Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 3Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
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Great Porter Square: A Mystery. v. 3
Farjeon, B. L. (Benjamin Leopold)
Detective and mystery stories; Fiction
He knew well that the game was up, and that nothing short of a miracle
would save him. The sound they had heard was the clicking of the lock;
the whistles they had heard were a summons to their pursuers. While they
had deemed themselves safe, enemies had been watching them. They were
caught in their own trap.
Pelham strove to force the door open, but had not sufficient strength.
"I am as weak as a rat," he muttered hoarsely, "but there is still a
chance."
He tore the sheets from the bed, and in an incredibly short space of
time, working like a madman, knotted them together. His design was to
escape from the house by the back window, but he could find no hold for
his rope within the room. As he looked eagerly around he felt himself
seized by Grace.
"Save me!" she cried, hysterically. "It is there again--the Shadow of
the man we murdered!"
He shook her off, and in her terror, she slipped back, and overturned
the candlestick, which was on the floor, with a lighted candle in it.
The light instantly communicated itself to the spirit and inflammable
matter which Pelham had scattered about, and the next moment the room
was in a blaze. Vainly did Pelham strive to beat out the fire. Blinded
by the smoke, and the flames which presently enveloped them, they
staggered and stumbled in their tomb of fire, and then it was that Grace
gave utterance to the terrible cry of anguish which drove the blood from
the cheeks of the crowd of people surging in Great Porter Square.
CHAPTER XLVI.
IN WHICH THE "EVENING MOON" GIVES A SEQUEL TO ITS "ROMANCE IN REAL
LIFE."
We have much pleasure (said the _Evening Moon_, two days after the fire)
in presenting our readers with the last act of a drama which, in plot,
incident, and extraordinary development of character, equals anything in
the way of sensationalism which has ever graced theatrical boards. The
opportunity is an agreeable one to us, as it enables us to do justice
to a gentleman who has had reason to complain of what has appeared in
our columns concerning him. What we have to say resolves itself into
something more than the last act of a drama; it is both that and the
commencement of a Sequel which, in all human probability, and because
of the nature of the persons engaged in it, will have a happier ending
than that which has been closed by the burning down of the house,
No. 119, Great Porter Square.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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