An Extra Special
Lady Tressidy was so full of plans for the future--Karine's future with
Carson Wildred--that my soul sickened of her chatter, and I took myself
off as soon as it was decently possible to do so. With no further chance
of private talk with Karine much of my incentive for remaining was gone,
at all events, and I was anxious to think out the puzzle regarding the
transfer of the ring.
To recapitulate, Farnham had announced his intention of keeping it until
the necessity arose for having it cut from his finger. Still, it seemed
he had not kept it, and it had not been cut off. The conviction was
strong within me that Wildred had obtained the jewel by foul play. Yet
how could he have done this, short of severing from the hand the finger
that had worn it?
Strange fancies flitted luridly through my brain. In a few days more
Harvey Farnham would have landed in New York, and I could reach him
there at the hotel he had mentioned as his favourite; or in Denver,
Colorado, if he had chosen to pursue his homeward journey without a
night's delay.
I counted the hours which must pass before I could attempt any such
communication, and they seemed to rise like a high wall between me and
my hopes and my suspicions.
As I walked homeward, involuntarily hastening my footsteps, I heard the
newsboys crying out some item of intelligence for the evening papers.
"Extry Speshul! Extry Speshul!" "Mysterious Discovery in the Thames!"
So preoccupied was I that the words passed into my ears without making
any definite impression on my mind; or, if they did, it was the mere
rhythm of the different shouting voices that impressed itself upon me.
So often were they repeated from all sides as I walked on that at length
the short sentences began to form a species of intoned accompaniment to
my thoughts, without assuming a separate importance in my consciousness.
Suddenly, however, a grimy infant of tender years and appalling
precocity flourished a pink sheet, smelling of the printer's ink,
directly under my eyes.
"Buy a paper, guv-nor!" he cajoled me. "Hall abeout the 'orrid murder
and the 'eadless man."
I seldom read evening papers, and to-night, of all nights, I had little
inclination for such irrelevant mental diet. But I flung the child a
copper, and found the halfpenny journal thrust into my hand.
I would have tossed it from me carelessly, but the headlines relating to
the latest sensation caught my eye.
Then, forgetful of the crowds who stared at me in my agitation, I strode
nearer to the white ball of electric light which had shone down upon the
page.