The Mystery of the Green Ray   By: William Le Queux (1864-1927)

BY

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

AUTHOR OF "THE UNNAMED"

SECOND EDITION

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

MCMXV

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I. BESIDE STILL WATERS 1

CHAPTER II. THE MAN GOING NORTH 17

CHAPTER III. MAINLY ABOUT MYRA 31

CHAPTER IV. THE BLACK BLOW 50

CHAPTER V. IS MORE MYSTERIOUS 63

CHAPTER VI. CONTAINS A FURTHER ENIGMA 78

CHAPTER VII. THE CHEMIST'S ROCK 91

CHAPTER VIII. MISTS OF UNCERTAINTY 102

CHAPTER IX. THE MYSTERY OF SHOLTO 116

CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF THE ROCK 126

CHAPTER XI.

HOW THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENED 133

CHAPTER XII. WHO IS HILDERMAN? 149

CHAPTER XIII. THE RED HAIRED MAN 167

CHAPTER XIV. A FURTHER MYSTERY 178

CHAPTER XV. CONCERNS AN ILLUSTRATED PAPER 188

CHAPTER XVI. DISCLOSES CERTAIN FACTS 202

CHAPTER XVII. SOME GRAVE FEARS 220

CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRUTH REVEALED 235

THE MYSTERY OF THE GREEN RAY

CHAPTER I.

BESIDE STILL WATERS.

The youth in the multi coloured blazer laughed.

"You'd have to come and be a nurse," he suggested.

"Oh, I'd go as a drummer boy. I'd look fine in uniform, wouldn't I?" the waitress simpered in return.

Dennis Burnham swallowed his liqueur in one savage gulp, pushed back his chair, and rose from the table.

"Silly young ass," he said, in a voice loud enough for the object of his wrath to hear. "Let's get outside."

The four of us rose, paid our bill, and went out, leaving the youth and his flippant companions to themselves. For it was Bank Holiday, August the third, 1914, and I think, though it was the shortest and most uneventful of all our river "annuals," it is the one which we are least likely to forget. On the Saturday Dennis, Jack Curtis, Tommy Evans and myself had started from Richmond on our yearly trip up the river. Even as we sat in the two punts playing bridge, moored at our first camping place below Kingston Weir, disquieting rumours reached us in the form of excited questions from the occupants of passing craft. And now, as we rose from the dinner table at the Magpie, Sunbury, two days later, it seemed that war was inevitable.

"What I can't understand," growled Dennis, as we stepped into one of the punts and paddled idly across to the lock, "is how any young idiot can treat the whole thing as a terrific joke. If we go to war with Germany and it seems we must it's going to be Good Heavens! who knows what it's going to be!"

"Meaning," said Tom, who never allowed any thought to remain half expressed, "meaning that we are not prepared, and they are. We have to step straight into the ring untrained to meet an opponent who has been getting ready night and day for the Lord knows how many years."

"Still, you know," said Jack, who invariably found the bright spot in everything, "we never did any good as a nation until we were pushed."

"We shall be pushed this time," I replied; "and if we do go to war, we shall all be wanted."

"And wanted at once," Tom added.