The Last of the Papers
McManus had sprung to his feet as the accusation came from Trafford’s
lips. His left hand was in the side pocket of his sack coat, and as
Trafford also rose, there rang out the report of a pistol, fired
without removing it from the pocket. The bullet just missed Trafford,
cutting the sleeve of his coat.
“Throw up your hands, or I’ll shoot,” came from the window, and there
stood Trafford’s assistant, with pistol drawn and aimed at McManus.
At the very beginning of the story, he had raised the window and had
since been listening to the conversation. McManus glanced at Trafford,
who was also covering him with a pistol.
“I yield,” he said, “to force. You will find it all a hideous mistake
before you get through.”
“Handcuff him.” Trafford gave the order. “I’ll keep my pistol on him.”
McManus turned toward the man who approached from the window. He seemed
to have recovered his composure, and a puzzling smile was on his lips.
Then, suddenly, the hand came up, without leaving the pocket, which was
lifted with it; there was a slight turn of the hand seen through the
cloth and the muffled report of the pistol. McManus fell, shot through
the heart by his own hand.
“A damned bungling piece of work, to let that be done,” said Trafford.
“There ’re steps on the stairs. Don’t open the door for a minute.”
He rushed into the bedroom, and seizing a tin box that stood on a stand
by the bed, dropped it from the window into a dense mass of shrubbery
that grew beneath. He was back in the room to answer the first knock at
the door.
Millbank slept but little that night. The streets were thronged with
people, and the story of the tragedy, the discovery of the murderer and
his suicide, was repeated and re-repeated, with new details at every
repetition. Before midnight it was surprising to know how many people
had all along suspected McManus and felt certain that he “was no
better than he should be.”
Frank Hunter came among the very first and went back and forth from
the sitting room to the bedroom, with an uneasy air of searching for
something and yet striving to conceal the fact. Trafford watched him
with a curious expression on his face, as if he enjoyed the man’s
awkwardness and embarrassment.
When Charles Matthewson arrived on the latest train and went directly
to the Hunter house, Trafford was instantly informed and at once made
up his mind to his line of action. McManus’s suicide was confession,
and the possession of the papers was no longer necessary to conviction.
Trafford determined to have them off his hands at the earliest possible
moment, and with Matthewson in town, that promised to be before
daylight. At the first opportunity he stole out, recovered possession
of the box, and hid it in a less exposed place.
About midnight, matters had so quieted down that he was able to respond
to Mrs. Parlin’s message begging him to come to her and, if possible,
remain in the house the balance of the night. He took with him the
box, containing what he now regarded as his fortune and his reward for
work done in discovering the murderer.
Mrs. Parlin was eager to hear the story, and it was some time after
midnight before she left him and he was at liberty to follow his
purpose. His judgment dictated waiting until morning, which would be
a matter of but a few hours, but the box and its papers had become a
growing burden, leaving him but one thought and that to be rid of them.
From the library window he could see that a light still burned in the
Hunter house. He was resolved to complete the matter before he slept.
Leaving the house cautiously, with the box under his arm, he hurried
down the hill, at the foot of which lay the heavy shadows of the
great Lombardy poplars. It seemed to him that he had never seen the
shadows so black as they were to-night. As he entered the blackness,
he quickened his pace almost to a run, and was almost in the light
again when there came what seemed to him a flash of flame, then deeper
darkness and oblivion.
How long he lay on the walk under the poplars he did not know,
excepting that his first sensation of returning consciousness was of
the soft white light that comes before the sun steals up from behind
the earth. The next was of a heaviness of the head and a numbness that
was giving way to pain. He put up his hand feebly, and brought it down
again wet with blood.
Then came the thought of the box. He reached out his hand and, groping,
it fell upon it. He had barely strength enough yet to draw it to him,
but at last succeeded, though not without much pain. He lifted it
feebly and the lid fell back, showing the breakage where it had been
wrenched from its hinges. With a paroxysm of strength born of terror,
he sat upright and looked into the box. It was empty; not even a
shred of paper remaining. For one instant he gazed in uncomprehending
stupidity, and then, as the truth flashed on him, he fell again to the
earth, and lost in temporary unconsciousness alike the sense of pain
and the power to follow his interrupted quest.
Almost at the very moment when Trafford discovered the loss of the
papers, Henry Matthewson slipped through the grounds of the Hunter
home, coming from the direction of the river, and entered by a side
door. He went directly to the library, where his brother and the two
Hunters had been in uneasy conference for some hours. As he entered,
the three men started to their feet, first in surprise at his presence,
and then in greater surprise at his appearance. His face was white
and set, like the face of a man who has passed through some terrible
struggle and has conquered or been conquered. One, looking at the
inscrutable face, could not have decided which.
“You!” exclaimed Charles Matthewson. “I have been trying to reach you
all night.”
“How could you reach here at this hour?” said Frank Hunter. “There’s no
train.”
Charles Hunter said nothing, but his quick understanding of men, and,
perhaps, a quality in him that would have dared all that man could dare
in a desperate case, told him more than either of his companions saw.
For a moment he hesitated and then, seeing no denial in the face of the
newcomer, said:
“You have found the papers.”
The others started and looked at the two men whom, instinctively, they
knew to be stronger than themselves.
“Yes,” said Henry Matthewson.
“Where are they?” asked Charles Matthewson and Frank Hunter, in a
breath.
The other did not answer. Then Charles repeated the question:
“Where are they?”
“Where would they be now, if they had come into your hands a half-hour
ago?” demanded Matthewson.
“Destroyed!” said Charles Hunter unhesitatingly.
“They are where they will never menace us or ours again,” said Henry
Matthewson, “unless the river gives them up. I dropped them from the
bridge into the pool below the Falls a half-hour ago.”
“But where did you find them?” was Frank Hunter’s question.
Charles Hunter looked again at the other’s face, and said:
“How serious is the matter?”
“The man is merely stunned,” said Henry. “I think some one should find
him, under the poplars at the foot of the hill----”
“Henry! My God!” exclaimed Charles Matthewson, stepping hastily
forward. “You haven’t----”
“I have done what was necessary to obtain the papers and save ourselves
and--our mother. I hope there is no one here who would have done less.
I accept full responsibility for acting where none but a coward could
hesitate.”
“Pray God, Trafford’s not dead!” exclaimed Charles Matthewson.
“Amen,” said Henry, and then added; “but be that as it may, the papers
are.”
THE END
Two Noteworthy Detective Stories by Burton E. Stevenson
The Marathon Mystery
With five scenes in color by ELIOT KEEN
4th printing. $1.50
This absorbing story of New York and Long Island to-day has been
republished in England. Its conclusion is most astonishing.
_N. Y. Sun_: “Distinctly an interesting story--one of the sort that the
reader will not lay down before he goes to bed.”
_N. Y. Post_: “By comparison with the work of Anna Katharine Green ...
it is exceptionally clever ... told interestingly and well.”
_N. Y. Tribune_: “=The Holladay Case= was a capital story of crime and
mystery. In =The Marathon Mystery= the author is in even firmer command
of the trick. He is skillful in keeping his reader in suspense, and
every element in it is cunningly adjusted to preserving the mystery
inviolate until the end.”
_Boston Transcript_: “The excellence of its style, Mr. Stevenson
apparently knowing well the dramatic effect of fluency and brevity, and
the rationality of avoiding false clues and attempts unduly to mystify
his readers.”
_Boston Herald_: “This is something more than an ordinary detective
story. It thrills you and holds your attention to the end. But besides
all this the characters are really well drawn and your interest in
the plot is enhanced by interest in the people who play their parts
therein.”
_Town and Country_: “The mystery defies solution until the end. The
final catastrophe is worked out in a highly dramatic manner.”
The Holladay Case
With frontispiece by ELIOT KEEN
7th printing. $1.25
A tale of a modern mystery of New York and Etretat that has been
republished in England and Germany.
_N. Y. Tribune_: “Professor Dicey recently said, ‘If you like a
detective story take care you read a good detective story.’ This is
a good detective story, and it is the better because the part of the
hero is not filled by a member of the profession.... The reader will
not want to put the book down until he has reached the last page. =Most
ingeniously constructed and well written into the bargain.=”
Henry Holt and Company
Publishers New York
Noteworthy Books by ARTHUR COLTON and what some authorities say of them.
The Belted Seas
A story of the wild voyages of the irrepressible Captain Buckingham in
Southern seas. 12mo, $1.50
_Evening Post_: “A whimsical Odyssey.... What Jacobs has done for the
British seaman, Colton has done for the Yankee sailor.”
_Cincinnati Enquirer_: “Never has the peculiar brand of humor which
South America affords been more skilfully exploited than by Arthur
Colton in =The Belted Seas=.... It is a joyous book, and he were a
hardened reader indeed who would not chortle with satisfaction over Kid
Sadler’s adventures at Portate.... Many of the stories are uproariously
funny and recall Stockton at his best.”
Port Argent 12mo, $1.50
A romance of a few weeks in an Ohio city “with growing pains.”
_Critic_: “A story of breathless events and of remarkable
concentration.”
_Bookman_: “Mr. Colton’s work is particularly worthy of praise.”
_Life_: “Arthur Colton is a writer with a remarkably individual
outlook. Port Argent is bright and full of characteristic Coltonisms.”
_San Francisco Chronicle_: “A quiet story told with such restraint that
it is only after laying down the volume that one realizes the bigness
of the problems presented, in breadth and richness of thought, and the
power of its action.”
Tioba 12mo, $1.25
Mr. Colton here depicts a gallery of very varied Americans. Tioba was a
mountain which meant well but was mistaken.
_Bookman_: “He is always the artist observer, adding stroke upon
stroke with the surest of sure pens, ... an author who recalls the old
traditions that there were once such things as good writing and good
story-telling.”
_Critic_: “In each of these stories he has presented some
out-of-the-way fragment of life with faithfulness and power.... He has
the artist’s instinct.”
Henry Holt and Company
Publishers New York
TWO ROMANCES OF TRAVEL
The Lightning Conductor
_The Strange Adventures of a Motor Car_
By C. N. and A. M. WILLIAMSON
12mo. $1.50
The love story of a beautiful American and a gallant Englishman, who
stoops to conquer. Two almost human automobiles, the one German,
heavy and stubborn, and the other French, light and easy-going, play
prominent parts. There is much humor. Picturesque scenes in Provence,
Spain and Italy pass before the reader’s eyes in rapid succession.
Twenty printings of this novel have been called for.
_Nation_: “Such delightful people, and such delightful scenes.... It
should be a good, practical guide to those about to go over the same
course, while its charming descriptions of travel afford an ample new
fund of pleasure, tinged with envy here and there to the stay-at-homes.”
_N. Y. Sun_: “A pleasant and felicitous romance.”
_Springfield Republican_: “Wholly new and decidedly entertaining.”
_Chicago Post_: “Sprightly humor ... the story moves.”
The Pursuit of Phyllis
By J. HARWOOD BACON
With two illustrations by H. LATIMER BROWN
12mo. $1.25
A humorous love story with scenes in England, France, China and Ceylon.
_Boston Transcript_: “A bright and entertaining story of up-to-date men
and women.”
_N. Y. Tribune_: “Very enjoyable.... Its charm consists in its
naturalness and the sparkle of the dialogue and descriptions.”
_N. Y. Evening Post_: “The story is brisk, buoyant and entertaining.”
_Bookman_: “Sparkling in fun, clean-cut and straightforward in style as
the young hero himself.”
Henry Holt and Company
New York Chicago
2d printing of “A novel in the better sense of a word much sinned
against.... It is decidedly a book worth while.”
The Transgression of Andrew Vane
By GUY WETMORE CARRYL
12mo. $1.50.
TIMES’ SATURDAY REVIEW:--“A strong and original story; ... the
descriptions of conditions in the American colony [in Paris]
are convincingly clever. The story from the prologue--one of
exceptional promise in point of interest--to the climax ... is
full of action and dramatic surprise.”
N. Y. TRIBUNE:--“The surprising developments we must leave the
reader to find out for himself. He will find it a pleasant
task; ... the surprise is not brought forward until precisely
the right moment, and one is carried from the first chapter to
the last with curiosity, and concern for the hero’s fate kept
well alive.”
N. Y. EVENING SUN:--“Everybody who likes clever fiction should
read it.”
LITERARY WORLD:--“The prologue is as skilful a handling of
a repellent theme as has ever been presented. The book is
distinctly not one for the young person, but neither is it for
the seeker after the risqué or the erotic.... In this novel are
poured into a consistent and satisfying whole more of those
vivid phases of Paris at which the author has shown himself a
master hand.”
CHICAGO EVENING POST:--“The reader stops with regret in his mind
that Guy Wetmore Carryl’s story-telling work is done.”
CHICAGO TRIBUNE:--“A brilliant piece of work.”
WASHINGTON STAR:--“A more engaging villain has seldom entered the
pages of modern fiction; ... sparkles with quotable epigrams.”
BUFFALO EXPRESS:--“The sort of a story which one is very apt to
read with interest from beginning to end. And, moreover, ...
very bright and clever.”
NEW HAVEN JOURNAL:--“By far the most ambitious work he undertook,
and likewise the most brilliant.”
Henry Holt and Company
_29 W. 23d St._ _NEW YORK_
“=From any point of view it is an unusual novel, as much better
than some of the ‘best sellers’ as a painting is better than a
chromo.=”--_World’s Work._
[Illustration]
The Divine Fire
BY MAY SINCLAIR
$1.50
6th printing of _The story of a London poet_.
_Mary Moss in the Atlantic Monthly_: “Certain it is that in all our new
fiction I have found nothing worthy to compare with ‘The Divine Fire,’
nothing even remotely approaching the same class.”
_New York Globe_: “The biggest surprise of the whole season’s fiction
... you never once stop to question its style, or its realism, or the
art of its construction. You simply read right on, deaf to everything
and everybody outside of the compelling magic of its pages.”
_Dial_: “A full-length study of the poetic temperament, framed in a
varied and curiously interesting environment, and drawn with a firmness
of hand that excites one’s admiration.... Moreover, a real distinction
of style, besides being of absorbing interest from cover to cover.”
_Catholic Mirror_: “One of the noblest, most inspiring and absorbing
books we have read in years.”
_Owen Seaman in Punch_ (London): “I find her book the most remarkable
that I have read for many years.”
The Diary of a Musician
Edited by DOLORES M. BACON
With decorations and illustrations by CHARLES EDWARD HOOPER and H.
LATIMER BROWN
$1.50
Authorities agree that no particular musical celebrity is described or
satirized; all review the book with enthusiasm, though some damn while
others praise.
_Times Review_: “Of extraordinary interest as a study from the inside
of the inwardness of a genius.”
_Bookman_: “Much of that exquisite egotism, the huge, artistic Me and
the tiny universe, that gluttony of the emotions, of the whole peculiar
compound of hysteria, inspiration, vanity, insight and fidgets, which
goes to make up that delightful but somewhat rickety thing which
we call the artistic temperament is reproduced.... The ‘Diary of a
Musician’ does what most actual diaries fail to do--writes down a man
in full.”
Henry Holt and Company
Publishers New York
TALES OF MYSTERY
The House of the Black Ring
By FRED. LEWIS PATTEE. $1.50
A story oddly combining humor and horror. It tells of the squire, a
sort of feudal lord, his enemies, his fate and of his daughter and how
she would have her way in love. The weird influence of =The House of
the Black Ring= dominates the little “pocket” in the Seven Mountains of
Pennsylvania.
_The Washington Star_: “An unusual combination of the weird and the
humorous ... absorbing and often thrilling tale.... A forest fire ...
is a dramatic episode which does Mr. Pattee exceptional credit in the
restraint of his treatment and the effectiveness of his climaxes.”
_N. Y. Evening Sun_: “An interesting story ... piques the reader’s
curiosity and keeps him reading till the mystery is solved.”
Red-Headed Gill
By RYE OWEN. 4th printing. $1.50
Red-Headed Gill is a splendid young country gentlewoman of Cornwall.
Under a weird East Indian influence she is forced to live over again
part of the life of a beauty of the days of Queen Bess--the famous Gill
Red-Head.
_New York Sun_: “A charming girl whom the reader will watch with
interest to the end. The author manages to transport her back into the
life of her Tudor ancestress over and again naturally, and with great
effect.”
_New York Times Review_: “There is much originality in the plot. The
reader’s attention is at once enlisted, and is not allowed to flag.”
In the Dwellings of the Wilderness
By C. BRYSON TAYLOR. $1.25
A ghost story so plausibly told that many may, like one of the chief
characters, think it might all be explained by natural causes after
all. It tells the astonishing adventures of three American engineers,
excavating in the heart of an Egyptian desert.
_Boston Transcript_: “The impression on the reader is so strong that he
finds his grip on the book grow strained in spite of himself.”
_N. Y. Globe_: “Strikes a note of weird horror, and sustains that note
page after page.... A vividness that makes it difficult to banish the
picture from your memory for many a day.”
Henry Holt and Company
Publishers New York
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised except spaces before ’ll and ’re
have been retained as they appear in the original publication.
Hyphenation and spelling have also been retained as published,
except as follows:
Page 74
an’ let’s folks _changed to_
an’ lets folks
Page 124
must be re-convened _changed to_
must be reconvened
Page 139
visit was to Milbank _changed to_
visit was to Millbank
Page 232
man who want me _changed to_
man who wants me
Page 247
shadow of Pettengill’s potato storehouse _changed to_
shadow of Pettingill’s potato storehouse
Second page of book promotions
Kid Saddler’s adventures at Portaic _changed to_
Kid Sadler’s adventures at Portate