“Isn’t there some way you can save him, Professor Kennedy? You must come out to Briar Lake.” When a handsome woman like Mrs. Fraser Ferris pleads, she is irresistible. Not only that, but the story which she had not trusted either to a message or a messenger was deeply interesting, for, already, it had set […]

Fortunately, Dean Allison was at the Club, as we hoped, having just arrived by the train that left New York at the close of the banking day. Someone told us, however, that Wyndham had probably decided to remain in town over night. Allison was perhaps a little older than I had imagined, rather a grave […]

As Kennedy walked through the corridor of the building, he paused and bent down, as though examining the wall. I looked, too. There was a crack in the concrete, in the side wall toward the Creighton laboratory. “Do you suppose vibration caused it?” I asked, remembering his watch crystal test. Craig shook his head. “The […]

“Perpetual motion sounds foolish, I’ll admit. But, Professor Kennedy, this Creighton self-acting motor does things I can’t explain.” Craig looked perplexed as he gazed from Adele Laidlaw, his young and very pretty client, to me. We had heard a great deal about the young lady, one of the wealthiest heiresses of the country. She paused […]

It was after the dinner hour that we found ourselves at the Country Club again. Wyndham had not come back from the city, but Allison was there and had gathered together all the Club help so that Kennedy might question them. He did question them down in the locker-room, I thought perhaps for the moral […]

I was surprised to run into O’Hanlon himself in the train out to Norwood. The failure to get Dr. Loeb troubled him and he had reasoned that if Darius Moreton took the trouble to write a letter about his friend he might possibly know more of his whereabouts than he professed. We discussed the case […]

Kennedy’s first move was to go downtown to the old building opposite the City Hall and visit the post-office inspectors. “I’ve heard of the government’s campaign against the medical quacks who are using the mails,” he introduced when we at last found the proper inspector. “I wonder whether you know a Dr. Adam Loeb?” “Loeb?” […]

“You’ve heard of such things as cancer houses, I suppose, Professor Kennedy?” It was early in the morning and Craig’s client, Myra Moreton, as she introduced herself, had been waiting at the laboratory door in a state of great agitation as we came up. Just because her beautiful face was pale and haggard with worry, […]

I tried my best, but there was very little that I could find out about Mrs. Barry. No one seemed to know where she came from, and even “Mr. Barry” seemed shrouded in obscurity. I was convinced, however, that she was an adventuress. One thing, however, I did turn up. She had called on Tresham […]

“Everybody’s crazy, Kennedy. The whole world is going mad!” Our old friend, Burke, of the Secret Service, scowled at the innocent objects in Craig’s laboratory as he mopped his broad forehead. “And the Secret Service is as bad as the rest,” he went on, still scowling and not waiting for any comment from us. “Why, […]

Our trip over to the other borough was uneventful except for the toilsome time we had to get to the docks where South and Central American ships were moored. We boarded the Haytien at last and Burke led us along the deck toward a cabin. I looked about curiously. There seemed to be the greatest […]

It was early the next morning, about half an hour after the time set for the release of the passengers, that our laboratory door was flung open and Collette Aux Cayes rushed in, wildly excited. “What’s the matter?” asked Kennedy anxiously. “Someone has been trying to keep me on the boat,” she panted. “And all […]

“You don’t know the woman who is causing the trouble. You haven’t seen her eyes. But–Madre de Dios!–my father is a changed man. Sometimes I think he is–what you call–mad!” Our visitor spoke in a hurried, nervous tone, with a marked foreign accent which was not at all unpleasing. She was a young woman, unmistakably […]

Senora de Moche–for I had no doubt now that this was the Peruvian Indian woman of whom Senorita Inez had spoken–seemed to lose interest in us and in the concert the moment Don Luis went out. Her son also seemed restive. He was a good-looking fellow, with high forehead, nose slightly aquiline, chin and mouth […]

In my absence Craig had set to work on a peculiar apparatus, as though he were distilling something from several of the other cigarette stubs. I placed the cat in a basket and watched Craig until finally he seemed to be rewarded for his patient labors. It was well along toward morning when he obtained […]

“I came here to hide, to vanish forever from those who know me.” The young man paused a moment to watch the effect of his revelationof himself to Constance Dunlap. There was a certain cynicalbitterness in his tone which made her shudder. “If you were to be discovered–what then?” she hazarded. Murray Dodge looked at […]

Remembering Jules Verne’s enticing picture of life on the palatial Nautilus, I may as well admit that I was not prepared for a real submarine. My first impression, as I entered the hold, was that of discomfort and suffocation. I felt, too, that I was too close to too much whirring machinery. I gazed about […]

“H-M,” mused Kennedy, weighing the contents of the note carefully, “one of the family, I’ll be bound–unless the whole thing is a hoax. By the way, who else is there in the immediate family?” “Only a brother, Dana Phelps, younger and somewhat inclined to wildness, I believe. At least, his father did not trust him […]

Still holding Dana Phelps between us, we hurried toward the tomb and entered. While our attention had been diverted in the direction of the swamp, the body of Montague Phelps had been stolen. Dana Phelps was still deliberately brushing off his clothes. Had he been in league with them, executing a flank movement to divert […]

In the early forenoon, we were on our way by train “up the river” to Sing Sing, where, at the station, a line of old-fashioned cabs and red-faced cabbies greeted us, for the town itself is hilly. The house to which we had been directed was on the hill, and from its windows one could […]