The House by the Lock/Chapter 14

was so full of plans for the future–Karine's future with Carson Wildred–that my soul sickened of her chatter, and I took myself off as soon as it was decently possible to do so. With no further chance of private talk with Karine much of my incentive for remaining was gone, at all events, and I was anxious to think out the puzzle regarding the transfer of the ring.

To recapitulate, Farnham had announced his intention of keeping it until the necessity arose for having it cut from his finger. Still, it seemed he had not kept it, and it had not been cut off. The conviction was strong within me that Wildred had obtained the jewel by foul play. Yet how could he have done this, short of severing from the hand the finger that had worn it?

Strange fancies flitted luridly through my brain. In a few days more Harvey Farnham would have landed in New York, and I could reach him there at the hotel he had mentioned as his favourite; or in Denver, Colorado, if he had chosen to pursue his homeward journey without a night's delay.

I counted the hours which must pass before I could attempt any such communication, and they seemed to rise like a high wall between me and my hopes and my suspicions.

As I walked homeward, involuntarily hastening my footsteps, I heard the newsboys crying out some item of intelligence for the evening papers. "Extry Speshul! Extry Speshul!" "Mysterious Discovery in the Thames!"

So preoccupied was I that the words passed into my ears without making any definite impression on my mind; or, if they did, it was the mere rhythm of the different shouting voices that impressed itself upon me.

So often were they repeated from all sides as I walked on that at length the short sentences began to form a species of intoned accompaniment to my thoughts, without assuming a separate importance in my consciousness.

Suddenly, however, a grimy infant of tender years and appalling precocity flourished a pink sheet, smelling of the printer's ink, directly under my eyes.

"Buy a paper, guv-nor!" he cajoled me. "Hall abeout the 'orrid murder and the 'eadless man."

I seldom read evening papers, and to-night, of all nights, I had little inclination for such irrelevant mental diet. But I flung the child a copper, and found the halfpenny journal thrust into my hand.

I would have tossed it from me carelessly, but the headlines relating to the latest sensation caught my eye.

Then, forgetful of the crowds who stared at me in my agitation, I strode nearer to the white ball of electric light which had shone down upon the page.