Snarled Identities; Or, A Desperate TangleCarter, Nicholas (House name)
General
Snarled Identities; Or, A Desperate Tangle
Carter, Nicholas (House name)
Detective and mystery stories; Dime novels; Popular literature
“THE GREENISH EYES!”
Doctor Lord was a young man, with next to no practice, who had recently
moved into one of the new houses on the hill. It was easier, therefore,
to go for him in person than to stop to telephone.
In the meantime, the women were reassured and thrilled by the
announcement that Cray still lived, and Mrs. Simpson at once took steps
to care for him.
She had sent the maid to the house for a basin of warm water and some
towels. With these at hand, Mrs. Simpson herself knelt beside the
unfortunate man and tenderly wiped the blood from his forehead and face.
Not until then had she recognized him, but when she did so, she gave a
great start, and an audible gasp escaped her.
The other women were crowding around then, and her behavior was not
lost on them.
“What’s the matter?” they demanded. “Do you actually know him?”
Mrs. Simpson bitterly regretted her display of emotion. Fear seemed
to be squeezing her heart with icy fingers. In the background of her
mind a foreboding had been lurking for days. Her instincts had told
her that there was something strange and sinister about her husband’s
disappearance—something which the office had not seen fit to reveal to
her.
Now she recalled all of Cray’s strange questions and stranger actions.
“He’s a detective!” she told herself. “I was right. John is in trouble,
and this man must have set a trap for him last night. If he dies, John
will be his murderer. Oh, how could he do it! And Heaven pity me, how
can I stand it!”
She was the soul of honor herself, however, and simply did not know how
to lie.
“Yes, I recognize him now,” she admitted reluctantly. “I never saw him
until yesterday, though, and I don’t know what he was doing here last
night—if he was here. He’s a Mr. Jones from my husband’s office, and he
said they had sent him to see if he could help find Mr. Simpson.”
The young doctor arrived at that juncture, and, at his request, Mrs.
Simpson repeated the information for his benefit as he worked over Cray.
“You don’t know where he lives, then, or anything about his people?”
“No, but they would naturally know about that at the newspaper office,
wouldn’t they?”
“That’s true. You had better telephone there, then—or somebody had.
This poor fellow has had a terrible battering. Fortunately his skull is
very tough, but though I can’t be sure at present, I fear it has been
fractured, in spite of that. If so, the outcome is problematical, and
he may not recover in any case.”
He rose to his feet.
“But the first thing to do is to get him into the house,” he declared.
“Have you a bed or a couch on the first floor, Mrs. Simpson?”
“Yes, there’s a couch, doctor.”
“Good! Make that ready for him, then, and we’ll bring him right in.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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