The Voice on the Wire

The large man awkwardly followed the servant to the cosey grill-room on the lower floor of the club house. He felt that every man of the little groups about the Flemish tables m...

He began a tirade, but a wink from the club man warned him. Shirley replaced the receiver, and the regular attendant resumed his place at the switchboard. The lad was curious at...

“Well, Mr. Shirley, your coming here was a Godsend! I don't know what to do now. The newspapers will get this surely. I depended on Cronin: he must have been drinking.”

In a private ward room at Bellevue Hospital, Captain Cronin was just returning to memory of himself and things that had been. Shirley arrived at his cot-side as he was being pro...

“Mr. Shirley, you're going at this too strong. We know the guilty party--this miserable girl in the machine. We want to hush it up and let things go at that.”

The cross-examination of Polly Marion resulted in little advantage. She had known of the sudden departure of two other songbirds, well equipped with funds for the land of Somewh...

A reddening zone in the East silhouetted the serrated line of the distant elevated structure, as Shirley walked along the gray street, his thoughts busy with the possibilities o...

“Dick, you can help me further, with your dramatic knowledge. I feel in duty bound to tell Miss Marigold that she is risking her life, if she takes up this task.”

Their destination, one of the score of tango tea-rooms which had sprung to mushroom popularity within the year, was soon reached. Leaning heavily upon his stick, limping like hi...

At the entrance of the restaurant the starter tooted his shrill whistle, and a driver began to crank his automobile in the waiting line of cars. According to the rules of the ta...

Helene was still asleep when Shirley stopped the engine of the taxi before a stately Colonial mansion seated back among the pines of a beautiful Long Island estate. They had bee...

It took stoicism to the Nth degree for Shirley to respond to the early telephone call next morning, from the clerk of the club. A few minutes of violent exercise, in the hand ba...

The setting was a bleak and musty cellar, beneath an old stable of dingy, brick construction. The building had been modernized to the extent of one single decoration on the stre...

Rather early, again, for the usual throng, they were able to choose their position to their liking: to-day, it was in the center of the big room, close by the space cleared for...

Shirley endured a miserable three hours, in his attempts to locate the girl. She had not returned to the Hotel California, and he returned to the club in moody reflection. It wa...

The volume was a loose-leaf diary, with each page dated, and of letter size. It covered more than the current year, however, running back for nearly eighteen months. It was as s...

“Perhaps we might find a little corner in that dining-room I saw this afternoon, with an obliging waiter to bring us something to eat. Shall we try? I need a lot of coffee, for...

A hurried message to the Holland Agency brought four plain clothes men from the private reserve, under the leadership of superintendent Cleary. Monty met them at the doorway of...

The criminologist picked his way through the swarming vehicles which swung up and down Broadway, across to Seventh Avenue, where he turned into a plumber's shop. This fellow had...

His invitation was refused. Then Shirley urged Warren to be his guest at the club for dinner that evening. This was accepted with a surprising alacrity. So, he left them, and wa...

Shirley rose, and once more applied that gridiron-trained boot of his: this time to the lock of the door. Two doses resulted in a complete cure for its obstinacy. As he rushed i...

He had been unobserved. By the grace of the fates, Warren's sudden appearance had given him a better chance to hear their secrets, and Taylor's own abstraction had dissipated an...

Warren's white lips were moving in perfect synchronism, as he counted the seconds and ticks of the clock. Shirley, never so acute, cudgeled his mind for some devise by which he...

Shirley made some investigations in a private reading room of the Public Library: there was much good treasure there, not salable over the counter of a grocery store, mayhap, bu...