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This is an excerpt of a recent book. The proofers names have been removed -- normally you would see the DPUser name of each person who worked on each page.
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THE BLACK BOX
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/*
<sc>The Illustrations Shown in
this Edition are Reproductions
of Scenes from the
Photoplay of "THE BLACK
BOX" Produced and Copyrighted
by the Universal
Film Manufacturing Company,
to whom the Publishers Desire
to Express their Thanks
and Appreciation for Permission
to use the Pictures.</sc>
*/
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[Blank Page]
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[Illustration: SANFORD QUEST, CRIMINOLOGIST.]
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/*
THE BLACK BOX
BY
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY
PRODUCED AND COPYRIGHTED BY THE UNIVERSAL
FILM MANUFACTURING COMPANY
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
*/
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/*
<i>Copyright, 1915,</i>
<sc>By Little, Brown and Company</sc>.
<i>All rights reserved</i>
*/
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CONTENTS
/*
CHAPTER PAGE
I <sc>Sanford Quest, Criminologist</sc> 1
II <sc>The Apartment-House Mystery</sc> 7
III <sc>The Hidden Hands</sc> 35
IV <sc>The Pocket Wireless</sc> 57
V <sc>An Old Grudge</sc> 78
VI <sc>On the Rack</sc> 97
VII <sc>The Unseen Terror</sc> 119
VIII <sc>The House of Mystery</sc> 142
IX <sc>The Inherited Sin</sc> 162
X <sc>Lost in London</sc> 183
XI <sc>The Ship of Horror</sc> 206
XII <sc>A Desert Vengeance</sc> 230
XIII <sc>'Neath Iron Wheels</sc> 254
XIV <sc>Tongues of Flame</sc> 276
XV "<sc>A Bolt from the Blue</sc>" 293
XVI <sc>Justice Cheated</sc> 315
*/
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/*
|--------------------------------------------------|
| THE BLACK BOX |
| ------------------------------------------------ |
| Universal Photo Play Edition |
| ------------------------------------------------ |
| CAST OF CHARACTERS |
| |
| Sanford Quest Herbert Rawlinson |
| |
| Lenora MacDougal Anna Little |
| |
| Prof. Ashleigh } |
| Lord Ashleigh } William Worthington |
| |
| Lady Ashleigh Helen Wright |
| |
| John Craig Frank MacQuarrie |
| |
| Laura, Quest's assistant Laura Oakley |
| |
| Mrs. Bruce Rheinboldt Hylda Sloman |
|--------------------------------------------------|
*/
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THE BLACK BOX
CHAPTER I
SANFORD QUEST, CRIMINOLOGIST
The young man from the west had arrived in New
York only that afternoon, and his cousin, town born and
bred, had already embarked upon the task of showing
him the great city. They occupied a table in a somewhat
insignificant corner of one of New York's most famous
roof-garden restaurants. The place was crowded with
diners. There were many notabilities to be pointed out.
The town young man was very busy.
"See that bunch of girls on the right?" he asked.
"They are all from the chorus in the new musical comedy--opens
to-morrow. They've been rehearsing every day
for a month. Some show it's going to be, too. I don't
know whether I'll be able to get you a seat, but I'll try.
I've had mine for a month. The fair girl who is leaning
back, laughing, now, is Elsie Havers. She's the star....
You see the old fellow with the girl, just in a line behind?
That's Dudley Worth, the multi-millionaire, and at the
next table there is Mrs. Atkinson--you remember her
divorce case?"
It was all vastly interesting to the young man from the
west, and he looked from table to table with ever-increasing
interest.
"Say, it's fine to be here!" he declared. "We have
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this sort of thing back home, but we are only twelve stories
up and there is nothing to look at. Makes you kind of
giddy here to look past the people, down at the city."
The New Yorker glanced almost indifferently at the one
sight which to a stranger is perhaps the most impressive
in the new world. Twenty-five stories below, the cable
cars clanging and clashing their way through the narrowed
streets seemed like little fire-flies, children's toys
pulled by an invisible string of fire. Further afield, the
flare of the city painted the murky sky. The line of the
river scintillated with rising and falling stars. The tall
buildings stabbed the blackness, fingers of fire. Here,
midway to the clouds, was another world, a world of
luxury, of brilliant toilettes, of light laughter, the popping
of corks, the joy of living, with everywhere the vague
perfume and flavour of femininity.
The young man from the country touched his cousin's
arm suddenly.
"Tell me," he enquired, "who is the man at a table by
himself? The waiters speak to him as though he were
a little god. Is he a millionaire, or a judge, or what?"
The New Yorker turned his head. For the first time
his own face showed some signs of interest. His voice
dropped a little. He himself was impressed.
"You're in luck, Alfred," he declared. "That's the
most interesting man in New York--one of the most interesting
in the world. That's Sanford Quest."
"Who's he?"
"You haven't heard of Sanford Quest?"
"Never in my life."
The young man whose privilege it was to have been
born and lived all his days in New York, drank half a
glassful of wine and leaned back in his chair. Words, for
a few moments, were an impossibility.
"Sanford Quest," he pronounced at last, "is the great-*
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*est master in criminology the world has ever known. He
is a magician, a scientist, the Pierpont Morgan of his profession."
"Say, do you mean that he is a detective?"
The New Yorker steadied himself with an effort. Such
ignorance was hard to realise--harder still to deal with.
"Yes," he said simply, "you could call him that--just
in the same way you could call Napoleon a soldier
or Lincoln a statesman. He is a detective, if you like to
call him that, the master detective of the world. He has a
great house in one of the backwater squares of New York,
for his office. He has wireless telegraphy, private chemists,
a little troop of spies, private telegraph and cable,
and agents in every city of the world. If he moves
against any gang, they break up. No one can really understand
him. Sometimes he seems to be on the side of
the law, sometimes on the side of the criminal. He takes
just what cases he pleases, and a million dollars wouldn't
tempt him to touch one he doesn't care about. Watch
him go out. They say that you can almost tell the lives
of the people he passes, from the way they look at him.
There isn't a crook here or in the street who doesn't know
that if Sanford Quest chose, his career would be ended."
The country cousin was impressed at last. With staring
eyes and opened mouth, he watched the man who had
been sitting only a few tables away from them push back
the plate on which lay his bill and rise to his feet. One
of the chief maîtres d'hôtel handed him his straw hat and
cane, two waiters stood behind his chair, the manager
hurried forward to see that the way was clear for him.
Yet there was nothing about the appearance of the man
himself which seemed to suggest his demanding any of
these things. He was of little over medium height,
broad-shouldered, but with a body somewhat loosely built.
He wore quiet grey clothes with a black tie, a pearl pin,
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and a neat coloured shirt. His complexion was a little
pale, his features well-defined, his eyes dark and penetrating
but hidden underneath rather bushy eyebrows.
His deportment was quite unassuming, and he left the place
as though entirely ignorant of the impression he created.
The little cluster of chorus girls looked at him almost with
awe. Only one of them ventured to laugh into his face
as though anxious to attract his notice. Another
dropped her veil significantly as he drew near. The millionaire
seemed to become a smaller man as he glanced
over his shoulder. The lady who had been recently divorced
bent over her plate. A group of noisy young
fellows talking together about a Stock Exchange deal,
suddenly ceased their clamour of voices as he passed. A
man sitting alone, with a drawn face, deliberately concealed
himself behind a newspaper, and an aldermanic-looking
gentleman who was entertaining a fluffy-haired
young lady from a well-known typewriting office, looked
for a moment like an errant school-boy. Not one of
these people did Sanford Quest seem to see. He passed
out to the elevator, tipped the man who sycophantly took
him the whole of the way down without a stop, walked
through the crowded hall of the hotel and entered a closed
motor-car without having exchanged greetings with a soul.
Yet there was scarcely a person there who could feel absolutely
sure that he had not been noticed.
* * * * *
Sanford Quest descended, about ten minutes later, before
a large and gloomy-looking house in Georgia Square.
The neighbourhood was, in its way, unique. The roar
and hubbub of the city broke like a restless sea only a
block or so away. On every side, this square of dark,
silent houses seemed to be assailed by the clamour of the
encroaching city. For some reason or other, however, it
remained a little oasis of old-fashioned buildings, resi-*
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*dences, most of them, of a generation passed away. Sanford
Quest entered the house with a latch-key. He
glanced into two of the rooms on the ground-floor, in
which telegraph and telephone operators sat at their instruments.
Then, by means of a small elevator, he ascended
to the top story and, using another key, entered
a large apartment wrapped in gloom until, as he crossed
the threshold, he touched the switches of the electric
lights. One realised then that this was a man of taste.
The furniture and appointments of the room were of dark
oak. The panelled walls were hung with a few choice
engravings. There were books and papers about, a piano
in the corner. A door at the further end led into what
seemed to be a sleeping-apartment. Quest drew up an
easy-chair to the wide-flung window, touching a bell as he
crossed the room. In a few moments the door was opened
and closed noiselessly. A young woman entered with a
little bundle of papers in her hand.
"Anything for me, Laura?" he asked.
"I don't believe you will think so, Mr. Quest," she answered
calmly.
She drew a small table and a reading lamp to his side
and stood quietly waiting. Her eyes followed Quest's
as he glanced through the letters, her expression matched
his. She was tall, dark, good-looking in a massive way,
with a splendid, almost unfeminine strength in her firm,
shapely mouth and brilliant eyes. Her manner was a
little brusque but her voice pleasant. She was one of
those who had learnt the art of silence.
The criminologist glanced through the papers quickly
and sorted them into two little heaps.
"Send these," he directed, "to the police-station.
There is nothing in them which calls for outside intervention.
They are all matters which had better take their
normal course. To the others simply reply that the mat-*
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*ter they refer to does not interest me. No further enquiries?"
"Nothing, Mr. Quest."
She left the room almost noiselessly. Quest took down
a volume from the swinging book-case by his side, and
drew the reading lamp a little closer to his right shoulder.
Before he opened the volume, however, he looked for a
few moments steadfastly out across the sea of roofs, the
network of telephone and telegraph wires, to where the
lights of Broadway seemed to eat their way into the sky.
Around him, the night life of the great city spread itself
out in waves of gilded vice and black and sordid crime.
Its many voices fell upon deaf ears. Until long past midnight,
he sat engrossed in a scientific volume.