A Strange Disappearance E-Book

Anna Katharine Green

• Herausgeber: Anna Katharine Green
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

One of the first writers of detective fiction in America, distinguished by well plotted, legally accurate stories.She is credited with shaping detective fiction into its classic form, and developing the series detective. Her main character was detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force, but in three novels he is assisted by the nosy society spinster Amelia Butterworth, the prototype for Miss Marple, Miss Silver and other creations. She also invented the 'girl detective': in the character of Violet Strange, a debutante with a secret life as a sleuth.

Leseprobe

A Strange Disappearance

Anna Katharine Green

Table of Contents

A Novel Case

A Few Points

The Contents of a Bureau Drawer

Thompson’s Story

A New York Belle

A Bit of Calico

The House at the Granby Cross Roads

A Word Overheard

A Few Golden Hairs

The Secret of Mr. Blake’s Studio

Luttra

A Woman’s Love

A Man’s Heart

Mrs. Daniels

A Confab

The Mark of the Red Cross

The Capture

Love and Duty

Explanations

The Bond that Unites

Chapter 1

A Novel Case

“Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it.”

The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse our deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which we were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear to a detective’s heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; and settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a good story to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding to his own credit, he began:

I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ——— Precinct Station, when the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in, whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I asked her what she wanted.

“A detective,” she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of the various men scattered through the room. “I don’t wish anything said about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and”— she stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her —“and I want some one to look her up,” she went on at last with the most intense emphasis.

“A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say our house?”