Crime & Mystery Collection, Including Detective Craig Kennedy Novels, The Silent Bullet, The Poisoned Pen, The War Terror, The Social Gangster, Constance Dunlap, The Master Mystery, The Conspirators…
Crime & Mystery Collection, Including Detective Craig Kennedy Novels, The Silent Bullet, The Poisoned Pen, The War Terror, The Social Gangster, Constance Dunlap, The Master Mystery, The Conspirators…
This carefully crafted ebook: "The Collected Works of Arthur B. Reeve" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Craig Kennedy Series: The Dream Doctor The War Terror The Social Gangster The Ear in the Wall Gold of the Gods The Exploits of Elaine The Romance of Elaine The Soul Scar The Film Mystery The Silent Bullet The Scientific Cracksman The Bacteriological Detective The Deadly Tube The Seismograph Adventure The Diamond Maker The Azure Ring "Spontaneous Combustion" The Terror in the Air The Black Hand The Artificial Paradise The Steel Door The Poisoned Pen The Yeggman The Germ of Death The Firebug The Confidence King The Sand-Hog The White Slave The Forger The Unofficial Spy The Smuggler The Invisible Ray The Campaign Grafter The Treasure Train The Truth-detector The Soul-analysis The Mystic Poisoner The Phantom Destroyer The Beauty Mask The Love Meter The Vital Principle The Rubber Dagger The Submarine Mine The Gun-runner The Sunken Treasure Other Mysteries: Guy Garrick The Master Mystery Constance Dunlap The Forgers The Embezzlers The Gun Runners The Gamblers The Eavesdroppers The Clairvoyants The Plungers The Abductors The Shoplifters The Blackmailers The Dope Fiends The Fugitives The Conspirators
The Craig Kennedy Series, The Dream Doctor, The War Terror, The Ear in the Wall, Gold of the Gods, The Soul Scar, Constance Dunlap, The Master Mystery…
The Craig Kennedy Series, The Dream Doctor, The War Terror, The Ear in the Wall, Gold of the Gods, The Soul Scar, Constance Dunlap, The Master Mystery…
This meticulously edited Arthur B. Reeve Collection has been formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Craig Kennedy Series: The Dream Doctor The War Terror The Social Gangster The Ear in the Wall Gold of the Gods The Exploits of Elaine The Romance of Elaine The Soul Scar The Film Mystery The Silent Bullet The Scientific Cracksman The Bacteriological Detective The Deadly Tube The Seismograph Adventure The Diamond Maker The Azure Ring "Spontaneous Combustion" The Terror in the Air The Black Hand The Artificial Paradise The Steel Door The Poisoned Pen The Yeggman The Germ of Death The Firebug The Confidence King The Sand-Hog The White Slave The Forger The Unofficial Spy The Smuggler The Invisible Ray The Campaign Grafter The Treasure Train The Truth-detector The Soul-analysis The Mystic Poisoner The Phantom Destroyer The Beauty Mask The Love Meter The Vital Principle The Rubber Dagger The Submarine Mine The Gun-runner The Sunken Treasure Other Mysteries: Guy Garrick The Master Mystery Constance Dunlap The Forgers The Embezzlers The Gun Runners The Gamblers The Eavesdroppers The Clairvoyants The Plungers The Abductors The Shoplifters The Blackmailers The Dope Fiends The Fugitives The Conspirators
The essential collection of Arthur B. Reeve in one: Table Of Contents CONSTANCE DUNLAP THE DREAM DOCTOR THE EAR IN THE WALL THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE THE FILM MYSTERY THE GOLD OF THE GODS GUY GARRICK THE MASTER MYSTERY The Poisoned Pen by, Arthur B. Reeve THE ROMANCE OF ELAINE THE SILENT BULLET THE TREASURE-TRAIN THE WAR TERROR
It has always seemed strange to me that no one has ever endowed a professorship in criminal science in any of our large universities." Craig Kennedy laid down his evening paper and filled his pipe with my tobacco. In college we had roomed together, had shared everything, even poverty, and now that Craig was a professor of chemistry and I was on the staff of the Star, we had continued the arrangement. Prosperity found us in a rather neat bachelor apartment on the Heights, not far from the University. "Why should there be a chair in criminal science?" I remarked argumentatively, settling back in my chair. "I've done my turn at police headquarters reporting, and I can tell you, Craig, it's no place for a college professor. Crime is just crime. And as for dealing with it, the good detective is born and bred to it. College professors for the sociology of the thing, yes; for the detection of it, give me a Byrnes." "On the contrary," replied Kennedy, his clean-cut features betraying an earnestness which I knew indicated that he was leading up to something important, "there is a distinct place for science in the detection of crime. On the Continent they are far in advance of us in that respect. We are mere children beside a dozen crime-specialists in Paris, whom I could name." "Yes, but where does the college professor come in?" I asked, rather doubtfully. "You must remember, Walter," he pursued, warming up to his subject, "that it's only within the last ten years or so that we have had the really practical college professor who could do it. The silk-stockinged variety is out of date now. To-day it is the college professor who is the third arbitrator in labour disputes, who reforms our currency, who heads our tariff commissions, and conserves our farms and forests. We have professors of everything—why not professors of crime?" Still, as I shook my head dubiously, he hurried on to clinch his point. "Colleges have gone a long way from the old ideal of pure culture. They have got down to solving the hard facts of life—pretty nearly all, except one. They still treat crime in the old way, study its statistics and pore over its causes and the theories of how it can be prevented. But as for running the criminal himself down, scientifically, relentlessly—bah! we haven't made an inch of progress since the hammer and tongs method of your Byrnes." "Doubtless you will write a thesis on this most interesting subject," I suggested, "and let it go at that." "No, I am serious," he replied, determined for some reason or other to make a convert of me. "I mean exactly what I say. I am going to apply science to the detection of crime, the same sort of methods by which you trace out the presence of a chemical, or run an unknown germ to earth. And before I have gone far, I am going to enlist Walter Jameson as an aide. I think I shall need you in my business." "How do I come in?" "Well, for one thing, you will get a scoop, a beat,—whatever you call it in that newspaper jargon of yours." I smiled in a skeptical way, such as newspapermen are wont to affect toward a thing until it is done—after which we make a wild scramble to exploit it. Nothing more on the subject passed between us for several days.
How do you do, Judge?" I exclaimed. "No, but I expect him any second now. Won't you sit down?" The District Attorney dropped, rather wearily I thought, into a chair and looked at his watch. I had made Carton's acquaintance some years before as a cub reporter on the Star while he was a judge of an inferior court. Our acquaintance had grown through several political campaigns in which I had had assignments that brought me into contact with him. More recently some special writing had led me across his trail again in telling the story of his clean-up of graft in the city. At present his weariness was easily accounted for. He was in the midst of the fight of his life for re-election against the so-called "System," headed by Boss Dorgan, in which he had gone far in exposing evils that ranged all the way from vice and the drug traffic to bald election frauds.
There's where she dropped—they carried her over here to this davenport—sent for Doctor Blake—but he couldn't do a thing for her. She died—just as you see her. Blake thought the matter so serious, so alarming, that he advised an immediate investigation. That's why I called you so urgently."Before us lay the body of the girl, remarkably beautiful even as she lay motionless in death. Her masses of golden hair, disheveled, added to the soft contours of her features. Her wonderfully large blue-gray eyes with their rare gift for delicate shades of expression were closed, but long curling lashes swept her cheeks still and it was hard to believe that this was anything more than sleep.
Kennedy's suit-case was lying open on the bed, and he was literally throwing things into it from his chiffonier, as I entered after a hurried trip up-town from the Star office in response to an urgent message from him. "Come, Walter," he cried, hastily stuffing in a package of clean laundry without taking off the wrapping-paper, "I've got your suit-case out. Pack up whatever you can in five minutes. We must take the six o'clock train for Danbridge." I did not wait to hear any more. The mere mention of the name of the quaint and quiet little Connecticut town was sufficient. For Danbridge was on everybody's lips at that time. It was the scene of the now famous Danbridge poisoning case - a brutal case in which the pretty little actress, Vera Lytton, had been the victim. "I've been retained by Senator Adrian Willard," he called from his room, as I was busy packing in mine. The Willard family believe that that young Dr. Dixon is the victim of a conspiracy - or at least Alma Willard does, which comes to the same thing, and - well, the senator called me up on long-distance and offered me anything I would name in reason to take the case. Are you ready? Come on, then. We've simply got to make that train." As we settled ourselves in the smoking-compartment of the Pullman, which for some reason or other we had to ourselves, Kennedy spoke again for the first time since our frantic dash across the city to catch the train. "Now let us see, Walter," he began. "We've both read a good deal about this case in the papers. Let's try to get our knowledge in an orderly shape before we tackle the actual case itself." "Ever been in Danbridge?" I asked. "Never," he replied. "What sort of place is it?" "Mighty interesting," I answered; "a combination of old New England and new, of ancestors and factories, of wealth and poverty, and above all it is interesting for its colony of New-Yorkers - what shall I call it? - a literary-artistic-musical combination, I guess." "Yes," he resumed, "I thought as much. Vera Lytton belonged to the colony. A very talented girl, too - you remember her in 'The Taming of the New Woman' last season? Well, to get back to the facts as we know them at present. "Here is a girl with a brilliant future on the stage discovered by her friend, Mrs. Boncour, in convulsions - practically insensible - with a bottle of headache-powder and a jar of ammonia on her dressing-table. Mrs. Boncour sends the maid for the nearest doctor, who happens to be a Dr. Waterworth. Meanwhile she tries to restore Miss Lytton, but with no result. She smells the ammonia and then just tastes the headache-powder, a very foolish thing to do, for by the time Dr. Waterworth arrives he has two patients.
The scientific detective known as the “American Sherlock Holmes” pursues a ruthless arch villain in this high-stakes suspense novel Professor Craig Kennedy and his loyal sidekick, newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, first learn of the Clutching Hand and his gang when they investigate a string of murders involving the policyholders of Taylor Dodge’s insurance company. After receiving a threatening note signed by the arch criminal, Dodge himself is robbed and killed, and his daughter, Elaine, turns to Kennedy for help. Using the latest advances in forensic science, the professor uncovers the exotic and deadly scheme behind the murders. But when the Clutching Hand and his band of evildoers kidnap Elaine, Kennedy must shed his lab coat and leap into action before it’s too late. First appearing in the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine, Craig Kennedy was one of the most popular detectives of the early twentieth century. Arthur B. Reeve also wrote the screenplay for the serial version of The Exploits of Elaine, which starred popular silent film actress Pearl White. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
As I look back now on the sensational events of the past months since the great European War began, it seems to me as if there had never been a period in Craig Kennedy's life more replete with thrilling adventures than this. In fact, scarcely had one mysterious event been straightened out from the tangled skein, when another, even more baffling, crowded on its very heels. As was to have been expected with us in America, not all of these remarkable experiences grew either directly or indirectly out of the war, but there were several that did, and they proved to be only the beginning of a succession of events which kept me busy chronicling for the Star the exploits of my capable and versatile friend. Altogether, this period of the war was, I am sure, quite the most exciting of the many series of episodes through which Craig has been called upon to go. Yet he seemed to meet each situation as it arose with a fresh mind, which was amazing even to me who have known him so long and so intimately.
I am not by nature a spy, Professor Kennedy, but-well, sometimes one is forced into something like that." Maude Euston, who had sought out Craig in his laboratory, was a striking girl, not merely because she was pretty or because her gown was modish. Perhaps it was her sincerity and artlessness that made her attractive. She was the daughter of Barry Euston, president of the Continental Express Company, and one could readily see why, aside from the position her father held, she should be among the most-sought-after young women in the city. Miss Euston looked straight into Kennedy's eyes as she added, without waiting for him to ask a question: "Yesterday I heard something that has made me think a great deal. You know, we live at the St. Germaine when we are in town. I've noticed for several months past that the lobbies are full of strange, foreign-looking people. "Well, yesterday afternoon I was sitting alone in the tea-room of the hotel, waiting for some friends. On the other side of a huge palm I heard a couple whispering. I have seen the woman about the hotel often, though I know that she doesn't live there. The man I don't remember ever having seen before. They mentioned the name of Granville Barnes, treasurer of father's company-" "Is that so?" cut in Kennedy, quickly. "I read the story about him in the papers this morning." As for myself, I was instantly alive with interest, too. Granville Barnes had been suddenly stricken while riding in his car in the country, and the report had it that he was hovering between life and death in the General Hospital. The chauffeur had been stricken, too, by the same incomprehensible malady, though apparently not so badly.
Both Craig and myself had been interested in reports of his invention, which he called the "Franconi Telephote," by which he claimed to be able to telegraph either over wires or by wireless light and dark points so rapidly and in such a manner as to deceive the eye and produce at the receiving end what amounted to a continuous reproduction of a picture at the transmitting end. At least, in spite of his society leanings, Franconi was no mere dilettante inventor."But—the necklace," suggested Craig, after a moment, for the first time interrupting the rather rambling trend of Mrs. Brackett's story, "what has this all to do with the necklace?
Detectives in fiction nearly always make a great mistake," said Kennedy one evening after our first conversation on crime and science. "They almost invariably antagonize the regular detective force. Now in real life that's impossible-it's fatal." "Yes," I agreed, looking up from reading an account of the failure of a large Wall Street brokerage house, Kerr Parker & Co., and the peculiar suicide of Kerr Parker. "Yes, it's impossible, just as it is impossible for the regular detectives to antagonize the newspapers. Scotland Yard found that out in the Crippen case." "My idea of the thing, Jameson," continued Kennedy, "is that the professor of criminal science ought to work with, not against, the regular detectives. They're all right. They're indispensable, of course. Half the secret of success nowadays is organisation. The professor of criminal science should be merely what the professor in a technical school often is-a sort of consulting engineer. For instance, I believe that organisation plus science would go far toward clearing up that Wall Street case I see you are reading." I expressed some doubt as to whether the regular police were enlightened enough to take that view of it. "Some of them are," he replied. "Yesterday the chief of police in a Western city sent a man East to see me about the Price murder: you know the case?" Indeed I did. A wealthy banker of the town had been murdered on the road to the golf club, no one knew why or by whom. Every clue had proved fruitless, and the list of suspects was itself so long and so impossible as to seem most discouraging. "He sent me a piece of a torn handkerchief with a deep blood-stain on it," pursued Kennedy. "He said it clearly didn't belong to the murdered man, that it indicated that the murderer had himself been wounded in the tussle, but as yet it had proved utterly valueless as a clue. Would I see what I could make of it? "After his man had told me the story I had a feeling that the murder was committed by either a Sicilian labourer on the links or a negro waiter at the club. Well, to make a short story shorter, I decided to test the blood-stain. Probably you didn't know it, but the Carnegie Institution has just published a minute, careful, and dry study of the blood of human beings and of animals. "In fact, they have been able to reclassify the whole animal kingdom on this basis, and have made some most surprising additions to our knowledge of evolution. Now I don't propose to bore you with the details of the tests, but one of the things they showed was that the blood of a certain branch of the human race gives a reaction much like the blood of a certain group of monkeys, the chimpanzees, while the blood of another branch gives a reaction like that of the gorilla. Of course there's lots more to it, but this is all that need concern us now. "I tried the tests. The blood on the handkerchief conformed strictly to the latter test. Now the gorilla was, of course, out of the question-this was no Rue Morgue murder. Therefore it was the negro waiter." "But," I interrupted, "the negro offered a perfect alibi at the start, and-" "No buts, Walter. Here's a telegram I received at dinner: 'Congratulations. Confronted Jackson your evidence as wired. Confessed.'" "Well, Craig, I take off my hat to you," I exclaimed. "Next you'll be solving this Kerr Parker case for sure." "I would take a hand in it if they'd let me," said he simply. That night, without saying anything, I sauntered down to the imposing new police building amid the squalor of Center Street. They were very busy at headquarters, but, having once had that assignment for the Star, I had no trouble in getting in. Inspector Barney O'Connor of the Central Office carefully shifted a cigar from corner to corner of his mouth as I poured forth my suggestion to him. "Well, Jameson," he said at length, "do you think this professor fellow is the goods?
I must see Professor Kennedy—where is he?—I must see him, for God's sake!"I was almost carried off my feet by the inrush of a wild-eyed girl, seemingly half crazed with excitement, as she cried out Craig's name.Startled by my own involuntary exclamation of surprise which followed the vision that shot past me as I opened our door in response to a sudden, sharp series of pushes at the buzzer, Kennedy bounded swiftly toward me, and the girl almost flung herself upon him."Why, Miss—er—Miss—my dear young lady—what's the matter?" he stammered, catching her by the arm gently.As Kennedy forced our strange visitor into a chair, I observed that she was all a-tremble. Her teeth fairly chattered. Alternately her nervous, peaceless hands clutched at an imaginary something in the air, as if for support, then, finding none, she would let her wrists fall supine, while she gazed about with quivering lips and wild, restless eyes. Plainly, there was something she feared. She was almost over the verge of hysteria.
Here's this murder of Fletcher, the retired banker and trustee of the University," he explained. "Not a clue—except a warning letter signed with this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it was the robbery of the Haxworth jewels and the killing of old Haxworth. Again that curious sign of the hand. Then there was the dastardly attempt on Sherburne, the steel magnate. Not a trace of the assailant except this same clutching fist. So it has gone, Jameson—the most alarming and most inexplicable series of murders that has ever happened in this country. And nothing but this uncanny hand to trace them by."The editor paused a moment, then exclaimed, "Why, this fellow seems to take a diabolical—I might almost say pathological—pleasure in crimes of violence, revenge, avarice and self-protection. Sometimes it seems as if he delights in the pure deviltry of the thing. It is weird.
I was not surprised at reading the name of James McBirney on the detective's card, underneath which was the title of the Automobile Underwriters' Association. But I was more than surprised when the younger of the visitors handed us a card with the simple name, Mortimer Warrington. For, Mortimer Warrington, I may say, was at that time one of the celebrities of the city, at least as far as the newspapers were concerned. He was one of the richest young men in the country, and good for a "story" almost every day. Warrington was not exactly a wild youth, in spite of the fact that his name appeared so frequently in the headlines. As a matter of fact, the worst that could be said of him with any degree of truth was that he was gifted with a large inheritance of good, red, restless blood, as well as considerable holdings of real estate in various active sections of the metropolis.
She said it with an assurance that made me wonder. It was only then that I recollected that it had been one of the excuses for printing her picture in the society columns of the Star so often that the pretty daughter of the president of the Continental was being ardently wooed by two of the company's younger officials. Granville Barnes himself was one. The other was Rodman Lane, the young general manager. I wished now that I had paid more attention to the society news. Perhaps I should have been in a better position to judge which of them it was whom she really had chosen. As it was, two questions presented themselves to me. Was it Barnes? And had Barnes really been the victim of an attack—or of an accident?
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