The Paternoster Ruby   By: Charles Edmonds Walk (1875-)

The Paternoster Ruby

By CHARLES EDMONDS WALK

Author of "The Silver Blade," "The Yellow Circle," etc.

WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR

BY J. V. McFALL

A. L. BURT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT

A. C. McCLURG & CO.

1910

Published, October 22, 1910

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England

TO

M. H. W.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I THE SHERIDAN PARK MYSTERY II THE PRIVATE SECRETARY III SOME DISCOVERIES IV THE RUBY V THE HIDDEN SAFE VI AN EXTRAORDINARY ERRAND VII HOW THE ERRAND ENDED VIII MAILLOT'S EXPERIENCE IX TRACKS IN THE SNOW X THE SECOND STORY XI A PACT XII THE CIPHER XIII DISCLOSURES XIV RIDDLES XV A WOMAN'S SCREAM XVI THE FACE IN THE ALCOVE XVII PRISON DOORS XVIII A FIGHT IN THE DARK XIX BELLE XX GENEVIEVE'S MISSION XXI SHADOWS XXII ASHES OF OLD ROMANCE XXIII BURKE UNBOSOMS XXIV CONFESSION XXV "THIMBLE, THIMBLE " XXVI THE CIPHER SOLVED

ILLUSTRATIONS

The gem lay between them, a splash of crimson flame . . . Frontispiece

Diagram of second floor

The door opened a few inches, to reveal the figure of Alexander Burke

Cipher

Cipher (repeated)

"I'll shoot," she announced in a tense tone, "so help me, I'll shoot"

"Uncle, Uncle, sit up! Don't go to pieces this way"

Cipher (repeated)

THE PATERNOSTER RUBY

CHAPTER I

THE SHERIDAN PARK MYSTERY

With a screaming of brakes, the elevated train on which I happened to be jerked to a stop, and passengers intending to disembark were catapulted toward the doorways a convenience supplied gratis by all elevated roads, which, I have observed, is generally overlooked by their patrons. I crammed the morning paper into my overcoat pocket, fell in with the outrushing current of humanity, and was straightway swept upon the platform, pinched through the revolving gates, and hustled down the covered iron stairway to the street. Here the current broke up and diffused, like the current of a river where it empties into the sea.

This was the first wave of the daily townward tide clerks, shop girls, and stenographers, for the most part intent upon bread and butter in futuro . The jostling and crowding was like an old story to me; I went through the ordeal each morning with an indifference and abstraction born of long custom.

The time of the year was January, the year itself 1892. A clear, cold air with just enough frost in it to stir sluggish blood, induced one to walk briskly. It was still too early in the day for the usual down town crowd, and I proceeded as fast as I wanted to, allowing my thoughts to dwell undisturbed on the big news topic of the day, which I had just been reading. And so I did, as I strode along, with the concern of one whose interest is remote, yet in a way affected.

So the great wheat corner was broken at last! The coterie of operators headed by Alfred Fluette had discovered to their dismay that the shorts were anything but "short," for all day yesterday the precious grain had been pouring into the market in a golden flood. Grain laden vessels were speeding from Argentine, where no wheat was supposed to be; trains were hurrying in from the far Northwest; and even the millers of the land had awakened to the fact that there was more profit in emptying their bins and selling for a dollar and sixty cents a bushel the wheat that had cost them seventy six cents, than there was in grinding it into flour.

It was another pirate of the pit who had brought disaster to the bulls no other than that old fox, Felix Page, himself a manipulator of successful big deals, and feared perhaps more than any other figure on the Board of Trade.