His Unknown Wife E-Book

Louis Tracy

• Herausgeber: Louis Tracy
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Louis Tracy (1863 - 1928) was a British journalist, and prolific writer of fiction. He used the pseudonyms Gordon Holmes and Robert Fraser, which were at times shared with M. P. Shiel, a collaborator from the start of the twentieth century. He was born in Liverpool to a well-to-do middle-class family. At first he was educated at home and then at the French Seminary at Douai. Around 1884 he became a reporter for a local paper - 'The Northern Echo' at Darlington, circulating in parts of Durham and North Yorkshire]; later he worked for papers in Cardiff and Allahabad. During 1892-1894 he was closely associated with Arthur Harmsworth, in 'The Sun' and 'The Evening News and Post' (font:Wikipedia)

Leseprobe

His Unknown Wife

Louis Tracy

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER I

SHARP WORK

"Prisoner, attention! His excellency the President has permitted Senor Steinbaum to visit you."

The "prisoner" was lying on his back on a plank bed, with his hands tucked beneath his head to obtain some measure of protection from the roll of rough fiber matting which formed a pillow. He did not pay the slightest heed to the half-caste Spanish jailer's gruff command. But the visitor's name stirred him. He turned his head, apparently to make sure that he was not being deceived, and rose on an elbow.

"Hello, Steinbaum!" he said in English. "What's the swindle? Excuse this terseness, but I have to die in an hour, or even less, if a sunbeam hasn't misled me."

"There's no swindle this time, Mr. Maseden," came the guttural answer. "I'm sorry I cannot help you, but I want you to do a good turn for a lady."

"A lady! What lady?"

"I don't know."

"If you don't know the lady that is a recommendation in itself. At any rate, what sort of good turn can a man condemned to death do for any lady?"

"She wants to marry you."

Then the man who, by his own showing, was rapidly nearing the close of his earthly career, sprang erect and looked so threatening that his visitor shrank back a pace, while the half-caste jailer's right hand clutched the butt of a revolver.

"Whatever else I may have thought you, I never regarded you as a fool, Steinbaum," he said sternly. "Go away, man! Have you no sense of decency? You and that skunk Enrico Suarez, have done your worst against me and succeeded. When I am dead the 'state' will collar my propertyand I am well aware that in this instance the 'state' will be represented by Senor Enrico Suarez and Mr. Fritz Steinbaum. You are about to murder and rob me. Can't you leave me in peace during the last few minutes of my life? Be off, or you may find that in coming here you have acted foolishly for once."

"Ach, was!" sighed Steinbaum, nevertheless retreating another step towards the door and the watchful half-caste, who had been warned to shoot straight and quickly if the prisoner attacked the august person of the portly financier. "I tell you the truth, and you will not listen. It is as I say. A lady, a stranger, arrived in Cartagena last night. She heard of you this morning. She asked: 'Is he married, this American?' They said, 'No.' Then she came to me and begged me to use my influence with the President. She said: 'If this American gentleman is to be shot, I am sorry; but it cannot matter to him if he is married, and it will oblige me very much.' I told her"

The speaker's voice grew husky and he paused to clear his throat. Maseden smiled wanly at the mad absurdity of it, but he was beginning to believe some part of Steinbaum's story.

"And what did you tell her?" he broke in.

"I told her that you were Quixotic in some things, and you might agree."

"But what on earth does the lady gain by it? Suarez and you will take mighty good care she doesn't get away with my ranch and money. Does she want my name?"

"Perhaps."

Maseden took thought a moment.

"It has never been dishonored during my life," he said quietly. "I would need to be assured that it will not be smirched after my death."

Steinbaum was stout. A certain anxiety to succeed in an extraordinary mission, joined to the warm, moist atmosphere of the cell, had induced a copious perspiration.