Room Number 3, and Other Detective Stories

to see y

essed by the grace and beauty of

I can do to serve y

trust and candour as she seated her

reat trouble. I have just lost my husband — but it is not that. It

to relate her story just as it had happened; and after a few minutes of silent struggle she succee

later I received an affectionate letter from him, in which he promised to come back the next day; and the news so delighted me that I accepted an invitation to the theatre from some intimate friends of ours. The next morning I naturally felt fatigued and rose late; but I was very cheerful, for I expected my hu

e, James Forsythe De Witt Holme

of paper before me? I could not determine. My head, throat, and chest seemed bound about with iron, so that I could neither speak nor breathe with freedom, and, suffering thus, I stood staring at this demoniacal bit of paper which in an instant had brought the shadow

t from hers came the fir

d this person must have been dead at least two days for the printed notice of his decease to have reached New York. Some one

my apartment, and, running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding in his outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often bespeaks death or disaster. The sight took my breath away. Summoning my maid,

otions, paused, recovered herself f

r show you t

eld it toward me. I read it at a gla

ad in his room this morning. Doctors

so eagerly quoted. “That means a week ago Wednesday, the same day on which the printed slip

f on this subject, I desired her to tell me wh

simple and st

n an early morning train. He had even desired to be awakened at six o’clock; and it was his failure to respond to the summons of the bellboy which led to so early a discovery of his death. He had never complained of any distress in breathing, and we had always considered him a perfectly healthy man; but there was no reason for assigning any other cause than heart failure to his sudden death, and so the burial certificate was made out to that effect, and I was allowed to bring him home and bury him

s notice with

d it, and while I was g

manifestation. But I have not a bit of such folly in my composition. Living hands set up the type and printed the words which gave me so deathly a shock; and hands, with a r

icions long before this and now fe

I, “who has access to your

absolutel

hat of

a girl my mother brought up, who for love of me consents to

like to

w any one could have found an entrance to my room during my sleep, as the doors were all locked. Yet, as she very naturally observes, some one must have done so, for she was in my bedroom herself just before I r

ieved her?”

lici

n, then, do your

dit of seeing light where others can see nothing but darkness that I have sought your aid in this emergency. For the uncer

d I shall certainly do what I can for you. But before we go any further,

ts in connection with it to which I n

I pursued, “with such others as y

r answer. “Is it n

at the Colonnade’— on what day? The date is usual

moist with unshed tears, openi

ter. Notice also,” I continued, holding up the scrap of paper between her and the light, “that the alignment on one side is not exactly parallel with that on the other; a discrepancy which would not exist if both sides had been printed on a newspaper press. These facts lead me to conclude, first,

he sank back in her seat and a blush of manifest confusion suffused her cheeks. “Oh!” she exclaimed; “what will you think of me! I brought this scrap of print

y less for us to solve,”

ous. It is true that I brought this scrap of newspaper into the house, and that it had, then as now, the notice of my husb

y worth notin

ry of some importa

eed t

eed to the clearing up of this mystery,” I observed. “You can, of course, infor

n on my mind than the thrusting of an advertisement upon me. Indeed, I supposed it was an advertisement, and I only wonder that I retained it in my hand at all. But that I did do so, and that, in a moment

the obituary notice which attracte

hat chanced to come uppermost. Oh, why should I not have remembered this

nce. “The words you read in the morning were so startling that they disconn

t who could have printed this thing and who was the man who put it into my hand? He looked like a beggar, but —— Oh!

” I asked. “Anot

w I could hardly hear

sted, seeing that she was under s

ike that of a friend who —— But no, no; I will not wrong him by an

, but the two vivid spots which remai

might plan to frighten me by a false notice of my husband’s d

nge might do almost anything,” I answered, purp

y other beggar we meet has a cough; and yet,” she added after a moment’s pause, “if it was not

er tell me his na

doubt. I should hate to

if he is innocent. My

ys and old troubles were far enough from my thoughts; but now that my suspicions are raised, that low, choking sound comes back to me in a strangely persistent way, and I seem to

ed, “and what was the natur

to have her whole story, turned towards the fire and stood warming

me, and announced my intention of proceeding East as soon as possible. Mr. Graham was simply paralysed by his disappointment, and during the few days which intervened before my departure, I was haunted by his face, which was like that of a man who had died from some overwhelming shock. But when I was once free of the town, especially after I arrived in New York, I forgot alike his misery and himself. Everything I saw was so beautiful! Life was so full of charm, and my uncle so delighted with me and everything I did! Then there was James Holmes, and after I had seen him —— But I cannot talk of that. We loved each other, and under the surprise of this new delight how could I be expected to remember the man I had left behind me in that barren region in which I had spent my youth? But he did not forget the misery I had caused him. He followed me to

be understood. Then with quick impetuosity sh

dream that this man, who was little more than a memory to me and scarcely that, was secretly planning mischief against m

er face, which was turned

he, exhausted by the excitement of her discoveries, asked that she

to the matter just then, I readily acceded to her re