Drama of Twenty-Four Hours

A moan thrilled the heavy night air. The form of a woman stood out dimly against the blank beyond on the very verge of the river pier. Two white arms were flung on high. A wild face was upturned to the ashen, pitiless heavens. White lips uttered something like a curse, which was heard by the dull-eared wind only.

Three hundred bells, in as many quarters of the great city, clanged 12 and the 300 iron tongues were still for an hour.

The flash of a body in the inky waters smote on the midnight; the waters with a sudden shock, stirred squeaking ship and leviathanic pier with an ague-like tremor. The woman’s form on the dock was gone.

* * * * *

Mr. Banker Jeckyll was a sort of animated exclamation point—a kind of human interjection, always on the point of breaking out in exclamatory monosyllables. He talked in interjections, walked in interjections, acted interjectionally, did business in interjections. Mr. Detective Ferret was a tool of his—that is, translated into lengthened prose the stenographic memoranda of interjections that formed the dialect of principal.

At 10 o’clock that evening Mr. Banker Jeckyll had sent for Mr. Detective Ferret on urgent business.

“Miss Vancouver is at large!” interjected Jeckyll.

“Well!” rejoined Ferret, half in the way of asking a question and half in the manner of an exclamation.

“Poor thing! I think she’ll make away with herself,” ventured Jeckyll, with an Americanism; “but you must get some clue to her whereabouts immediately. I should never forgive myself if she did—never. My own sister’s daughter, you are aware, Mr. Ferret, and heiress of the estate of my later brother-in-law, Mr. Vancouver.”

Mr. Jeckyll looked the impersonation of anxiety—was, for the moment, a great grief expressed in a single human interjection, at least… Read More