The silver blade: The true chronicle of a double mystery

About six o'clock on an evening in the early part of a recent November, the drowsy quiet sometimes pervading police headquarters was rudely broken by the precipitate entrance of...

Doctor Westbrook's offices were in the Nettleton Building in Court Street. It and its neighbor on the east, the Field Building, were of that solid old style of structure devoted...

By running a board partition down the centre of the room nearest the hall, Doctor Westbrook had by the simplest means given himself a place of reception; one where his patients...

Early the next morning Mr. Mountjoy, the district attorney, and the Coroner were seated in the former's office with a flat desk between them. Upon this set forth in orderly arra...

"Your deductions seem natural," said Mr. Mountjoy, at length. "But this unknown woman? Is there any one in the city to whom you could ascribe a motive? Will you have to go into...

Mr. Merkel was not in readiness for the inquest into the Nettleton Building affair until the Monday following; and at the hour set for the hearing the outer of his two offices,...

Doctor Westbrook walked unhesitatingly and with a firm tread to the witness-chair; but once seated, it was more apparent than ever that his personal appearance had undergone a m...

The exterior of No. 18 Ash Lane did not present an inviting appearance. It was a dingy, battered, and weather-worn brick structure, marking a remote epoch in the past; and besid...

The fact that John Converse was not given to betraying either surprise or astonishment only enhanced the effect of the involuntary step he took backward in the face of the intel...

Although it is now the morning of November seventeenth, the mild and spring-like Southern autumn has not yet presented any wintry aspects, and the wide, old-fashioned fireplace...

When Mr. Converse so abruptly left the brother and sister in the hall, he proceeded directly to the library, whence the body had already been removed. Merkel had left the room,...

Before the thought was complete his feelings took a pendulum sweep backward: from extreme surprise and acute disappointment that his sympathies had been wasted, to admiration an...

_She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellowed to that tender...

Somewhat more than a score of years before the opening of this story, Richard Fairchild, after quietly contemplating the parcelling of his once fair estate among a horde of clam...

It will be remembered that when Mr. Converse's last _tête-à-tête_ with Mr. Follett was interrupted by the summons to appear at headquarters, he had just terminated a long period...

"You must pardon my having left you so unceremoniously," she began, her quiet voice even quieter than usual; "but your news was so shocking--my rest has been so broken--that I w...

That Joe's errand had carried him to the Westbrook home in search of the Captain, and thence to the cottage, could signify only a matter of the utmost emergency; so Converse wat...

If Mr. Converse departed from the cottage with a feeling of depression, it was based, as we know, upon a formidable number of reasons. If the sensation was incompatible with his...

Meanwhile the Captain narrowly escaped missing a car, and as he ran for it he fancied he heard a newsboy crying an extra edition of some evening paper. Idly wondering what could...

The woman who presently turned to Mr. Converse was a very different woman from the one who had met him but a few minutes previously. As soon as the brief emotional outburst had...

Possibly ten minutes elapsed before Miss Westbrook entered the room; had she been a witness of her mother's departure, she would have known that Mr. Converse had not stirred dur...

Added to the tumultuous occurrences of that day, Lynden's advent with the published evidence of the Coroner's fatuity produced a condition in the Westbrook household amounting t...

Before Converse and the District Attorney separated that night they had come to an agreement that considerably mystified Mr. Mountjoy. It was no less than the assertion of a det...

On the morning of the day on which the Captain of detectives chose to efface himself from the stage of the "Westbrook-De Sanchez Drama" to a position behind the scenes, two thin...

The next Sunday morning was bright and frosty. Mr. Mountjoy was early abroad; his footsteps rang out, sharp and metallic, as he passed briskly down the artificial stone walk of...

As may be imagined, Captain John Converse, in the steady, unostentatious performance of his duty, was not the only one to whom success signified a reward as large as the twenty...

The third incident has to do with Mr. William Slade. With the cold days of January, there came over him a noticeable change; quite suddenly--in a day--he seemed to have aged, to...

Miss Charlotte stands in the Westbrook morning-room, her demeanor plainly indicating nervousness and irresolution. From time to time she looks in a hesitating way at Doctor West...

To begin with, I was unfortunate in being born the son of an overseer. The generation that has come since the war recks little how pregnant this simple statement is. It bestowed...

_The tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony. Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain._ --...

When Mr. Nettleton came to the end of the extraordinary composition from the hand of William Slade, his listeners were sitting in a tense stillness that was fairly galvanic with...

As in its last outburst a dying volcano is said to vomit forth its hottest flow of lava, so did the perfervid words pour from the lips of Vargas. But the malevolence and implaca...

As for General Westbrook, Castillo protested that he had meant in the end to spare his life, but that the former had himself precipitated the tragedy. On the night the two met i...