"Then the court will appoint some young lawyer to practise on you. You'd better make your own selection. For one thing you want a lawyer to arrange to bail you out. This is a ba...

The surgery, whatever claim it may originally have had to the title, appeared now to be the doctor's den and smoking-room. Mrs. Bussey indicated that he would find the doctor th...

Burton awoke the next morning with a consuming desire to go at once and look at Selby. If it really had been he who had been guilty of that midnight attack, was it in human powe...

That afternoon, following a hint from Ralston, Burton made a point of interviewing Watson, the chief of police, on the subject of the old High Ridge disturbances which had been...

For a moment, as he stood in the doorway, watching her, he had a vision. He saw her in the music-room at Oversite, her head outlined against the stained-glass window that he had...

"My adored Rachel," wrote Burton that night. "I am having a very curious experience. I have dropped into a regular melodrama. I suppose there is a plot to it, but so far I have...

It was a barren prospect that greeted Burton when he stepped from the train at the station,--the only passenger to alight. A bare windswept prairie; at a little distance, a colo...

When Burton reached High Ridge, it was already late in the evening. If he had followed his inclinations, he would have gone like a shot to Rowan Street, but something that he ca...

Next he went to the station to meet Rachel. The west-bound train to which her car, "Oversee," was attached, came puffing in with the air of importance which every one and everyt...

It was nearing midnight when Burton left his room and strolled out with a cigar. His objective point was Watson's house, and it was by no means necessary to go by Rowan Street t...

Watson lived in a modest frame house set well back in its grounds and shaded by some fine old trees. Burton was thankful to find that he had, after all, come with reasonable dir...

When Burton parted from Ralston at the latter's office, the day was beginning to break. He went to his hotel, where only a surprised and solitary watchman saw him enter. He walk...