Revenge!

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Barr Robert. Revenge!

REVENGE! AN ALPINE DIVORCE

WHICH WAS THE MURDERER?

A DYNAMITE EXPLOSION

AN ELECTRICAL SLIP

THE VENGEANCE OF THE DEAD

OVER THE STELVIO PASS

THE HOUR AND THE MAN

"AND THE RIGOUR OF THE GAME."

THE BROMLEY GIBBERTS STORY

NOT ACCORDING TO THE CODE

A MODERN SAMSON

A DEAL ON 'CHANGE

TRANSFORMATION

THE SHADOW OF THE GREENBACK

THE UNDERSTUDY

"OUT OF THUN."

1.—BESSIE'S BEHAVIOUR

II.—BESSIE'S CONFESSION

III.—BESSIE'S PROPOSAL

A DRAMATIC POINT

TWO FLORENTINE BALCONIES

THE EXPOSURE OF LORD STANSFORD

PURIFICATION

Отрывок из книги

Mrs. John Forder had no premonition of evil. When she heard the hall clock strike nine she was blithely singing about the house as she attended to her morning duties, and she little imagined that she was entering the darkest hour of her life, and that before the clock struck again overwhelming disaster would have fallen upon her. Her young husband was working in the garden, as was his habit each morning before going to his office. She expected him in every moment to make ready for his departure down town. She heard the click of the front gate, and a moment later some angry words. Alarmed, she was about to look through the parted curtains of the bay-window in front when the sharp crack of a revolver rang out, and she hastened to the door with a vague sinking fear at her heart. As she flung open the door she saw two things— first, her husband lying face downwards on the grass motionless, his right arm doubled under him; second, a man trying frantically to undo the fastening of the front gate, with a smoking pistol still in his hand.

Human lives often hang on trivialities. The murderer in his anxiety to be undisturbed had closed the front gate tightly. The wall was so high as to shut out observation from the street, but the height that made it difficult for an outsider to see over it also rendered escape impossible. If the man had left the gate open he might have got away unnoticed, but, as it was, Mrs. Forder's screams aroused the neighbourhood, and before the murderer succeeded in undoing the fastening, a crowd had collected with a policeman in its centre, and escape was out of the question. Only one shot had been fired, but at such close quarters that the bullet went through the body. John Forder was not dead, but lay on the grass insensible. He was carried into the house and the family physician summoned. The doctor sent for a specialist to assist him, and the two men consulted together. To the distracted woman they were able to give small comfort. The case at best was a doubtful one. There was some hope of ultimate recovery, but very little.

.....

"Oh, don't ask me. All at once there was a clap of thunder, and the next thing I was on my face in the street."

"Is your comrade inside?"

.....