Stalemate

By Robert Welles Ritchie

"Stalemate" by Robert Welles Ritchie. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Good Press
• Release date: Dec 8, 2020
• ISBN: 4064066423483

Book preview

Robert Welles Ritchie

Stalemate

Published by Good Press, 2022

[e-mail]

EAN 4064066423483

Table of Contents

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

The first in the best series of detective stories we have had in POPULAR in years. The plots center around Raoul Flack, a French criminal who escapes from the lime pits of a tropical hell, flies to America and gathers about him a band of expert lawbreakers to make war on society.

SAPPHIRES are the primordial stones. They hold in their depths the glint of a glacier’s heart, a thousand feet from sunlight; theirs the abysmal blue of that first sea which was before a Fabricator said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. The chill of their birth in the dark laboratories of earth stays with them after they have been fashioned for the eye of woman.

Mrs. Edgerton Miles was a lover of sapphires. They were, in fact, her passion. A cold, aloof woman, who climbed the social ladder with ruthless disregard for fingers stepped on, falterers cast down into the darkness of submerged impossibles, she loved the stone for its matching spirit. The lights in the heart of the sapphire were those in the depths of her eyes—bitter cold, and with a rime of arctic frost. Amid the glitter and gold of the horseshoe at the opera there was no gorgeous, disdainful shadow of frozen color to match that which was clasped about her firm white neck. The incomparable Edgerton Miles sapphire collar was known to have been bought for fifty thousand dollars. Its stones had been gathered by an expert in Antwerp—this one representing the sacrifice of a ruined family to pride; that, once the gift of a prince to a beloved dancer.

Now, these mute relics of tragedy were all gathered together in a glittering wonder, strung on gold mesh and platinum, with diamonds tucked in arabesques of precious metal to act as foils for the more precious blue gems. The whole, put together by a New York jeweler to the élite, represented the sacrifice of an American robber baron upon an altar of chilled affections.

On a day in early November, a week before the opening of the opera season, the Miles electric brougham threaded a way through crowded traffic on Nassau Street, turned into Maiden Lane, and drew up at the curb before a jewel house known to connoisseurs above all the flash and pomp of larger establishments on Fifth Avenue. Mrs. Edgerton Miles stepped out, and into a waiting elevator. A few minutes later, she was slipping her ermine stole from her shoulders in the private office of the head of the firm, and that important gentleman was hovering close, in anticipation of her wishes. Mrs. Miles was a good customer. It was the firm of Sutton & Sutton that had secured and mounted the incomparable sapphire collar.

Mr. Sutton, my husband insists that I bring down the collar to have you examine the settings. The lady spoke tersely, with proper aloofness. Mr. Sutton bowed admiration for Mr. Miles’ wise precaution.

"Of course. I’ll have to have it for ‘Thais,’ next Monday night. You will have it overhauled by that time, I am sure. Mr. Miles will call for it himself. I’d a great deal rather have him bring