Room Number 3, and Other Detective Stories

I accordingly busied myself the next few days with the question, and was fortunate enough to so int

in the stomach nor was there to be seen on the body any mark of v

all that it escaped

h had not been a natural one, I entered upon one of those secret and prolonged investigations which for so many years have constituted the pleasure of my life. First, I visited the Colon

an had spent the entire evening preceding his death in his own room, where he had been brought several letters and on

ed to know if in her visit to Philadelphia she had noted among her husband’s effects anything that was new or unfamiliar to her. “For he received a package w

was really the victim o

in my mind, the doctor’s conclusions, and until the mystery surrounding that obituary notice has been satisfactorily explained by its author I shall ho

You are right! O

n expression of my belief that she f

d anything among your husband’s effects th

ce became

re a few things lying about the room which I saw thrust into the latter. Would you l

mall room, against the wall of which stood a trunk with a travelling-bag o

” she sadly murmured, the

a bit of coiled wire with two o

, what i

ke a puzzle

me such contrivance. All his friends knew how well he liked these toys and fr

usly. It was undoubtedly a puzzle, but it ha

” I observed, moving the rings up and do

e would like

e a painful start. A little prong in the hand

ain and put it in my pocket. The prick made by this treacherous bit of mechanism was in or ne

rised that prick with the end of a red-hot poker. Then I made my ad

me,” said I. “I have reason to believ

and let me know the result. Then I went home. I felt ill, or i

e in my thumb. But not till the following week did I receive the chemist’s report

s not co

John Graham,” thoug

cough. However, my natural perseverance carried me through. After seeing and interviewing a dozen John Grahams without result, I at last lit upon a man of that name who presented a figure of such vivid unrest and showed such a desperate hatred of his fellows, that I began to entertain hopes of his being th

tract his attention and thus risk a disagreeable encounter. But she might have spared herself these fears. He did not even glance up in passing us, and it was mainly by his walk she re

g for hours in front of some newspaper office, gnawing at his finger-ends, and staring at the passers-by with a hungry look alarming to

ance of light-brown hair, which hung very nearly to his shoulders. He stooped in standing, but as soon as he moved, showed decision and a certain sort of pride which caused him

ment rested on mine, produced an impression upon me for which I was hardly prepared, great as was my prejudice against him. There was such an icy composure in it; the composure of an envenomed nature conscious of its superiority to all surprises. As I lingered to study him more closely, the many dangerou

of some extraordinary device such as is seldom resorted to by the police of this or any other nation, could I hope to a

nd seemed to grow more and more confused the more I urged it into action. I failed to get inspiration indoors or out; and feeling my health suffe

two years before and in which I had read a little book I was only too glad to remember at this moment. Indeed, it seemed as if a veritable inspiration had come to me through this recollection, for though the tale to which I allude was a simple child’s story written for moral purposes, it contained an idea which promised to be invaluable

ere he was likely to be found at all times of the day and night. I immediately acted upon this knowledge. Assuming a slight disguise, I repeated my former stroll through Printing House Square, looking into each doorway as I passed. John Graham was in one of them, staring in his old way at the passing crow

f the small steel coils with which I was provided. He did not se

not see something dr

or him was fully as keen and searching a one as I had anticipated. Recoiling sharply, he gave me a quick look, then glanced down again at his feet as if half expecting to find th

ame slinking back. Picking up the coil with more than one sly look about, he examined it closely. Suddenly he gave a sharp cry and went staggerin

ttle saloon in Nassau Street, where I took up my stand in a spot convenient for see

he cried.

nother of the steel springs, and was so confounded by the sight that the proprietor, who had

aham, ignoring the other’s gesture and pointing with a tre

et?” inquired the proprietor. “It w

-ninth Street, but at the corner of Madison Avenue and Forty-seventh Street he changed his mind and dashed toward Third Avenue. At Park Avenue he faltered and again turned north, walking for several blocks as if the fiends were behind him. I began to think that he was but attempting to walk off his excitement, w

rom head to foot, and, catching at the railing against which he leaned, was about to make a quick move forward when a puff of smoke arose from below and sent him staggering backward, gasping with a terror I could hardly understand till I

arose again he was his own daring and sinister self. Knowing that he was now too much master of his faculties to ignore me any longer, I walked quickly away and left him. I knew where he would be at six o’clock and had already engaged a table at the same restaurant. It was seven, however, b

d was simple and I had not the hear

the bill which the waiter laid at the side of his plate was the inevitable steel

om. No one could tell him (or would). Whereupon he began to rave and would certainly have done himself or somebody else an injury if he had not been calmed by a man almost as wil

ulty in following him to a certain gambling den, where he gained three dol

many deep and wearing emotions since noon, a

on railings on either side of the old stoop and to compare this abode of decayed grandeur with the spacious and elegant apartment in which pretty Mrs. Holmes mourned

woman to whom I had but to intimate my wish to see Mr.

! Door open, he’s out

d been lighted in the open grate, and the flickering red beams danced on ceiling and walls with a cheeriness greatly in contrast to the nature of the business which had led me there. As

half an hou

elapsed since I had seen him last. But the interval of his inaction was short, and in a moment he flung up his arms with a loud “Curse her!” that rang through the narrow room and betrayed the source of his present frenzy. Then he again stood still, grating his teeth and working his hands in a way terribly suggestive

toss that sent from its midst a small object which he no sooner saw than

ainst me? I cannot eat, I cannot drink, but this diabolical spring starts up before me. It is here, there, ev

he was dazed by the shock of my presence

th a sarcastic smile in which was concentra

hings, and I am ready for mine. She turned me away from her door to-

d him. “All that falls from you now wi

am going to bridle my tongue and keep down the words which are my only safeguard from insanity? No, no; while my miserable

e me an opportunity. The passion of weeks

ess to me. But she would not grant me admittance. She had me thrust from her door, and I shall never know how deeply the iron has sunk into her soul

ut his interruption came quic

death, even. To confront her eye to eye is

o not deny

grim gesture. “How can I, when there falls from everything

o say or do before you le

ing himself, pointed to the roll of

hat!” h

d at it. It was the manuscri

in getting a publisher for it I might have forgotten my wrongs and tried to build up a new life on the ruins of the ol

to another that you secured that bit of print upon the blank side of which yourself printed th

e poison with which I tipped the silly toy w

I merely know it was no common poison bought

another man’s secret. You will never hear from me anything that will co

m the neglected fire shot up and threw his figure for one instant into bold relief upon the lowering ceiling; then it died out,