[Gutenberg 57066] • The Corner House

This ebook edition has been proofed and corrected and compiled to be read with without errors!

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CONTENTS:

I. THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR

II. HETTY

III. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

IV. WEAVING THE NET

V. IN THE MORNING ROOM

VI. A VISITOR

VII. AT THE CORNER HOUSE

VIII. PAUL PROUT

IX. THE MISSING NOTES

X. A POLICY OF SILENCE

XI. THE NOTES ARE TRACED

XII. PROUT IS PUZZLED

XIII. SECOND SIGHT

XIV. "CROWNER'S QUEST"

XV. LAWRENCE PROPHESIES AGAIN

XVI. MR. CHARLTON SPEAKS

XVII. THE GAMBLERS

XVIII. LAWRENCE IS MYSTERIOUS

XIX. STOLEN!

XX. "UNEASY LIES THB HEAD"

XXI. PERIL

XXII. FOR LOVE AND DUTY

XXIII. TEN MINUTES PAST TWELVE

XXIV. TREASURE TROVE

XXV. A CHECK

XXVI. THE BLACK MOTOR

XXVII. A GLASS OF WINB

XXVIII. BAFFLED!

XXIX. A KNOCK AT THE DOOR

XXX. PROUT GETS A CLUE

XXXI. AN URGENT CALL

XXXII. TOUCH AND GO

XXXIII. THE WAY BLOCKED

XXXIV. A CLEVER MOVE

XXXV. A POWERFUL ALLY

XXXVI. A FAINT CLUE

XXXVII. THE TALK OF THE TOWN

XXXVIII. MAITRANK STRIKES

XXXIX. LAWRENCE SHOWS HIS HAND

XL. ANOTHER COIL

XLI. PROUT IS INDISCREET

XLII. FEAR!

XLIII. A SLICE OF LUCK

XLIV. AT LAST

XLV. A CHASE

XLVI. HETTY LEARNS SOMETHING

XLVII. FLOWN

XLVIII. HETTY SPEAKS OUT

XLIX. IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT

L. THREATENED RUIN

LI. THE WOLF IS UNCHAINED

LII. THE CAGE IS OPENED

LIII. FACE TO FACE

LIV. A STAB IN THE DARK '

LV. THE CORNER HOUSE AGAIN

LVI. NOW THEN

LVII. A WAY OUT

LVIII. NEARING THE END

LIX. LIGHT IN THE CORNER HOUSE

LX. NARROWED DOWN

LXI. LOGIC

LXII. CONFESSION

LXIII. A FINAL VERDICT

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An excerpt from the beginning of:

CHAPTER I.—The House Next Door.

A brilliant light streamed from the open doorway of No. 1 Lytton-avenue, making a lane of flame across the pavement, touching pinched gaunt faces that formed a striking contrast to the dazzling scene within. Outside it was cold and wet and sodden, inside was warmth, the glitter of electrics on palms and statuary and flowers, a sliding kaleidoscope of beautiful dresses. A touch of this grateful warmth came soft and perfumed down the steps, a drawn Lazarus huddled in his rags and shivered.

"What's all this mean?" he growled to an equally indigent neighbour. There was a clatter and clash of harness as carriage after carriage drove up. "This ain't quite Park-lane, guv'nor."

"Anyway, it's the fashion," the other growled hoarsely. "I ought to know, because I used to be one of them before the accursed drink—but that is another story. Ever heard of the Countess Lalage?"

"Oh, that's it. Lovely woman with a romantic history. Rich as thingamy, been proposed to by all the dukes what ain't married already. Read it in one of the evening papers."

Poverty and want were jostling with well-dressed content on the pavement. It was one of the strangest and most painful contrasts that can be seen in the richest city in the world. And the contrast was heightened by the meanness of the Corner House.

Black, dark, deserted, grimy shuttered windows—a suggestion of creeping mystery about it. Time ago the corner house was the centre of what might have been a thrilling tragedy. Some of the older neighbours could tell of a cry in the night, of the tramping of feet, of a beautiful woman with the poison still in her hand, of the stern black husband who said never a word, though the shadow of the scaffold lay heavily upon him.

Since then the corner house looked down with blank shuttered eyes on the street. None had ever penetrated its mystery, nobody had crossed its threshold from that day to this. The stern dark man had disappeared; he had locked up his house and gone, leaving not so much as a caretaker behind.

Strange that this dark, forbidding house should stand cheek by jowl with all that was modern and frivolous and fashionable. Even in the garden behind Lytton-avenue the corner house frowned with sightless eyes out of its side windows, eerie and creeping in the daytime.

But the heedless throng of fashionables reeked nothing of this. The Countess Lalage was their latest craze. Who she was or where she came from nobody knew nor cared. She was young and wonderfully beautiful in a dashing Southern way, her equipages were an amazement to the park; she must have been immensely rich, or she would never have entertai