E. W. Hornung
Vintage Mysteries – 6 Intriguing Brainteasers in One Premium Edition
The Shadow of the Rope, The Camera Fiend, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Witching Hill, Stingaree
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[email protected] 2017 OK Publishing ISBN 978-80-7583-281-8
Table of Contents
Stingaree: A Voice in the Wilderness
The Shadow of the Rope
TO MY FRIEND
EDWARD SHORTT
Chapter I. The End of Their Life
Chapter II. The Case for the Crown
Chapter IV. The Man in the Train
Chapter V. The Man in the Street
Chapter VI. A Peripatetic Providence
Chapter VIII. The Dove and the Serpent
Chapter X. A Slight Discrepancy
Chapter XI. Another New Friend
Chapter XII. Episode of the Invisible Visitor
Chapter XIII. The Australian Room
Chapter XV. A Chance Encounter
Chapter XVI. A Match for Mrs. Venables
Chapter XVIII. "They Which were Bidden"
Chapter XIX. Rachel's Champion
Chapter XXII. The Darkest Hour
Chapter XXIV. One Who was Not Bidden
Chapter XXV. A Point to Langholm
Chapter XXVI. A Cardinal Point
Chapter XXVII. The Whole Truth
Chapter XXVIII. In the Matter of a Motive
Chapter I
The End of Their Life
"It is finished," said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Not another day, nor a night, if I can be ready before morning!"
She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon the ground floor.
It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic, and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although a third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were really only two.
Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous step which gave her that surname, was a young Australian lady whose apparent attractions were only equalled by her absolute poverty; that is to say, she had been born at Heidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents more gentle than practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no other armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but where the man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth to England as companion