The Red Symbol

"Harding. I've been ringing you up at intervals for hours. Carson's ill, and you're to relieve him. Come round for instructions to-night. Lord Southbourne will give them you him...

Dinner was served by the time I reached the Cecil, and, as I entered the salon, and made my way towards the table where our seats were, I saw that my fears were realized. Anne w...

It was close on the time when I was due at Whitehall Gardens, but I must have a parting word with Anne, even at the risk of being late for the appointment with my chief.

I affected to examine the portrait closely, to gain a moment's time. Should I tell him, right now, that I knew the original; tell him also of my strange visitant? No; I decided...

When I regained the bridge I crossed to the further parapet and looked down at the river. I could see nothing of the boat; doubtless it had passed out of sight behind a string o...

"I'm speaking from Charing Cross station; can you hear me?" the voice continued. "I've had a letter from my father; he's ill, and I must go to him at once. I'm starting now, nin...

We squeezed back through the small opening, and I gently closed the door, and gripping Jenkins by the arm, marched him down the stairs to my rooms. He was trembling like a leaf,...

It was rather late that evening when I returned to the Cayleys; for I had to go to the office, and write my report of the murder. It would be a scoop for the "Courier;" for, tho...

There fell a dead silence after Jim Cayley uttered those ominous words. He waited for me to speak, but for a minute or more I was dumb. He had voiced the fear that had been on m...

"Herr Pendennis has departed, and the Fraulein has not been here at all!" I repeated. "You must be mistaken, man! The Fraulein was to arrive here on Monday, at about this time."

I found him, as Medhurst had reported, considerably agitated. He is a good-hearted chap, and a brilliant writer, though he's too apt to allow his feelings to carry him away; for...

I found the usual polyglot crowd assembled at the Friedrichstrasse station, waiting to board the international express including a number of Russian officers, one of whom specia...

I woke with a splitting headache to find myself lying in a berth in a sleeping car; the same car in which I had been travelling when the accident--or outrage--occurred; for the...

A dusky flush rose to his face, and his blue eyes flashed ominously. I noticed that a little vein swelled and pulsed in his temple, close by the strip of flesh-colored plaster t...

With the handkerchief in my hand, I started running wildly after the fast disappearing droshky, only to fall plump into the arms of a surly gendarme, a Muscovite giant, who coll...

I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I knew slightly--a young officer--with whom I paused to chat, thereby blocking the doorway temporarily, with t...

I had already decided on the attitude I must adopt. It was improbable that they would arrest me openly; that would have involved trouble with the Embassies, but they could, if t...

I moved to the door and locked it noiselessly. I dared not open it to see if the servant had gone, for if he had not that would have roused his suspicions at once. The Duke had...

As the sounds of flight and pursuit receded, I crawled out of the ditch, and called softly to my companion, who answered me, from the other side of the road, with a groan and an...

It was a small, ruinous chapel, the windows of which had been roughly boarded up; and, so far as I could see by the dim light cast by two oil lanterns hung on the walls, all tho...

That was my opinion of them at the time, but perhaps it was unjust. Every man who attended that meeting had done so at the deliberate risk of his life and liberty. Most of them...

"To murder her!" he exclaimed. "Why, she's one of them; the cleverest and most dangerous of the lot! Said to be a wonderfully pretty girl, too. Did you see her?"

The next I knew I was in bed, in a cool, darkened room, with a man seated in an easy-chair near at hand, smoking a cigarette, and reading what looked remarkably like an English...

We started for England the next night, second class, and travelled right through, as I stood the journey better than any of us expected. After we crossed the frontier, I doubt i...

"Well, Freeman was hunting on a cold scent; yearning to arrest some one, as they always do in a murder case. He'd thought of you, of course. Considering that you were on the spo...

I did take Lord Southbourne's advice, partly; for in giving Sir George Lucas a minute account of my movements on the night of the murder, I did not prevaricate, but I made two r...

"Not at all well; that's why we went down to Cornwall last week; we've taken a cottage there for the summer. The town is frightfully stuffy, and the poor little woman is quite d...

"Then why didn't she write again, or wire?" persisted Mary. "And there are her clothes; why, she hadn't even a second gown with her. I believe she's dead, Maurice; I do indeed!"

"Yes, I've met him once, under very strange circumstances," I answered. "I'd like to tell them to you; but not now. I don't want my cousin to know anything about it," I added ha...

"I beg your pardon; I had almost forgotten you were there," he said apologetically. "Die here? No; better, far better for her if she had! Still, she was not happy here. The old...

"You must have found Cornish history very fascinating, Maurice," Mary declared at breakfast-time next morning. "Jim says it was nearly twelve when you got back. You bad boy to k...

Two days later I saw Lord Southbourne, and resigned my position as a member of his staff. I felt myself mean in one way, when I thought of how he had backed me right through tha...

Even before we left Riga,--where we were delayed for a couple of days getting our goods through the Customs and on to the train,--I realized somewhat at least of the meaning of...

We halted for the night at a small town, with some five or six thousand inhabitants as I judged, of whom three-fourths appeared to be Jews. Compared with the villages we had pas...

"It is less safe than the streets of London, perhaps," I said quietly, in Russian. "But what of that? And how long is it since you left there, my friend?"

"Why, no; I can't say that he did that," I confessed. Already I realized that I had learned absolutely nothing from the Jew save the new password, and the fact that he was, or s...

The castle stood within a great quadrangle, which we entered through a massive stone gateway guarded by two sentries. Two more were stationed at the top of a steep and wide marb...

I sent Nicolai to bed, and wrapping myself in a dressing gown which I found laid out for me, sat down in a deep divan chair to await the Duke, and fell fast asleep. I woke with...

At dinner I heard that the Grand Duke was indisposed, and was dining alone, instead, as usual, with the Count Stravensky, Commandant of the Castle--by courtesy the chief member...

When we regained the road on the further side, two mounted men awaited us, who, after exchanging a few low-spoken words with the Pavloffs, fell in behind us; and later another,...

She looked pale and worn, as was natural,--but lovelier than ever, as she stood, a shadowy figure in her dark gown against the gloom behind her, for there was no light within th...

Our own horses were already at the appointed place, together with Pavloff and the Duke's little band of "recruits;" sturdy young _moujiks_ these, as I saw now by the gray light...

I started as I heard that. Her mother was alive, then, though Anne had said she could not remember her, and Treherne had told me she died soon after her arrest, more than twenty...

"No,--no,--we must not tell him; we must not!" Anne said softly, but vehemently. "We shall need him so sorely,--there are so very few whom we can really trust. Besides, why shou...

A few hours later we were on the road once more,--Anne and Natalya in a travelling carriage, the rest of us mounted. The old servant was sobbing hysterically as she followed her...

The whole thing happened far more quickly than it can be told. I dragged Anne back from the window, slammed the shutters to,--for one of the Cossacks' favorite tricks was to fir...

It was the flat of the sabre that had got me on the forehead, otherwise there'd have been an end of me at once. I was not unconscious for very long, for when I sat up, wiped the...

I've heard it said that sick or wounded people always die if they have no wish to live, but that's not true. I wanted to die as badly as any one ever did, but yet I lived. I sup...

How far we rode I can't say; but it was still dark when we halted at a small isolated farmhouse, where Mishka roused the farmer, who came out grumbling at being disturbed before...

"Why, here; not in this room, but in the hotel. It is three--no, nearer four months since; she also was taken ill on her way from Russia. There is a strange coincidence! But her...

"You say that Mr. Pendennis wrote from Berlin not a week after I left England, and that he and Anne--_Anne_--are at this moment staying with you in Chelsea? When I've been const...

"She must have been one of the Vassilitzis, and therefore Anne's near kinswoman," Pendennis said slowly. "You say she was often spoken of as Anna Petrovna? That explains nothing...